Monday, October 1, 2012 - Litany Lane Blog:
Magnanimous, Job 1:6-22 ,Luke 9:46-50, St Theresa of Lisieux, Order of Carmelites
Magnanimous, Job 1:6-22 ,Luke 9:46-50, St Theresa of Lisieux, Order of Carmelites
Good Day Bloggers!
Wishing everyone a Blessed Week!
P.U.S.H. (Pray Until Serenity Happens). It has a remarkable way of producing solace, peace, patience and tranquility and of course resolution...God's always available 24/7.
We are all human. We all experience birth, life and death. We all have
flaws but we also all have the gift knowledge and free will as well,
make the most of it. Life on earth is a stepping to our eternal home in
Heaven. Its your choice whether to rise towards eternal light or lost to
eternal darkness. Material items, though needed for sustenance and
survival on earth are of earthly value only. The only thing that passes
from this earth to Heaven is our Soul, our Spirit...it's God's perpetual
gift to us...Embrace it, treasure it, nurture it, protect it...
"Raise not a hand to another unless it is to offer in peace and goodwill." ~ Zarya Parx 2012
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Today's Word: magnanimous mag·nan·i·mous [mag-nan-uh-muhs]
Origin: 1575–85; < Latin magnanimus great-souled, equivalent to magn ( us ) magn- + anim ( us ) spirit, soul, mind + -us -ous
adjective
1. generous in forgiving an insult or injury; free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness: to be magnanimous toward one's enemies.
2. high-minded; noble: a just and magnanimous ruler.
3. proceeding from or revealing generosity or nobility of mind, character, etc.: a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness.
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Today's Old Testament Reading - Job 1:6-22
6 One day when the sons of God came to attend on Yahweh, among them came the evil one.7 So Yahweh said to the evile one, 'Where have you been?' 'Prowling about on earth,' he answered, 'roaming around there.'
8 So Yahweh asked him, 'Did you pay any attention to my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth: a sound and honest man who fears God and shuns evil.'
9 'Yes,' the evile one said, 'but Job is not God-fearing for nothing, is he?
10 Have you not put a wall round him and his house and all his domain? You have blessed all he undertakes, and his flocks throng the countryside.
11 But stretch out your hand and lay a finger on his possessions: then, I warrant you, he will curse you to your face.'
12 'Very well,' Yahweh said to the evile one, 'all he has is in your power. But keep your hands off his person.' So the evile one left the presence of Yahweh.
13 On the day when Job's sons and daughters were eating and drinking in their eldest brother's house,
14 a messenger came to Job. 'Your oxen', he said, 'were at the plough, with the donkeys grazing at their side,
15 when the Sabaeans swept down on them and carried them off, and put the servants to the sword: I alone have escaped to tell you.'
16 He had not finished speaking when another messenger arrived. 'The fire of God', he said, 'has fallen from heaven and burnt the sheep and shepherds to ashes: I alone have escaped to tell you.'
17 He had not finished speaking when another messenger arrived. 'The Chaldaeans,' he said, 'three bands of them, have raided the camels and made off with them, and put the servants to the sword: I alone have escaped to tell you.'
18 He had not finished speaking when another messenger arrived. 'Your sons and daughters', he said, 'were eating and drinking at their eldest brother's house,
19 when suddenly from the desert a gale sprang up, and it battered all four corners of the house which fell in on the young people. They are dead: I alone have escaped to tell you.'
20 Then Job stood up, tore his robe and shaved his head. Then, falling to the ground, he prostrated himself
21 and said: Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I shall return again. Yahweh gave, Yahweh has taken back. Blessed be the name of Yahweh!
22 In all this misfortune Job committed no sin, and he did not reproach God.
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Today's Gospel Reading - Luke 9:46-50
An argument started between the
disciples about which of them was the greatest. Jesus knew what thoughts
were going through their minds, and he took a little child whom he set
by his side and then he said to them, 'Anyone who welcomes this little
child in my name welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me, welcomes the
one who sent me. The least among you all is the one who is the
greatest.' John spoke up. 'Master,' he said, 'we saw someone driving
out devils in your name, and because he is not with us we tried to stop
him.' But Jesus said to him, 'You must not stop him: anyone who is not
against you is for you.'
Reflection
• The text enlightens us. If previously Luke had presented the convergence of the men around Jesus to recognize him in faith, to attend to listen to him and to be present to his cures, now, a new stage is opened in his public itinerary. The person of Jesus does not monopolize the attention of the crowds any more but he is presented as the one who slowly is being drawn away from his own to go toward the Father. Such an itinerary foresees his journey to Jerusalem. And while he is about to undertake that journey, Jesus reveals to them the destiny that is awaiting him (9, 22). Then he is transfigured before them to indicate the starting point of his “Exodus” toward Jerusalem. But immediately after the light that he experiences in the transfiguration, Jesus once again announces his Passion leaving the disciples uncertain and disturbed. The words of Jesus on the event of his Passion, “The Son of man is going to be delivered into the power of men”, but they did not understand (9, 45) and they were afraid to ask him (9, 45).
• The text enlightens us. If previously Luke had presented the convergence of the men around Jesus to recognize him in faith, to attend to listen to him and to be present to his cures, now, a new stage is opened in his public itinerary. The person of Jesus does not monopolize the attention of the crowds any more but he is presented as the one who slowly is being drawn away from his own to go toward the Father. Such an itinerary foresees his journey to Jerusalem. And while he is about to undertake that journey, Jesus reveals to them the destiny that is awaiting him (9, 22). Then he is transfigured before them to indicate the starting point of his “Exodus” toward Jerusalem. But immediately after the light that he experiences in the transfiguration, Jesus once again announces his Passion leaving the disciples uncertain and disturbed. The words of Jesus on the event of his Passion, “The Son of man is going to be delivered into the power of men”, but they did not understand (9, 45) and they were afraid to ask him (9, 45).
• Jesus takes a child. The enigma of Jesus being delivered broke out a great dispute among the disciples to decide to whom the first place would belong. Without being asked his opinion, Jesus, who being God knew how to read hearts, intervenes with a symbolical gesture. To begin he takes a child and places him at his side. Such a gesture is an indication of election, of privilege that is extended at the moment that one becomes a Christian (10, 21-22). So that this gesture will be understood, not uncertain, Jesus gives a word of explanation: the “greatness” of the child is not stressed but his inclination to “acceptance”. The Lord considers “great” anyone who like a child knows how to accept God and his messengers. Salvation presents two aspects: the election on the part of God which is symbolized by the gesture of Jesus who accepts the child: and the acceptance of the one who has sent him, the Father of Jesus (the Son) and of every man. The child embodies Jesus, and both together in their smallness and suffering, realize God’s presence (Bovon). But the two aspects of salvation are indicative also of faith: in the gift of election the passive element emerges; in service, the active one; two pillars of the Christian existence. To accept God or Christ in faith has the consequence of total acceptance of the little ones on the part of the believer or of the community. “To be great” about which the disciples were discussing is not a reality of something beyond, but it refers to the present moment and is expressed in the ‘diaconia’ of service. Lived love and faith carry out two functions: we are accepted by Christ (takes the child); but also we have the particular gift of receiving him (“anyone who accepts the child, accepts him, the Father”, v. 48). A brief dialogue follows between Jesus and John (vv. 49-50). This last disciple is considered among the intimate ones of Jesus. The exorcist who does not belong to those who are intimate with Jesus is entrusted the same role that is given to the disciples. He is an exorcist who, on the one side is external to the group, but on the other, he is inside the group because he has understood the Christological origin of divine force that guides him (“in your name”). The teaching of Jesus is clear: a Christian group should not place obstacles to the missionary activity of other groups. There are no Christians who are “greater” than others, but one is “great” in being and in becoming Christians. And then missionary activity has to be in the service of God and not to increase one’s own fame or renown. That clause on the power of the name of Jesus is of crucial importance: it is a reference to the liberty of the Holy Spirit, whose presence is certainly within the Church, but it can extend beyond the instituted or official ministries.
Personal questions• You, as a believer, baptized, how do you live success and suffering?
• What type of “greatness” do you live in your service to life, to persons? Are you capable of transforming competition into cooperation?
• What type of “greatness” do you live in your service to life, to persons? Are you capable of transforming competition into cooperation?
Reference: Courtesy of Order of Carmelites, www.ocarm.org.
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Featured Item of the Day from Litany Lane
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Saint of the Day: St. Therese of Lisieux
Feast Day: October 1
Patron Saint: Missionaries; France; Russia; AIDS sufferers; florists and gardeners; loss of parents; tuberculosis; the Russicum.
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| Saint Therese of Lisieux |
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (2 January 1873 – 30 September 1897), or Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin, was a French Carmelite nun. She is also known as "The Little Flower of Jesus".
She felt an early call to religious life, and overcoming various
obstacles, in 1888 at the early age of 15, became a nun and joined two
of her elder sisters in the cloistered Carmelite community of Lisieux, Normandy. After nine years as a Carmelite religious, having fulfilled various offices such as sacristan and assistant to the novice mistress, and having spent the last eighteen months in Carmel in a night of faith, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 24.
The impact of The Story of a Soul, a collection of her
autobiographical manuscripts, printed and distributed a year after her
death to an initially very limited audience, was great, and she rapidly
became one of the most popular saints of the twentieth century. Pope Pius XI made her the "star of his pontificate".
