October 1, 2007

I’m guessing that most of our readers are aware that today is the feast day of Saint Thérèse. Many of you are familiar with the details of her life as she gives them to us in her Story of a Soul. Some of you may have had a similar experience to my own, of at first brushing her aside as a “girlie saint” and then coming to realize the great strength and clear wisdom of the Gospel in her “little flower-power.” In some ways her personality was what I imagine as typical of a young French woman of her time, very sensitive and emotionally dramatic. Yet the Lord did not destroy or abolish her personality, but fulfilled it on her road to sanctity. That in itself is a good reminder that ultimately the Lord won’t ask us what role or personality we took on in the great drama of earthly life, but how well we did with the role and personality He gave to us.

How do we begin to imitate this humble revolutionary and “Doctor of the Little Way?” Perhaps it is best to focus on what she focused on, namely the Child Jesus and the Holy Face of Jesus, the titles she took in her name. Both reveal the humility of God Incarnate. The Child Jesus sounds lovely and approachable like a rose, while the Holy Face of Christ during His Crucifixion sounds frightening like the thorns on that same rose, like thorns that crowned His Sacred Head. Saint Thérèse kept these images of Christ together in one movement of humble love.

By meditating on the Child Jesus, Thérèse became more like a child herself. This littleness allowed her to pass by the “steep stairs of perfection” and instead to prayerfully write, “It is your arms Jesus which are the elevator to carry me to Heaven.”

By meditating on the Holy Face of Jesus, she became more willing to suffer because of her love. In her own words, “The more thorns there are on this road and the heavier the Cross is, the more consoled shall I be, for I desire to love You with an effective love, with a patient love, with a love which is dead to self and entirely surrendered to You.” Again she writes, “I have no other means of proving my love than to strew flowers, and these flowers will be each word and look, each little daily sacrifice. For Love’s sake I wish to suffer and to rejoice: so shall I strew my flowers… and the longer and sharper the thorns, the sweeter will grow my song.”

Her song and her flowers continue to grow ever more present throughout the world because they are an expression of the most powerful force in the universe, the humble love of God revealed in Our Saviour’s death and resurrection. The Lord gave her the role to be love in the heart of the Church, and she carried out this role exceedingly well. Therefore her “flowers” will endure forever, because His love endures forever.

Fr. Richard Roemer, CFR

Most Blessed Sacrament Friary

Newark, NJ

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