When we moved into our house almost a year ago, we intended to build bookshelves. All our boxes of books went straight into the attic to await their new homes.
They're still there, of course. So if I need a book I have to go up and open boxes and dig and dig and dig, trying to guess which one might be where, until I find it (or give up).
I went up last night to find a book of read-aloud stories, and I never found it, but what I did find was the new-last-Christmas translation of Don Quixote, which I hadn't gotten around to reading yet before we moved, and Story of a Soul, the memoirs and doctrine of St. Therese of Lisieux.
Ste.-Therese had been much on my mind since the homeschooling-co-op potluck, hosted at the lovely home of a couple in our parish. I had walked around and around the first floor of their house, wondering how it is that people who have lovely homes manage to do it (probably has something to do with the fact that their youngest kids are teens now). I particularly admired how they'd managed to display a great deal of devotional art without the slightest hint of kitsch or tackiness --- every item seemed to be in its natural home, from the large twinned portraits of the Sacred Heart of Our Lord and the Immaculate Heart of Mary over the fireplace to the pretty Last Supper in the dining room.
As I was examining some of the lovely things, I noticed a small display of black-and-white photographs in vintage frames on a low table by the piano. Thinking them family pictures, I went over to look more closely. Perhaps some of them were, but among the photos, in a frame like any other, was this:
My heart gave a little leap when I saw this one, as if I'd seen my own great-grandmother's photo and thereby discovered that the hostess was my cousin.
Of course, this is nobody's great grandmother, but everybody's little sister, Therese, at age fifteen, not long before she entered Carmel.
Anyway, I was tickled by the inclusion of Therese without comment in a group of family photos. Few saints can "pull off" that kind of display so naturally! Because she's so approachable, so much a real live modern young lady, and there are so many people who have a real love for her --- not just an abstract "devotion," but a sisterly affection of the heart. I mean, Therese, if you know her, is really part of the family.
So it was with delight that I rediscovered Story of a Soul among my boxes. I immediately took it downstairs and read it again, almost straight through. I don't think it's ever going back in the attic.
It's ever new on each reading, and amazing that it was written by a twenty-two-year-old. So delightful to read her writing about how she can get to heaven only by being "little," since she can never be a great theologian or doctor of the Church --- with the hindsight of knowing that, when the wealth to be mined from her little theology became known, she was named Doctor of the Church (there are thirty-three, and only three are women).
This time through, I was especially struck by the passage on her vocation, LOVE:
To be Thy Spouse, O my Jesus, to be a daughter of Carmel, and by my
union with Thee to be the mother of souls, should not all this
content me? And yet other vocations make themselves felt--I feel
called to the Priesthood and to the Apostolate --I would be a
Martyr, a Doctor of the Church...I opened, one day, the Epistles of St. Paul to
seek relief in my sufferings. ... I read that all
cannot become Apostles, Prophets, and Doctors; that the Church is
composed of different members; that the eye cannot also be the
hand. The answer was clear, but it did not fulfill my desires, or
give to me the peace I sought....
Without being discouraged I read on, and found comfort in this
counsel: "Be zealous for the better gifts. And I show unto you a
yet more excellent way."[14] The Apostle then explains how all
perfect gifts are nothing without Love...
I could not
recognise myself among any of its members as described by St.
Paul, or was it not rather that I wished to recognise myself in
all? Charity provided me with the key to my vocation. I understood
that since the Church is a body composed of different members, the
noblest and most important of all the organs would not be wanting.
I knew that the Church has a heart, that this heart burns with
love, and that it is love alone which gives life to its members. I
knew that if this love were extinguished, the Apostles would no
longer preach the Gospel, and the Martyrs would refuse to shed
their blood. I understood that love embraces all vocations, that
it is all things, and that it reaches out through all the ages,
and to the uttermost limits of the earth, because it is eternal.
Then, beside myself with joy, I cried out: "O Jesus, my Love, at
last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love! Yes, I have
found my place in the bosom of the Church, and this place, O my
God, Thou hast Thyself given to me: in the heart of the Church, my
Mother, I will be LOVE! . . . Thus I shall be all things: thus
will my dream be realised. . . ."
(from the Taylor translation, available online --- but here is a better English translation)
She goes on to write about how it is not the greatness of a work, but the love with which it is done, that sanctifies. Therese writes about how she strove to perform every act with love in her heart for the Sister nearest her. She did this many ways, not the least by "assuming good intentions" in the other Sisters, especially the ones who most troubled her. She reiterates Paul's words that all gifts, all works, are nothing without love.
And if you're incapable of loving these people? I wondered the last time I read her words. What if you can't, simply can't, muster up any love for the person whose fault you're ignoring, whom you're trying to treat with a kindness "because it's what you're supposed to do" even if you can barely stand them? What if the best you can do is fake it, and there isn't any love in your heart for them? None at all?
This time it occurred to me: Well, of course, you can do it for love of Jesus alone. There is that.
So Therese is right.
Another bit that I admired this time through:
Sometime
before this [a great disappointment] took place I had offered myself to the Child Jesus to
be His little plaything. I told Him not to treat me like one of
those precious toys which children only look at and dare not
touch, but to treat me like a little ball of no value, that could
be thrown on the ground, kicked about, pierced, left in a corner,
or pressed to His Heart just as it might please Him. In a word I
wished to amuse the Holy child and to let Him play with me as He
fancied.Here indeed He was answering my prayer. ... Jesus
pierced His little plaything. He wanted to see what was inside
. . . and when satisfied, He let it drop and went to sleep.
Advent and Christmas are fitting times to read the autobiography of the little plaything of the Christ-Child, Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face.
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