She was beatified in 1923, and canonized in 1925. Thérèse was declared co-patron of the missions with Francis Xavier in 1927, and named co-patron of France with Joan of Arc in 1944. On 19 October 1997 Pope John Paul II declared her the thirty-third Doctor of the Church, the youngest person, and only the third woman, to be so honored. Devotion to Thérèse has developed around the world.
Thérèse lived a hidden life and "wanted to be unknown," yet became
popular after her death through her spiritual autobiography - she also
left letters, poems, religious plays, prayers, and her last
conversations were recorded by her sisters. Paintings and photographs,
mostly the work of her sister Céline, further led to her being
recognised by millions of men and women.
The depth of her spirituality, of which she said, "my way is all confidence and love," has inspired many believers.
In the face of her littleness and nothingness, she trusted in God to be
her sanctity. She wanted to go to heaven by an entirely new little way.
"I wanted to find an elevator that would raise me to Jesus." The
elevator, she wrote, would be the arms of Jesus lifting her in all her
littleness. However, according to Guy Gaucher, one of her biographers
after her death, "Thérèse fell victim to an excess of sentimental
devotion which betrayed her. She was victim also to her language, which
was that of the late nineteenth century and flowed from the religiosity
of her age." Thérèse herself said on her death-bed, "I only love simplicity. I have a
horror of pretence", and she spoke out against some of the lives of
saints written in her day, "We should not say improbable things, or
things we do not know. We must see their real, and not their imagined
lives."
Thérèse is well known throughout the world, with the Basilica of Lisieux being the second largest place of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes.
Life
Family background
Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin was born in rue Saint-Blaise, Alençon, France, 2 January 1873, the daughter of Zélie Guérin, a lacemaker, and Louis Martin, a jeweler and watchmaker. Both her parents were devout Catholics. Louis had tried to become a monk, wanting to enter the Augustinian Monastery of the Great St Bernard, but had been refused because he knew no Latin.
Zélie, possessed of a strong, active temperament, wished to serve the
sick, and had also considered becoming a religious, but the superior of
the sisters of the Hôtel-Dieu, Alençon had discouraged her enquiry outright.
Disappointed, Zélie learned the trade of lacemaking. She excelled in it
and set up her own business on rue Saint-Blaise at age 22.
Zélie Martin, mother of Thérèse. In June 1877 she left for Lourdes hoping to be cured, but the miracle did not happen.
Louis and Zélie met in 1858, and married on July 13, 1858. Both of
great piety they were part of the petit-bourgeoisie, comfortable
Alençon. At first they decided to live as brother and sister in a
perpetual continence, but when a confessor discouraged them in this,
they changed their lifestyle and had 9 children. From 1867 to 1870 they
lost 3 infants and 5-and-a-half-year-old Hélène. All 5 of their
surviving daughters became nuns:
- Marie (22 February 1860, a Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, d. 19 January 1940),
- Pauline (7 September 1861, in religion, Mother Agnes of Jesus in the Lisieux Carmel, d. 28 July 1951),
- Léonie (3 June 1863, in religion Sister Françoise-Thérèse, Visitandine at Caen, d. 16 June 1941),
- Céline (28 April 1869, a Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion, Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face, d. 25 February 1959),
- and finally Thérèse.
Zélie was so successful in manufacturing lace that by 1870 Louis had
sold his watchmaking shop to a nephew and handled the traveling and
bookkeeping end of her lacemaking business.
Birth and survival
Louis Martin, father of Thérèse. " He was a dreamer and brooder, an
idealist and romantic...To his daughters he gave touching and naïve pet
names: Marie was his diamond, Pauline his noble pearl, Céline the bold one..But Thérèse was his petite reine, little queen, to whom all treasures belonged."
Soon after her birth in January 1873, the outlook for the survival of Thérèse Martin was very grim. Enteritis,
which had already claimed the lives of four of her siblings, threatened
Thérèse, and she had to be entrusted to a wet nurse, Rose Taillé, who
had already nursed two of the Martin children. Rose had her own children
and could not live with the Martins, so Thérèse was sent to live with
her in the forests of the Bocage at Semallé. On Holy Thursday April 2,
1874, when she was 15 months old, she returned to Alençon where her
family surrounded her with affection. She was educated in a very
Catholic environment, including Mass attendance at 5:30 AM, the strict
observance of fasts, and prayer to the rhythm of the liturgical year.
The Martins also practiced charity, visiting the sick and elderly and
welcoming the occasional vagabond to their table. Even if she wasn't the
model little girl her sisters later portrayed, Thérèse was very
sensitive to this education. She played at being a nun. One day she went
as far as to wish her mother would die; when scolded, she explained
that she wanted the happiness of Paradise for her dear mother. Described
as generally a happy child,
the mother's humorous letters from this time provide a vivid picture of
the baby Thérèse. In a letter to Pauline when Thérèse was three; " She
is intelligent enough, but not nearly so docile as her sister Céline.
When she says no nothing can make her change, and she can be
terribly obstinate. You could keep her down in the cellar all day
without getting a yes out of her; she would rather sleep there."
Mischievous and impish, she gave joy to her family but she was emotional
too, and often cried: "Céline is playing with the little one with some
bricks... I have to correct poor baby who gets into frightful tantrums
when she can't have her own way. She rolls in the floor in despair
believing all is lost. Sometimes she is so overcome she almost chokes.
She is a very highly-strung child." At 22, Thérèse, then a Carmelite,
admitted: "I was far from being a perfect little girl."
"I hear the baby calling me Mama! as she goes down the stairs. On every step, she calls out Mama!
and if I don't respond every time, she remains there without going
either forward or back." Madame Martin to Pauline, 21 November 1875
On 28 August 1877, Zélie Martin died of breast cancer, aged 45. From
1865 she had complained of breast pain and in December 1876 a doctor
told her of the seriousness of the tumour. Feeling the approach of death
Madame Martin had written to Pauline in spring 1877, "You and Marie
will have no difficulties with her upbringing. Her disposition is so
good. She is a chosen spirit." Thérèse was barely 4 1/2 years old. Her
mother's death dealt her a severe blow and later she would consider that
the first part of her life stopped that day. She wrote: "Every
detail of my mother's illness is still with me, specially her last weeks
on earth." She remembered the bedroom scene where her dying mother
received the last sacraments while Thérèse knelt and her father cried.
She wrote: "When Mummy died, my happy disposition changed. I had been so
lively and open; now I became diffident and oversensitive, crying if
anyone looked at me. I was only happy if no one took notice of me... It
was only in the intimacy of my own family, where everyone was
wonderfully kind, that I could be more myself."
Three months after Zélie died, Louis Martin left Alençon, where he had spent his youth and marriage, and moved to Lisieux in the Calvados Department of Normandy,
where Zélie's pharmacist brother Isidore Guérin lived with his wife and
two daughters. In her last months Zélie had given up the lace business;
after her death, Louis sold it. Louis leased a pretty, spacious country
house, Les Buissonnets, situated in a large garden on the slope of a hill overlooking the town. Looking back, Thérèse would see the move to Les Buissonnets
as the beginning of the "second period of my life, the most painful of
the three: it extends from the age of four-and-a-half to fourteen, the
time when I rediscovered my childhood character, and entered into the
serious side of life." In Lisieux, Pauline took on the role of Thérèse's Mama. She took this role seriously, and Thérèse grew especially close to her, and to Céline, the sister closest to her in youth.
Early years
Thérèse 8, 1881
Thérèse was taught at home until she was eight and a half, and then
entered the school kept by the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of Notre
Dame du Pre in Lisieux. Thérèse, taught well and carefully by Marie and
Pauline, found herself at the top of the class, except for writing and
arithmetic. However, because of her young age and high grades, she was
bullied. The one who bullied her the most was a girl of fourteen who did
poorly at school. Thérèse suffered very much as a result of her
sensitivity, and she cried in silence. Furthermore, the boisterous games
at recreation were not to her taste. She preferred to tell stories or
look after the little ones in the infants class. " The five years I
spent at school were the saddest of my life, and if my dear Céline had
not been with me I could not have stayed there for a single month
without falling ill." '
She now developed a fondness for hiding' Céline informs us 'she did not want to be observed, for she sincerely considered herself inferior.'"
On her free days she became more and more attached to Marie Guérin, the
younger of her two cousins in Lisieux. The two girls would play at
being anchorites, as the great Teresa had once played with her brother.
And every evening she plunged into the family circle. "Fortunately I
could go home every evening and then I cheered up. I used to jump on
Father's knee and tell him what marks I had had, and when he kissed me
all my troubles were forgotten...I needed this sort of encouragement so
much." Yet the tension of the double life and the daily self-conquest
placed a strain on Thérèse. Going to school became more and more
difficult.
Les Buissonnets, The Martin family house in Lisieux to which they
moved in November 1877 following the death of Madame Martin. Thérèse
lived here from November 16, 1877 to April 9, 1888, the day she entered
Carmel.
When she was nine years old, in October 1882, her sister Pauline who had acted as a "second mother"
to her, entered the Carmelite monastery at Lisieux. Thérèse was
devastated. She understood that Pauline was cloistered and that she
would never come back. "I said in the depths of my heart: Pauline is
lost to me!" The shock reawakened in her the trauma caused by her
mother's death. She also wanted to join the Carmelites, but was told she
was too young. Yet Thérèse so impressed Mother Marie Gonzague, prioress
at the time of Pauline's entry to the community that she wrote to
comfort her, calling Thérèse "my future little daughter."
