What Does St. Therese de Lisieux Have to Teach Us?
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Saint Therese wrote a book about her life which was published under the title "Story of A Soul", in which she set down the simple practice of prayer that she followed, along with personal reminiscence about her life and her decision to enter the convent. This mix of her method of prayer with the story of her inner growth gave the book an appeal that quickly spread from the few nuns and seminarians who read it to the wider French public, and the book became the constant companion of many a French soldier in the First World War.
In her the "Story of A Soul", she tells us how she wanted to become a priest and how she spent hours meditating on "everything", and how she became so interested in science that she was tempted to study in that field instead of going on to dedicate herself to Christ. She put the scientific studies aside and turned her attention once more to prayer and meditation. Her health had been fragile all her life, and in her meditative state she had a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus, smiling at her. She was bedridden at the time but she experienced a quick healing at the moment of the vision. Her childhood interest in science gave her sharp observation skills, and she was able to describe her experience very clearly. She was also able to describe her practice of prayer in very simple terms that almost anyone could follow, and this made her a teacher to all who read her book. She referred to her practice as the "Little Way".
Today, she can teach us all to value our simple experience of life and to pray according to our ability, because this was really her message: that we need not compete with those who can argue the Scriptures by chapter and verse and that we are not on trial for our human weakness. Therese's simple book distilled the essence of the deepest teachings into a method and practice for everyone, for to follow her practice of prayer opens the heart, mind and soul to Jesus himself, enabling each of us to gather strength and understanding from the Mass and from all that Jesus taught.
In our times today, we can easily be overwhelmed by the demands placed on us to understand and decide issues of advanced medicine, government policies, business and household health. The more we have learned as a human race to control our own life issues, the more we collapse in the face of our inability to control their consequences. Therese de Lisieux pondered over many of these issues, as she tells us, but when it came time for her to put her pen to paper, she had little to say about them. She did not argue or preach, she did not decide anything, she simply described her quiet walk into the Spiritual world and pointed out the path for any who care to follow.
Credits: The portrait of St. Therese is a digital adaptation by D.S. Matteau of a public-domain photograph, probably taken by her sister, Marie.