The Simple Way of the Little Flower

St. Therese of Lisieux

 I’ve always been  fascinated by St. Therese of Lisieux.  I think the fascination comes from the fact that she did very little and yet ended up being canonized.  When I was a young religious I thought she was a bit too flowery and pious for me but as I age I have become awed by her simplicity and her determination.  She entered religious life at the age of 14 over the protest of everyone and died at the age of 24.  She never founded a religious congregation, never became a great missionary, never did any great work and the only book she had published was her own personal journal which was published after her death with intense editing by her sister as The Story of a Soul. 

Therese lost her mother when she was only 4 years old and her older sister filled in but then entered the Carmelites five years later leaving Therese alone again.  She felt abandoned as many motherless children do.  Therese was, by her own admission and the recollection of everyone else, a spoiled child who was overly sensitive, desperately in need of affection and affirmation of every sort, and unable to contain her emotions.  She never denied these weaknesses but used them as a way to understand herself and the depths God’s love despite these weaknesses.  She had a great affection for St. Mary Magdalene who she perceived as also having difficulty holding and expressing her emotions.  But what she knew was that Jesus loved Mary Magdalene and that Mary was transformed by that love and so she was determined to be equally as transformed by God’s love. 

Therese recognized God’s infinite love and compassion for each of us and identified this as her “simple way” of becoming a saint.  Brother Joseph Schmidt tells us, in his book (2012) Walking the Little Way of Therese of Lisieux:  Discovering the Path of Love, that Therese believed that “mercy and compassion, not perfectionism, was the Gospel call to holiness and that, for her, to love God was to receive God’s love into her heart.”  Despite her self doubts, she knew beyond any question that she was loved by God and knew also that her calling was to love others and help them to recognize the love of God.  In the ordinary everyday tasks and annoyances of life she could remember that love and share it with others.

And so, on this feast day of a young woman who recognized God’s love despite her weaknesses, I choose, with all of you, to live this “simple way” of love and compassion.