Illness
At this time, Thérèse was often sick; she began to suffer from
nervous tremors. The tremors started one night after her uncle took her
for a walk and began to talk about Zélie. Assuming that she was cold,
the family covered Therese with blankets, but the tremors continued; she
clenched her teeth and could not speak. The family called Dr. Notta,
who could make no diagnosis. In 1882, Dr Gayral diagnosed that Thérèse "reacts to an emotional frustration with a neurotic attack."
An alarmed, but cloistered, Pauline began to write letters to Thérèse
and attempted various strategies to intervene. Eventually Thérèse
recovered after she had turned to gaze at the statue of the Virgin Mary placed in Marie's room, where Thérèse had been moved. She reported on 13 May 1883 that she had seen the Virgin smile at her. She wrote: "Our Blessed Lady has come to me, she has smiled upon me. How happy I am." However, when Thérèse told the Carmelite nuns about this vision at the
request of her eldest sister Marie, she found herself assailed by their
questions and she lost confidence. Self-doubt made her begin to question
what had happened. "I thought I had lied - I was unable to look upon myself without a feeling of profound horror." "For a long time after my cure,I thought that my sickness was deliberate and this was a real martyrdom for my soul." Her concerns over this continued until November 1887.
In October 1886 her oldest sister, Marie, entered the same Carmelite
monastery, adding to Thérèse's grief. The warm atmosphere at Les Buissonnets,
so necessary to her, was disappearing. Now only she and Céline remained
with their father. Her frequent tears made some friends think she had a
weak character and the Guérins indeed shared this opinion.
Thérèse also suffered from scruples, a condition experienced by other saints such as Alphonsus Liguori, also a Doctor of the Church and Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. She wrote: "One
would have to pass through this martyrdom to understand it well, and
for me to express what I experienced for a year and a half would be
impossible."
Complete conversion: Christmas 1886
Christmas Eve 1886 was a turning point in the life of Therese; she
called it her "complete conversion." Years later she stated that on that
night she overcame the pressures she had faced since the death of her
mother and said that "God worked a little miracle to make me grow up in
an instant." "On that blessed night ... Jesus, who saw fit to make
Himself a child out of love for me, saw fit to have me come forth from
the swaddling clothes and imperfections of childhood."
On Christmas Eve 1886, Louis Martin and his daughters, Léonie, Céline
and Thérèse, had attended the midnight mass at the cathedral in Lisieux
- "but there was very little heart left in them. On 1 December Léonie,
covered in eczema and hiding her hair under a short mantilla, had returned to Les Buissonnets after just seven weeks of the Poor Clares regime in Alençon", and her sisters were helping her get over her sense of failure and humiliation. Back at Les Buissonnets
as every year, Thérèse " as was the custom for French children, had
left her shoes on the hearth, empty in anticipation of gifts, not from
Father Christmas but from the Child Jesus, who was imagined to travel
through the air bearing toys and cakes."
While she was going up the stairs she heard her father, "perhaps
exhausted by the hour, or this reminder of the relentless emotional
demands of his weepy youngest daughter", say to Céline, "Well,
fortunately this will be the last year!" Thérèse had begun to cry and
Céline advised her not to go back downstairs immediately. Then,
suddenly, Thérèse pulled herself together and wiped her tears. She ran
down the stairs, knelt by the fireplace and unwrapped her surprises as
jubilantly as ever. In her account, nine years later, of 1895 : "In an
instant Jesus, content with my good will, accomplished the work I had
not been able to do in ten years." After nine sad years she had
"recovered the strength of soul she had lost when her mother died and, she said,
she was to retain it forever." She discovered the joy in
self-forgetfulness and added ; "I felt, in a word, charity enter my
heart, the need to forget myself to make others happy - Since this
blessed night I was not defeated in any battle, but instead I went from
victory to victory and began, so to speak, "to run a giant's course." (Psalms 19:5) "
"Thérèse instantly understood what had happened to her when she won this banal little victory
over her sensitivity, which she had borne for so long... she had been
vouchsafed a freedom which all her efforts had been unable to win. A
long, painful period of growth lasting almost ten years was now over;
...freedom is found in resolutely looking away from oneself.. and the
fact that a person can cast himself away from himself reveals again that
being good, victory is pure grace, a sudden gift..It cannot be coerced, and yet it can be received only by the patiently prepared heart." Biographer Kathryn Harrison : "After all , in the past she had
tried to control herself, had tried with all her being and had failed.
Grace, alchemy, masochism: through whatever lens we view her transport,
Thérèse's night of illumination presented both its power and its danger.
It would guide her steps between the mortal and the divine, between
living and dying, destruction and apotheosis. It would take her exactly
where she intended to go."
The character of the saint and the early forces that shaped her
personality have been the subject of analysis, particularly in recent
years. Apart from the family doctor who observed her in the 19th
century, all other conclusions are inevitably speculative. For instance,
author Ida Friederike Görres whose formal studies had focused on church history and hagiography
wrote a book that performed a psychological analysis of the saint's
character. Some authors suggest that Thérèse had a strongly neurotic
aspect to her personality for most of her life. A recent biographer, Kathryn Harrison,
concluded that, " her temperament was not formed for compromise or
moderation...a life spent not taming but directing her appetite and her
will, a life perhaps shortened by the force of her desire and ambition."
Imitation of Christ, Rome, and entry to Carmel
15th century manuscript of The Imitation of Christ, Royal library, Brussels.
Before she was fourteen, when she started to experience a period of calm, Thérèse started to read The Imitation of Christ. She read the Imitation
intently, as if the author traced each sentence for her: "The Kingdom
of God is within you... Turn thee with thy whole heart unto the Lord;
and forsake this wretched world: and thy soul shall find rest."
She kept the book with her constantly and wrote later that this book
and parts of another book of a very different character, lectures by
Abbé Arminjon on The End of This World, and the Mysteries of the World to Come, nourished her during this critical period. Thereafter she began to read other books, mostly on history and science.
In May 1887, Thérèse approached her 63-year old father Louis, who was
recovering from a small stroke, while he sat in the garden one Sunday
afternoon and told him that she wanted to celebrate the anniversary of
"her conversion" by entering Carmel before Christmas. Louis and Thérèse
both broke down and cried, but Louis got up, gently picked a little
white flower, root intact, and gave it to her, explaining the care with
which God brought it into being and preserved it until that day. Thérèse
later wrote: "while I listened I believed I was hearing my own story."
To Therese, the flower seemed a symbol of herself, "destined to live in
another soil". Thérèse then renewed her attempts to join the Carmel, but
the priest-superior of the monastery would not allow it on account of
her youth.
In November 1887, Louis took Céline and Thérèse on a diocesan pilgrimage to Rome for the priestly jubilee of Pope Leo XIII.
The cost of the trip enforced a strict selection, a quarter of the
pilgrims belonged to the nobility. The birth, in 1871, of the French Third Republic
had marked a decline of the conservative right's power. Forced onto the
defensive, the royalist bourgeoisie perceived a strong Church as an
important means of safeguarding France's integrity and its future. The
rise of a militant nationalist Catholicism, a trend that would, in 1894,
result in the anti-Semitic scapegoating and trumped-up treason
conviction of Alfred Dreyfus was a development that Thérèse did not at
all perceive. Still a sheltered child, Thérèse lived in ignorance of
political events and motivations. She did notice however, the 'social ambition and vanity'. "Céline and I found ourselves mixing with members of the aristocracy; but we were not impressed..the words of the Imitation ,
'do not be solicitous for the shadow of a great name', were not lost on
me, and I realised that real nobility is in the soul, not in a name." The youngest in the pilgrimage, bright and pretty, Thérèse did not go unnoticed. In Bologna a student boldly jostled against her on purpose. Visits followed one after another: Milan, Venice, Loreto; finally the arrival in Rome. On November 20, 1887, during a general audience with Leo XIII, Thérèse, in her turn, approached the Pope, knelt, and asked him to allow her to enter Carmel at 15. The Pope said: "Well, my child, do what the superiors decide.... You will enter if it is God's Will" and he blessed Thérèse. She refused to leave his feet, and the Swiss Guard had to carry her out of the room.
The trip continued: they visited Pompeii, Naples, Assisi; then it was back via Pisa and Genoa. The pilgrimage of nearly a month came at a timely point for her burgeoning personality. She learnt more than in many years of study.
For the first and last time in her life, she left her native Normandy.
Notably she, "who only knew priests in the exercise of their ministry
was in their company, heard their conversations, not always edifying -
and saw their shortcomings for herself." She had understood that she had to pray and give her life for sinners
like Pranzini. But Carmel prayed especially for priests and this had
surprised her since their souls seemed to her to be as pure as crystal. A month spent with many priests taught her that they are weak and feeble men. She wrote later: "I
met many saintly priests that month, but I also found that in spite of
being above angels by their supreme dignity, they were none the less men
and still subject to human weakness. If the holy priests, 'the salt of
the earth', as Jesus calls them in the Gospel, have to be prayed for,
what about the lukewarm? Again, as Jesus says, 'If the salt shall lose
its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?' I understood my vocation in
Italy." For the first time too she had associated with young men.
"In her brotherless existence, masculinity had been represented only by
her father, her Uncle Guérin and various priests. Now she had her first
and only experiences - troublesome and tempting ones. Céline declared at
the beatification proceedings that one of the young men in the
pilgrimage group fell in love with Thérèse ("developed a tender
affection for her"). Thérèse confessed to her sister, " It is high time
for Jesus to remove me from the poisonous breath of the world...I feel
that my heart is easily caught by tenderness, and where others fall, I
would fall too. We are no stronger than the others."
Soon after that, the Bishop of Bayeux authorized the prioress to receive Thérèse, and on 9 April 1888 she became a Carmelite postulant. In 1889, her father suffered a stroke and was taken to a private sanatorium, the Bon Sauveur at Caen,
where he remained for three years before returning to Lisieux in 1892.
He died on 29 July 1894. Upon his death, Céline, who had been caring for
him, entered the same Carmel as her three sisters on 14 September 1894;
their cousin, Marie Guérin, entered on 15 August 1895. Léonie, after
several attempts, became Sister Françoise-Thérèse, a nun in the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary at Caen, where she died in 1941.
The Little Flower in Carmel 1888
The monastery Thérèse entered was not an old-established house with a great tradition. In 1838 two nuns from the Poitiers
Carmel had been sent out to found the house of Lisieux. One of them
Mother Geneviève of St Teresa, was still living when Thérèse
entered...the second wing, containing the cells and sickrooms in which
she was to live and die, had been standing only ten years.. " What she
found was a community of very aged nuns, some odd and cranky, some sick
and troubled, some lukewarm and complacent. Almost all of the sisters
came from the petty bourgeois and artisan class. The Prioress and Novice
Mistress were of old Norman nobility. Probably the Martin sisters alone represented the new class of the rising bourgeoisie." The Hidden Face p.193-195, Ida Gorres
The Carmelite order had been reformed in the sixteenth century by Teresa of Avila,
essentially devoted to personal and collective prayer. The times of
silence and of solitude were many but the foundress had also planned for
time for work and relaxation in common - the austerity of the life
should not hinder sisterly and joyful relations. Founded in 1838, the
Carmel of Lisieux in 1888 had 26 religious, from very different classes
and backgrounds. For the majority of the life of Thérèse, the prioress
would be Mother Marie de Gonzague, born Marie-Adéle-Rosalie Davy de
Virville. When Thérèse entered the convent Mother Marie was 54, a woman
of changeable humour, jealous of her authority, used sometimes in a
capricious manner; this had for effect, a certain laxity in the
observance of established rules. "In the sixties and seventies of the
[nineteenth] century an aristocrat in the flesh counted for far more in a
petty bourgeois convent than we can realize nowadays..the superiors
appointed Marie de Gonzague to the highest offices as soon as her
novitiate was finished...in 1874 began the long series of terms as
Prioress."
Postulant
Thérèse's time as a postulant began with her welcome into the Carmel, Monday 9 April 1888, the Feast of the Annunciation.
She felt peace after she received communion that day and later wrote:
"At last my desires were realized, and I cannot describe the deep sweet
peace which filled my soul. This peace has remained with me during the
eight and a half years of my life here, and has never left me even amid
the greatest trials."[43] From her childhood, Thérèse had dreamed of the desert
to which God would some day lead her. Now she had entered that desert.
Though she was now reunited with Marie and Pauline, from the first day
she began her struggle to win and keep her distance from her sisters.
Right at the start Marie de Gonzague, the prioress, had turned the
postulant Thérèse over to her eldest sister Marie, who was to teach her
to follow the Divine Office. Later she appointed Thérèse assistant to
Pauline in the refectory. And when her cousin Marie Guerin also entered,
she employed the two together in the sacristy. Thérèse adhered strictly
to the rule which forbade all superfluous talk during work. She saw her
sisters together only in the hours of common recreation after meals. At
such times she would sit down beside whomever she happened to be near,
or beside a nun whom she had observed to be downcast, disregarding the
tacit and sometimes expressed sensitivity and even jealousy of her
biological sisters. "We must apologize to the others for our being four under one roof," she was in the habit of remarking. "When
I am dead, you must be very careful not to lead a family life with one
another...I did not come to Carmel to be with my sisters; on the
contrary, I saw clearly that their presence would cost me dear, for I
was determined not to give way to nature."
Though the novice mistress, Sr. Marie of the Angels, (Jeanne de
Charmontel ), found Thérèse slow, the young postulant adapted well to
her new environment. She wrote :"Illusions, the Good Lord gave me the
grace to have none on entering Carmel:I found religious life as I had
figured, no sacrifice astonished me." She sought above all to
conform to the rules and customs of the Carmelites that she learnt each
day with her four religious of the novitiate. (Sr Marie of the Angels,
43, Sister Marie-Philomene, 48, 'very holy, very limited'; Sister Marie
of the Sacred Heart, her oldest sister and godmother; Sister Marthe of
Jesus, 23, an orphan, 'a poor little unintelligent sister' according to
Pauline). Later, when Thérèse had become assistant to the novice
mistress she repeated how important respect for the Rule was: "When any
break the rule, this is not a reason to justify ourselves. Each must act
as if the perfection of the Order depended on her personal conduct."
She also affirmed the essential role of obedience in religious life:
"When you stop watching the infallible compass [of obedience], as
quickly the mind wanders in arid lands where the water of grace is soon
lacking." She chose a spiritual director, a Jesuit, Father Pichon. At
their first meeting, 28 May 1888, she made a general confession going
back over all her past sins. She came away from it profoundly relieved.
The priest who had himself suffered from scruples, understood her and reassured her.
A few months later, he left for Canada, and Thérèse would only be able
to ask his advice by letter and his replies were rare. (On 4 July 1897,
she confided to Pauline, 'Father Pichon treated me too much like a
child; nonetheless he did me a lot of good too by saying that I never
committed a mortal sin.') During her time as postulant Thérèse had to
endure some bullying from other sisters because of her lack of aptitude
for handicrafts and manual work. Sister St Vincent de Paul, the finest
embroideress in the community made her feel awkward and even called her
'the big nanny goat'. Thérèse was in fact the tallest in the family,
1.62 metres {approx. 5'3}- Pauline, the shortest, no more than 1.54m
tall {approx.5'0}. During her last visit to Trouville at the end of June
1887, Thérèse was called, with her long blond hair, 'the tall English
girl.' ) Like all religious she discovered the ups and downs related to
differences in temperament, character, problems of sensitivities or
infirmities. After nine years she wrote plainly : " the lack of
judgment, education, the touchiness of some characters, all these things
do not make life very pleasant. I know very well that these moral
weaknesses are chronic, that there is no hope of cure." But the greatest
suffering came from outside Carmel. On June 23, 1888 Louis Martin
disappeared from his home and was found days later, in the post office
in Le Havre. The incident marked the onset of her father's steep physical and mental decline.
Novice (10 January 1889 - 24 September 1890)
Certain passages from the prophet Isaiah (Chapter53) helped her during her long novitiate..Six weeks before her death she remarked to Pauline : "The words in Isaiah: No
stateliness here, no majesty, no beauty, as we gaze upon him, to win
our hearts. Nay, here is one despised, left out of all human reckoning;
how should we recognize that face? - these words were the basis of my
whole worship of the Holy Face...I too, wanted to be without comeliness
and beauty, unknown to all creatures. (Photograph: fragment of Isaiah found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls)[45]
The end of Thérèse's time as a postulant arrived on the 10 January
1889 with her taking of the habit. From that time she wore the 'rough
homespun and brown scapular, white wimple and veil, leather belt with
rosary, woollen 'stockings', rope sandals. "
Her father's health having temporarily stabilised he was able to
attend, though twelve days after her ceremony a particularly serious
crisis led to his being put in the asylum of the Bon Sauveur in Caen
where he would remain for three years. In this period Thérèse deepened
the sense of her vocation; to lead a hidden life, to pray and offer her
suffering for priests, to forget herself, to increase discreet acts of
charity. She wrote, 'I applied myself especially to practice little
virtues, not having the facility to perform great ones.' "In her letters
from this period of her novitiate, Thérèse returned over and over to
the theme of littleness, referring to herself as a grain of sand, an
image she borrowed from Pauline..'Always littler, lighter, in order to
be lifted more easily by the breeze of love.' The remainder of her life
would be defined by retreat and subtraction." She absorbed the work of John of the Cross, spiritual reading uncommon at the time, especially for such a young nun. "Oh!
what insights I have gained from the works of our holy father, St John
of the Cross! When I was seventeen and eighteen, I had no other
spiritual nourishment.." She felt a kinship with this classic writer of the Carmelite Order (though nothing seems to have drawn her to the writing of Teresa of Avila), - and with enthusiasm she read his works, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, the Way of Purification, the Spiritual Canticle, the Living Flame of Love. Passages from these writings are woven into everything she herself said and wrote. The fear of God, which she found in certain sisters, paralysed her. "My nature is such that fear makes me recoil, with LOVE not only do I go forward, I fly"
With the new name a Carmelite receives when she enters the Order there is always an epithet : Teresa of Jesus, Elizabeth of the Trinity,
Anne of the Angels. The epithet singles out the Mystery which she is
supposed to contemplate with special devotion. "Thérèse's names in
religion - she had two of them - must be taken together to define her
religious significance." The first name was promised to her at nine, by Mother Marie de Gonzague, of the Child Jesus,
and was given to her at her entry into the convent. In itself,
veneration of the childhood of Jesus was a Carmelite heritage of the
seventeenth century - it concentrated upon the staggering humiliation of
divine majesty in assuming the shape of extreme weakness and
helplessness. The French Oratory of Jesus and Pierre de Bérulle renewed
this old devotional practice. Yet when she received the veil, Thérèse
herself asked Mother Marie de Gonzague to confer upon her the second
name; of the Holy Face. During the course of her novitiate,
contemplation of the Holy Face had nourished her inner life. This is an
image representing the disfigured face of Jesus during His Passion. And
she meditated on certain pasages from the prophet Isaiah, (Chapter 53).
Six weeks before her death she remarked to Pauline :"The words in
Isaiah: 'no stateliness here, no majesty, no beauty,..one despised, left
out of all human reckoning; How should we take any account of him, a
man so despised (Is 53:2-3) - these words were the basis of my whole
worship of the Holy Face ..I, too, wanted to be without comeliness and
beauty..unknown to all creatures." [51] On the eve of her profession she wrote to Sister Marie; Tomorrow I shall be the bride of Jesus 'whose face was hidden and whom no man knew' - what a union and what a future!. The meditation also helped her understand the humiliating situation of her father.
Usually the novitiate preceding profession lasted a year. Sister
Thérèse hoped to make her final commitment on or after 11 January 1890 -
but, considered still too young for a final commitment, her profession
was postponed; she would spend eight months longer than the standard
year as an unprofessed novice. As 1889 ended, her old home in the world Les Buissonnets,
was dismantled, the furniture divided among the Guérins and the Carmel.
It was not until September 8, 1890, aged 17 and a half, that she made
her religious profession. The retreat in anticipation of her irrevocable promises was characterized by absolute aridity and on the eve of her profession she gave way to panic. "What she wanted was beyond her. Her vocation was a sham."
Reassured by the novice mistress and mother Marie de Gonzague, the next
day her religious profession went ahead, 'flooded with a river of
peace'. Against her heart she wore her letter of profession written
during her retreat. " May creatures be nothing for me, and may I be
nothing for them, but may You, Jesus, be everything!..let nobody be
occupied with me, let me be looked upon as one to be trampled
underfoot..may Your will be done in me perfectly..Jesus, allow me to
save very many souls; let no soul be lost today; let all the souls in
purgatory be saved.." On September 24, the public ceremony followed -
filled with 'sadness and bitterness'. "Thérèse found herself young
enough, alone enough, to weep over the absence of Bishop Hugonin, Père
Pichon, in Canada; and her own father, still confined in the asylum." [54]
But Mother Marie de Gonzague wrote to the prioress of Tours : "The
angelic child is seventeen and a half, with the sense of a 30 year old,
the religious perfection of an old and accomplished novice, and
possession of herself; she is a perfect nun."
The Discreet life of a Carmelite - (September 1890 - February 1893)
The years which followed were those of a maturation of her vocation.
Thérèse prayed without great sensitive emotions, she multiplied the
small acts of charity and care for others, doing small services, without
making a show of them. She accepted criticism in silence, even unjust
criticisms, and smiled at the sisters who were unpleasant to her. She
prayed always much for priests, and in particular for Father Hyacinthe Loyson, a famous preacher who had been a Sulpician and a Dominican
novice before becoming a Carmelite and provincial of his order, but who
had left the Catholic Church in 1869. Three years later he married a
young widow, a Protestant, with whom he had a son. After major
excommunication had been pronounced against him, he continued to travel
round France giving lectures. While clerical papers called Loyson a renegade monk and Leon Bloy lampooned him, Thérèse prayed for her brother. She offered her last communion, 19 August 1897, for Father Hyacinthe.
The chaplain of the Carmel, Father Youf insisted a lot on the fear of
Hell. The preachers of spiritual retreats at that time did not refrain
from stressing sin, the sufferings of purgatory, and those of hell. This did not help Thérèse who in 1891 experienced, great inner trials of all kinds, even wondering sometimes whether heaven existed. One phrase heard during a sermon made her weep : "No one knows if they are worthy of love or of hate." But the retreat of October 1891 was preached by Father Alexis Prou, a Franciscan from Saint-Nazaire.
" He specialised in large crowds ( he preached in factories) and did
not seem the right person to help Carmelites. Just one of them found
comfort from him : Sister Thèrèse of the Child Jesus..[his] preaching on
abandonment and mercy expanded her heart." This confirmed Thérèse in her own intuitions. She wrote :" My soul was
like a book which the priest read better than I did. He launched me full
sail on the waves of confidence and love which held such an attraction
for me, but upon which I had not dared to venture. He told me that my
faults did not offend God." Her spiritual life drew more and more on the
Gospels that she carried with her at all times. The piety of her time
was fed more on commentaries, but Thérèse had asked Céline to get the
Gospels and the Epistles of St Paul bound into a single small volume which she could carry on her heart. it
is especially the Gospels which sustain me during my hours of
prayer...I am always gaining fresh insights and finding hidden and
mysterious meanings.
More and more Thérèse realised that she felt no attraction to the exalted heights of great souls.
She looked directly for the word of Jesus, which shed light on her
prayers and on her daily life. Thérèse's retreat in October 1892 pointed
out to her a downward path. If asked where she lived, she reflected, must not she be able to answer with Christ : The foxes have their lairs, the birds of heaven their nests, but I have no place to rest my head. (Matthew
8:20). She wrote to Céline, (letter October 19, 1892): "Jesus..raised
us above all the fragile things of this world whose image passes away.
Like Zacchaeus, we climbed a tree to see Jesus...and now..Let us listen
to what he is saying to us : Make haste to descend, I must lodge today
at your house. Well, Jesus tells us to descend?" 'A question here of the
interior,' she qualified in her letter, lest Céline think she meant
renouncing food or shelter. "Thérèse knew her virtues, even her love, to
be flawed: flawed by self, a mirror too clouded to reflect the divine."
She continued to seek to discover the means, 'to more efficiently strip
herself of self..' "No
doubt, [our hearts] are already empty of creatures, but, alas, I feel
mine is not entirely empty of myself, and it is for this reason that
Jesus tells me to descend.."
Election of Mother Agnes
On February 20, 1893 Pauline was elected prioress of Carmel and became Mother Agnes.
Pauline appointed the former prioress novice mistress and made Thérèse
her assistant. The work of guiding the novices would fall primarily to
Thérèse. Over the next few years she revealed a talent for clarifying
doctrine to those who had not received as much education as she. A
kaleidoscope, whose three mirrors transform scraps of coloured paper
into beautiful designs, provided an inspired illustration for the Holy Trinity.
"As long as our actions, even the smallest, do not fall away from the
focus of Divine Love, the Holy Trinity, symbolized by the three mirrors,
allows them to reflect wonderful beauty. Jesus, who regards us through
the little lens, that is to say, through Himself, always sees beauty in
everything we do. But if we left the focus of inexpressible love, what
would He see? Bits of straw..dirty, worthless actions."
"Another cherished image was that of the newly invented elevator, a
vehicle Thérèse used many times over to describe God's grace, a force
that lifts us to heights we can't reach on our own."
Her sister Céline's memoir is filled with numerous examples of the
teacher Thérèse: "Céline: - 'Oh! When I think how much I have to
acquire!' Thérèse: - 'Rather, how much you have to lose! Jesus Himself
will fill your soul with treasures in the same measure that you move
your imperfections out of the way..' And Céline recalled a story Thérèse
told about egotism. 'The 28 month old Thérèse visited Le Mans and was
given a basket filled with candies, at the top of which were two sugar
rings..'Oh! How wonderful! There is a sugar ring for Céline too!' On her
way to the station however the basket overturned, and one of the sugar
rings disappeared. 'Ah, I no longer have any sugar ring for poor
Céline!' Reminding me of the incident she observed; 'See how deeply
rooted in us is this self-love! Why was it Céline's sugar ring, and not
mine, that was lost?'
Martha of Jesus, a novice who spent her childhood in a series of
orphanages and who was described by all as emotionally unbalanced, with a
violent temper, gave witness during the beatification process of the
'unusual dedication and presence of her young teacher. "Thérèse
deliberately 'sought out the company of those nuns whose temperaments
she found hardest to bear.' What merit was there in acting charitably
toward people whom one loved naturally? Thérèse went out of her way to
spend time with, and therefore to love, the people she found repellent.
It was an effective means of achieving interior poverty, a way to remove
a place to rest her head."
In September 1893, Thérèse, having been a professed novice for the
standard three years, asked not to be promoted but to continue a novice
indefinitely. As a novice she would always have to ask permission of the
other, full sisters: she would never be elected to any position of
importance. Remaining closely associated with the other novices, she
could continue to care for her spiritual charges.
The nineteenth century rediscovered Joan of Arc. In 1841 Jules Michelet devoted the major part of the fifth volume of his History of France to a favourable presentation of the epic of the Maid of Orleans and Felix Dupanloup worked relentlessly for the glorification of Joan who on May 8, 1429 had liberated Orléans,
the city of which he became bishop in 1849...Thérèse wrote two plays in
honour of her childhood heroine, the first about Joan's response to the
heavenly voices calling her to battle, the second about her resulting
martyrdom.
The year 1894 brought a national celebration of Joan of Arc. On January 27 Leo XIII authorized the introduction of her cause of beatification, declaring Joan, the shepherdess from Lorraine 'venerable'. Thérèse used Henri Wallon's
history of Joan of Arc - a book her uncle Isidore had given to the
Carmel - to help her write two plays, 'pious recreations', "small
theatrical pieces performed by a few nuns for the rest of the community,
on the occasion of certain feast days." The first of these, The Mission of Joan of Arc was performed at the Carmel on January 21, 1894, and the second Joan of Arc Accomplishes her Mission on January 21, 1895. In the estimation of one of her biographers, Ida Görres, they "are scarcely veiled self-portraits."
On July 29, 1894 Louis Martin died. Sick, he had been cared for by
Céline. Following his death, and supported by Thérèse's letters and the
advice of her other sisters, she entered the Lisieux convent on 14
September 1894. With Mother Agnes' permission, she brought her camera to
Carmel, and developing materials . "The indulgence was not by any means
usual. Also outside of the normal would be the destiny of those
photographs Céline would make in the Carmel, images that would be
scrutinized and reproduced too many times to count. Even when the images
are poorly reproduced, her eyes arrest us .Described as blue, described
as gray, they look darker in photographs..Céline's pictures of her
sister contributed to the extraordinary cult of personality that formed
in the years after Thérèses death."
At the end of December 1894 and perhaps prompted by their fear that
she was dying, her older sisters requested that Thérèse write about her
childhood.
The discovery of the little way
Thérèse entered the Carmel of Lisieux with the determination to
become a saint. But, by the end of 1894, six full calendar years as a
Carmelite made her realize how small and insignificant she was. She saw
the limitations of all her efforts. She remained small and very far off
from the unfailing love that she would wish to practice. She understood
then that it was on this very littleness that she must lean to ask God's
help. Along with her camera, Céline had brought notebooks with her,
passages from the Old Testament, which Thérèse did not have in Carmel.
(The Louvain Bible, the translation authorized for French Catholics, did
not include an Old Testament). In the notebooks Thérèse found a passage
from Proverbs that struck her with particular force. If anyone is a very little one, let him come to me. (Proverbs,9,4) And, from the book of Isaiah (66:12-13), she was profoundly struck by another passage: As a mother caresses her child, so I shall console you, I shall carry you at my breast and I shall swing you on my knees.
She concluded that Jesus would carry her to the summit of sanctity. The
smallness of Thérèse, her limits, became in this way grounds for joy,
more than discouragement. It is only in Manuscript C of her
autobiography that she gave to this discovery the name of little way, petite voie. Echoes of this way however are heard throughout her work.
From February 1895 she would regularly sign her letters by adding very little, toute petite,
in front of her name. According to the writer Ida Gorres, however, this
language should always be measured against the 'unfailing, iron
self-conquest of her whole life.' "We know how intensely her life was
given to the performance of duty, to the pursuit of good works, to the
cultivation of all the virtues...[yet] she rejected all ascetic efforts
which were directed not towards God but toward ones own perfection.
It was on this view then, that she based her extraordinary refusal to
consider her daily faults important.. because of her lack of illusions
in her view of human beings, she assigned to these things, no more
significance than they deserved." " I have long believed that the
Lord is more tender than a mother. I know that a mother is always ready
to forgive trivial, involuntary misbehaviour on the part of her
child..Children are always giving trouble, falling down, getting
themselves dirty, breaking things - but all this does not shake their
parents love for them. "
Offering to merciful love
At the end of the second play that Thérèse had written on Joan of Arc
the costume she wore almost caught fire. The alcohol stoves used to
represent the stake at Rouen set fire to the screen behind which Thérèse
stood. Thérèse did not flinch but the incident marked her. The theme of
fire would assume an increasingly great place in her writings.
On June 9, 1895, during a mass celebrating the feast of the Holy
Trinity, Thérèse had a sudden inspiration that she must offer herself as
a sacrificial victim to merciful love. At this time some nuns offered themselves as a victim to God's justice.
In her cell she drew up an 'Act of Oblation' for herself and for
Céline, and on June 11, the two of them knelt before the miraculous
Virgin and Thérèse read the document she had written and signed. In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask you lord to count my works..
According to biographer Ida Gorres the document echoed the happiness
she had felt when Father Alexis Prou, the Franciscan preacher, had
assured her that her faults did not cause God sorrow. In the Oblation
she wrote : "If through weakness I should chance to fall, may a
glance from Your Eyes straightway cleanse my soul, and consume all my
imperfections-as fire transforms all things into itself."
In August 1895 the four Martin sisters were joined by their cousin,
Marie Guerin, in religion, Sister Marie of the Eucharist. In October
1895 a young seminarian and subdeacon of the White Fathers, Abbé
Bellière, asked the Carmel of Lisieux for a nun who would support - by
prayer and sacrifice - his missionary work, and the souls that were in
the future to be entrusted to him. Mother Agnes designated Thérèse. She never met Father Bellière but ten letters passed between them.
A year later Father Adolphe Roulland (1870–1934) of the Society of Foreign Missions requested the same service of the Lisieux Carmel. Once more Thérèse was assigned the duties of spiritual sister.
"It is quite clear that Thérèse, in spite of all her reverence for the
priestly office, in both cases felt herself to be the teacher and the
giver. It is she who who consoles and warns, encourages and praises,
answers questions, offers corroboration, and instructs the priests in
the meaning of her little way. "
The final years, disease and night of faith
Thérèse's final years were marked by a steady decline that she bore resolutely and without complaint. Tuberculosis
was the key element of Thérèse's final suffering, but she saw that as
part of her spiritual journey. After observing a rigorous Lenten fast in
1896, she went to bed on the eve of Good Friday and felt a joyous
sensation. She wrote: "Oh! how sweet this memory really is!... I had
scarcely laid my head upon the pillow when I felt something like a
bubbling stream mounting to my lips. I didn't know what it was."
St Thérèse working with other Carmelite nuns, from left to right, Sr.
Marie of the Trinity, Sr. Thérèse, Sr. Geneviève (Céline), and Sr.
Martha of Jesus. 1895, sometime before the end of July.
The next morning she found blood on her handkerchief and understood
her fate. Coughing up of blood meant tuberculosis, and tuberculosis
meant death. She wrote:
"I thought immediately of the joyful thing that I had to learn, so I went over to the window. I was able to see that I was not mistaken. Ah! my soul was filled with a great consolation; I was interiorly persuaded that Jesus, on the anniversary of His own death, wanted to have me hear His first call!"
Thérèse corresponded with a Carmelite mission in what was then French Indochina and was invited to join them, but, because of her sickness, could not travel.
As a result of Tuberculosis, Thérèse suffered terribly. When she was
near death “Her physical suffering kept increasing so that even the
doctor himself was driven to exclaim, ‘Ah! If you only knew what this
young nun was suffering!’”
During the last hours of Therese’s life, she said, “‘I would never have
believed it was possible to suffer so much, never, never!”
In July 1897, she made a final move to the monastery infirmary. On
August 19, 1897, Therese received her last communion. She died on 30
September 1897 at the young age of 24. On her death-bed, she is reported
to have said:"I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any
more, because all suffering is sweet to me."
Her last words were, "My God, I love you!" Thérèse was buried on October 4, 1897 in the Carmelite plot in the
municipal cemetery at Lisieux, where Louis and Zelie had been buried. In
March 1923, however, before she was beatified, her body was returned to
the Carmel of Lisieux, where it remains.
Spiritual legacy
At fourteen, Thérèse had understood her vocation to pray for priests,
to be "an apostle to apostles." In September 1890, at her canonical
examination before she professed her religious vows, she was asked why
she had come to Carmel. She answered "I came to save souls, and
especially to pray for priests." Throughout her life she prayed
fervently for priests, and she corresponded with and prayed for a young
priest, Adolphe Roulland, and a young seminarian, Maurice Bellière. She
wrote to her sister "Our mission as Carmelites is to form evangelical
workers who will save thousands of souls whose mothers we shall be."
Thérèse was devoted to Eucharistic meditation and on February 26, 1895 shortly before she died wrote from memory and without a rough draft her poetic masterpiece "To Live by Love"
which had composed during Eucharistic meditation. During her life, the
poem was sent to various religious communities and was included in a
notebook of her poems.
The Child Jesus and the Holy Face
A depiction of the Holy Face of Jesus as Veronica's veil, by Claude Mellan c. 1649. St. Thérèse wore an image of the Holy Face on her heart.
Thérèse entered the Carmelite order on 9 April 1888. On 10 January
1889, after a probationary period somewhat longer than the usual, she
was given the habit and received the name: Thérèse of the Child Jesus.
On 8 September 1890, Thérèse took her vows; the ceremony of taking the veil followed on the 24th, when she added to her name in religion, "of the Holy Face", a title which was to become increasingly important in the development and character of her inner life.
In his "A l'ecole de Therese de Lisieux: maitresse de la vie
spirituelle," Bishop Guy Gaucher emphasizes that Therese saw the
devotions to the Child Jesus and to the Holy Face as so completely
linked that she signed herself "Therese de l'Enfant Jesus de la Sainte
Face"—Therese of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face. In her poem "My Heaven down here",
composed in 1895, Therese expressed the notion that by the divine union
of love, the soul takes on the semblance of Christ. By contemplating
the sufferings associated with the Holy Face of Jesus, she felt she could become closer to Christ.
The devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus was promoted by another Carmelite nun, Sister Marie of St Peter in Tours, France in 1844 and then by Leo Dupont, also known as the Apostle of the Holy Face who formed the "Archconfraternity of the Holy Face" in Tours in 1851. Thérèse, who was a member of this confraternity, was introduced to the Holy Face devotion by her blood sister Pauline, known as Sister Agnes of Jesus.
Her parents, Louis and Zelie Martin, had also prayed at the Oratory of the Holy Face, originally established by Leo Dupont in Tours. Thérèse wrote many prayers to express her devotion to the Holy Face. She wrote the words "Make me resemble you, Jesus!"
on a small card and attached a stamp with an image of the Holy Face.
She pinned the prayer in a small container over her heart. In August
1895, in her "Canticle to the Holy Face," she wrote:
"Jesus, Your ineffable image is the star which guides my steps. Ah, You know, Your sweet Face is for me Heaven on earth. My love discovers the charms of Your Face adorned with tears. I smile through my own tears when I contemplate Your sorrows".
Thérèse emphasised God's mercy in both the birth and the passion narratives in the Gospel. She wrote:
"He sees it disfigured, covered with blood!... unrecognizable!... And yet the divine Child does not tremble; this is what He chooses to show His love."
She also composed the Holy Face prayer for sinners:
"Eternal Father, since Thou hast given me for my inheritance the adorable Face of Thy Divine Son, I offer that face to Thee and I beg Thee, in exchange for this coin of infinite value, to forget the ingratitude of souls dedicated to Thee and to pardon all poor sinners."
Thérèse's devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus was based on painted images of the Veil of Veronica, as promoted by Leon Dupont fifty years earlier. However, over the decades, her poems and prayers helped to spread the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.
The Little Way
Thérèse in July 1896
In her quest for sanctity, she believed that it was not necessary to accomplish heroic acts, or "great deeds", in order to attain holiness and to express her love of God. She wrote,
"Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."
This little way of Therese is the foundation of her spirituality:
Within the Catholic Church Thérèse's way was known for some time as
"the little way of spiritual childhood," but Thérèse actually wrote
"little way" only once,
and she never wrote the phrase "spiritual childhood." It was her sister
Pauline who, after Thérèse's death, adopted the phrase "the little way
of spiritual childhood" to interpret Thérèse's path. Years after Thérèse's death, a Carmelite of Lisieux asked Pauline about
this phrase and Pauline answered spontaneously "But you know well that
Thérèse never used it! It is mine." In May 1897, Thérèse wrote to Father
Adolphe Roulland, "My way is all confidence and love." To Maurice
Bellière she wrote "and I, with my way, will do more than you, so I hope that one day Jesus will make you walk by the same way as me."
"Sometimes, when I read spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires. I close the learned book which is breaking my head and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons; perfection seems simple; I see that it is enough to recognize one's nothingness and to abandon oneself, like a child, into God's arms. Leaving to great souls, to great minds, the beautiful books I cannot understand, I rejoice to be little because 'only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet.' "
Passages like this have left Thérèse open to the charge that her
spirituality is sentimental, immature, and unexamined. Her proponents
counter that she developed an approach to the spiritual life that people
of every background can understand and adopt.
This is evident in her approach to prayer:
"For me, prayer is a movement of the heart; it is a simple glance toward Heaven; it is a cry of gratitude and love in times of trial as well as in times of joy; finally, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus. . . . I have not the courage to look through books for beautiful prayers.... I do like a child who does not know how to read; I say very simply to God what I want to say, and He always understands me."
Autobiography – The Story of a Soul
The crypt of the Basilica of St. Therese in Lisieux
St. Thérèse is known today because of her spiritual memoir, L'histoire d'une âme (The Story of a Soul),
which she wrote upon the orders of two prioresses of her monastery, and
because of the many miracles worked at her intercession. She began to
write "Story of a Soul" in 1895 as a memoir of her childhood, under
instructions from her sister Pauline, known in religion as Mother Agnes
of Jesus. Mother Agnes gave the order after being prompted by their
eldest sister, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart. While Thérèse was on
retreat in September 1896, she wrote a letter to Sister Marie of the
Sacred Heart which also forms part of what was later published as "Story
of a Soul." In June 1897, Mother Agnes became aware of the seriousness
of Thérèse's illness; she immediately asked Mother Marie de Gonzague,
who had succeeded her as prioress, to allow Thérèse to write another
memoir with more details of her religious life. With selections from
Therese's letters and poems and reminiscences of her by the other nuns,
it was published posthumously. It was heavily edited by Pauline (Mother
Agnes), who made more than seven thousand revisions to Therese's
manuscript and presented it as a biography of her sister. (Aside from
considerations of style, Mother Marie de Gonzague had ordered Pauline to
alter the first two sections of the manuscript to make them appear as
if they were addressed to Mother Marie as well). Saint Therese' had written her autobiography under obedience. While
on her deathbed the Saint made many references to the book's future
appeal and benefit to souls.
Since 1973, two centenary editions of Thérèse's original, unedited manuscripts, including The Story of a Soul, her letters, poems, prayers and the plays she wrote for the monastery recreations have been
published in French. ICS Publications has issued a complete critical
edition of her writings: Story of a Soul, Last Conversations, and the two volumes of her letters were translated by John Clarke, O.C.D.; The Poetry of Saint Thérèse by Donald Kinney, O.C.D.; The Prayers of St. Thérèse by Alethea Kane, O.C.D.; and The Religious Plays of St. Therese of Lisieux by David Dwyer and Susan Conroy.
Recognition
Canonization
In 1902, the Polish Carmelite Father Raphael Kalinowski (later Saint Raphael Kalinowski) translated her autobiography The Story of a Soul into Polish.
Her autobiography has inspired many people, including the Italian writer Maria Valtorta.
Pope Pius X signed the decree for the opening of her process of canonization on 10 June 1914. Pope Benedict XV, in order to hasten the process, dispensed with the usual fifty-year delay required between death and beatification. On 14 August 1921, he promulgated the decree on the heroic virtues of Thérèse and gave an address on Thérèse's way of confidence and love, recommending it to the whole Church.
There may, however, have been a political dimension to the speed of
proceedings: partly to act as tonic for a nation exhausted by war, or
even a retort from the Vatican against the dominant secularism and
anti-clericalism of the French government.
According to some biographies of Édith Piaf, in 1922 the singer — at
the time, an unknown seven-year-old girl — was cured from blindness
after pilgrimage to the grave of Thérèse, at the time not yet formally
canonized.
Thérèse was beatified on 29 April 1923 and canonized on 17 May 1925, by Pope Pius XI, only 28 years after her death. Her feast day was added to the Roman Catholic calendar of saints in 1927 for celebration on 3 October. In 1969, 42 years later, Pope Paul VI moved it to 1 October, the day after her dies natalis (birthday to heaven).
Thérèse of Lisieux is the patron saint of aviators, florists,
illness(es) and missions. She is also considered by Catholics to be the
patron saint of Russia, although the Russian Orthodox Church does not
recognize either her canonization or her patronage. In 1927, Pope Pius
XI named Thérèse a patroness of the missions and in 1944 Pope Pius XII
named her co-patroness of France alongside St. Joan of Arc.
By the Apostolic Letter Divini Amoris Scientia (The Science of Divine Love) of 19 October 1997, Pope John Paul II declared her one of the thirty-three Doctors of the Universal Church, one of only three women so named, the others being Teresa of Ávila (Saint Teresa of Jesus) and Catherine of Siena. Thérèse was the only saint to be named a Doctor of the Church during Pope John Paul II's pontificate.
Beatification of St. Therese's Parents
A movement is now underway to canonise her parents, who were declared "Venerable" in 1994 by Pope John Paul II. In 2004, the Archbishop of Milan
accepted the unexpected cure of a child with a lung disorder as
attributable to their intercession. Announced by Cardinal Saraiva
Martins on 12 July 2008, at the ceremonies marking the 150th anniversary
of the marriage of the Venerable Zelie and Louis Martin, their beatification as a couple (the last step before canonization) took place on Mission Sunday, 19 October 2008, at Lisieux. In 2011 the letters of Blessed Zélie and Louis Martin were published in English as A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885.
Some interest has also been shown in promoting for sainthood
Thérèse's sister, Léonie, the only one of the five sisters who did not
become a Carmelite nun. She entered religious life three times before
her fourth and final entrance in 1899 at the Monastery of the Visitation
at Caen. She took the name Sister Françoise-Thérèse and was a fervent
disciple of Thérèse's way. She died in 1941 in Caen, where her tomb in the crypt of the Visitation Monastery can be visited by the public.
Influence
Together with St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thérèse of Lisieux is one of the most popular Catholic saints since apostolic times. As a Doctor of the Church,
she is the subject of much theological comment and study, and, as an
appealing young woman whose message has touched the lives of millions,
she remains the focus of much popular devotion.
Relics of St. Thérèse on a world pilgrimage
For many years Thérèse's relics have toured the world, and thousands
of pilgrims have thronged to pray in their presence. Although Cardinal Basil Hume
had declined to endorse proposals for a tour in 1997, her relics
finally visited England and Wales in late September and early October
2009, including an overnight stop in the Anglican York Minster on her feastday, 1 October. A quarter of a million people venerated them.
On 27 June 2010, the relics of St. Thérèse made their first visit to
South Africa in conjunction with the 2010 World Cup. They remained in
the country until 5 October 2010.
Places named after St. Thérèse
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| Basilica of St. Thérèse, Lisieux France |
The Basilica of St. Thérèse in her home town of Lisieux was
consecrated on 11 July 1954; it has become a centre for pilgrims from
all over the world. It was originally dedicated in 1937 by Cardinal
Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII. The basilica can seat 4,000 people. Built in the 1960s, the bell tower is separated from the main building
and situated on the square. It was never completely finished, the
priority has been given to charity. It contains 51 bells, or 6 to 45 and
fly for carillon (all color). It gives concerts chime twice a day. The
carillon, a great-sounding, is among the most beautiful in Europe. The
bell was donated by Belgium and Holland in the ex-voto to Saint Teresa . The construction was supervised by three architects from father to son, Cordonnier - Louis Marie,
and his son Louis-Stanislas Cordonnier and his grandson Louis
Cordonnier. The Roman-Byzantine style of the basilica was inspired by
the Sacred Heart Basilica, Paris.
The building is in the shape of a Latin cross, with nave, choir and
transept. The cross is surmounted by an imposing dome. The internal
volume is all in one piece, without collateral or ambulatory aisles.
Hence due to the absence of columns, all the faithful who attend mass
have an unobstructed view. Most of the interior of the basilica is
covered with mosaics.
Crypt
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| Interior Basilica of St. Thérèse |
Completed in 1932,
the crypt evokes the secret of the spiritual life of Saint Thérèse. It
is decorated with marble and mosaics representing certain scenes in the
life of St. Thérèse: baptism, first communion, miraculous healing,
commitment to religious life, death.
In the summer of 1944 the townspeople who remained in Lisieux took
refuge in the crypt of the basilica. The Carmelites of Lisieux,
including St. Thérèse's two surviving sisters, lived in the crypt of the
basilica that summer.
On the outside, behind the church there is a Way of the Cross where tombs of the parents of Saint Therese, Blessed Marie-Azélie Martin and Blessed Louis Martin
were located from 1958 through 2008. The causes for their beatification
were introduced in 1957. For the first time in the history of the
Church, the two causes were united into one by Pope Paul VI. They were
declared venerable by Pope John Paul II
in 1994 and were beatified by Cardinal Saraiva Martins, the Pope's
legate, in the Basilica of Saint Thérèse on Mission Sunday, 19 October
2008.
Built in 2000, the chapel of worship is a place for silent prayer. It
can be entered through the Crypt. It was offered by the Irish ex-voto
to Saint Teresa.
Devotees of St. Thérèse
Over the years, a number of prominent people have become devotees of St. Thérèse. These include:
- Albino Luciani – Pope John Paul I
- Henri Bergson – Nobel prize winner
- Padre Pio of Pietrelcina – Italian saint
- Ada Negri – Italian poet
- Giuseppe Moscati – Italian saint
- Maria Valtorta – Catholic mystic
- Paul James Francis Wattson - Founder of the Atonement Friars[citation needed]
- Francis Bourne – British Cardinal
- Thomas Merton – monk and writer
- Dorothy Day – founder of the Catholic Worker movement
- Georges Bernanos – French author
- Jack Kerouac – American author
- Saint Maximilian Kolbe – Polish martyr of Auschwitz
- Jean Vanier – founder of l'Arche
- Édith Piaf - French singer
- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta - Foundress of the Missionaries of Charity
Bibliography
- Thérèse of Lisieux: a biography by Patricia O'Connor, 1984 ISBN 0-87973-607-0
- Thérèse of Lisieux: the way to love by Ann Laforest, 2000 ISBN 1-58051-082-5
- The Story of a Soul by T. N. Taylor, 2006 ISBN 1-4068-0771-0
- Thérèse of Lisieux by Joan Monahan, 2003 ISBN 0-8091-6710-7
- Thérèse of Lisieux: God's gentle warrior by Thomas R. Nevin, 2006 ISBN 0-19-530721-6
- Therese and Lisieux by Pierre Descouvemont, Helmuth Nils Loose, 1996 ISBN 0-8028-3836-7
- St. Thérèse of Lisieux: a transformation in Christ by Thomas Keating, 2001 ISBN 1-930051-20-4
- Thérèse of Lisieux: Through Love and Suffering, by Murchadh O Madagain, 2003 ISBN
- 15 Days of Prayer with Saint Thérèse of Lisieux by Constant Tonnelier, 2011 ISBN 978-1-56548-391-0
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Today Snippet: Order of Carmelites
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| OLMC Brown Scapular |
HISTORY AND ORIGIN
The Order of Carmelites has its
origins on Mount Carmel, in Palestine, where, as we read in the II Book
of Kings, the great prophet Elijah defended the true faith in the God of
Israel, when he won the challenge against the priests of Baal. It was
also on Mount Carmel that the same prophet, praying in solitude, saw the
small cloud which brought life-giving rain after the long drought. From
time immemorial, this mountain has been considered the lush garden of
Palestine and symbol of fertility and beauty. Indeed, "Karmel" means
"garden".
In the XII century (perhaps after the
third crusade, 1189-1191), some penitents-pilgrims who had come from
Europe, came together near the "spring of Elijah", in one of the narrow
valleys of Mount Carmel, to live out their Christianity as hermits after
the example of the prophet Elijah in the very land of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Then and in later times, the Carmelites did not acknowledge
anyone in particular as their founder, but remained faithful followers
of Elijah who was associated with Mount Carmel through biblical events
and through Greek and Latin patristic tradition which saw in the prophet
one of the founders of the monastic life. In the middle of the cells
they built a chapel which they dedicated to Mary, Mother of Jesus, thus
developing a sense of belonging to Our Lady as Mistress of the place and
as Patroness, and they became known by her name as "Brothers of Saint
Mary of Mount Carmel". Thus Carmel is deeply associated with Elijah and
Mary. From Elijah the Carmelites inherited a burning passion for the
living and true God and the desire to make His Word intimately their own
in order to witness to Its presence in the world; with Mary, the most
Pure Mother of God, they are committed to live "in the footsteps of
Jesus Christ" with the same intimate and deep feelings which were
Mary's.
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| St. John of Acre near Mount Carmel |
However, about 1235, the Carmelites
were forced to abandon their place of origin due to the incursions and
persecutions of the Saracens who were reconquering the Holy Land from
the crusaders. Most of them went back to their country of origin in
Europe. Soon they increased and flourished in
the sciences and in holiness. Later some women attached themselves to
the monasteries of the friars and in 1452 became cloistered nuns living
in their own communities.
In the XV-XVI centuries there was some
relaxation of discipline in various communities, a fact greatly opposed
by Priors General such as Blessed John Soreth (+1471), Nicholas Audet
(+1562) and John Baptist Rossi (+1578), and by some reforms (among
others those of Mantua and Monte Oliveti in Italy and of Albi in France)
to put a stop to the spread of the abuses and the mitigations. The most
famous reform is certainly the one started in Spain by St. Teresa of
Jesus for the reform of the nuns and then, helped by St. John of the
Cross and Fr. Girolamo Gracian, for the reform of the friars. The most
relevant aspect of this reform of Teresa is not so much that she opposed
the mitigations introduced in the life of Carmel, but rather her
ability to integrate in her project, vital and ecclesial elements of her
time. In 1592 this reform, called that of the "Discalced Carmelites" or
of the "Teresians", became independent from the Carmelite Order and
grew rapidly in the congregations of Spain and Italy which were then
united in 1875. Thus there are two Orders of Carmelites: "The
Carmelites", also known as of the "Ancient Observance" or "Calced", and
"The Discalced Carmelites" or "Teresians" who consider St. Teresa of
Jesus their reformer and foundress.
In spite of this division, during the following centuries the Carmelite Order continued its spiritual journey. Many illustrious men and women gave new spirit to Carmel with their own spirituality and genius. There was also significant development among the laity with the institution of the Carmelite Third Order and the Confraternities of the Scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel throughout the world. With the Reforms of Touraine in France, and of Monte Santo, Santa Maria della Vita, Piedmont, and Santa Maria della Scala in Italy, in the XVII and XVIII centuries the movement for a stricter observance spread everywhere.
At the dawn of the French Revolution,
the Carmelite Order was established throughout the world with 54
Provinces and 13,000 religious. But as a result of the French Revolution
the Order suffered great losses, such that at the end of the 19th
century it was reduced to 8 Provinces and 727 religious. But it was this
small band of religious who during the 20th century, with determination
and courage, re-established the Order in places where it had been and
also planted the Order on new continents.
Marian Devotion
The Prophet Elijah
Elijah's memory was kept alive especially on Mount Carmel where he
challenged the people to stop hobbling first on one foot and then on
the other but to choose who is God in Israel - Yahweh or Baal.
According to the story, which can be found in the First Book of Kings,
chapter 18, Elijah's sacrifice was consumed by fire from heaven which
proved to the people that Yahweh was the true God.
Elijah made himself available for God's work and was sent into
various situations to proclaim God's word. Elijah undertook a long
journey through the desert where he began to despair. He sat down under
a bush and wished he were dead but God would not allow him to die and
prodded him to continue his journey to Mount Horeb. When he arrived
there, God became present to Elijah. God came not with the signs usual
in the Old Testament of fire, earthquake and mighty wind but in the
sound of a gentle breeze. Elijah was sent back to his people to carry
out God's will.
From Elijah, Carmelites learn to listen for the voice of God in
the unexpected and in silence. We seek to allow the Word of God to
shape our minds and our hearts so that the way we live and the things
we do may be prophetic and therefore faithful to the memory of our
father Elijah.
The Blessed Virgin Mary
The
first hermits on Mount Carmel built a church in the middle of their
cells. This was the centre of their lives where they converged each day
to celebrate Mass together. This little church they named in honour of
Our Lady. By this fact the first group of Carmelites took her as their
patroness, promising her their faithful service and expecting her
protection and favour. They were proud to bear the title of "Brothers
of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel" and they defended this
title with vigour when their right to it was challenged.
Mary consented to God's will when she was asked to be the mother
of the Saviour. She pondered on the events of her life and was able to
see in them the hand of God at work. Mary did not become proud about
her unique vocation but instead praised God for looking on her
lowliness and doing great things in her. She was with Jesus at the
beginning of his public ministry when, at the marriage feast at Cana,
she made known to him the simple need, "They have no wine". She was with
him as he died and there she became the mother of all believers. At
the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles we find Mary gathered in the
upper room praying with the other disciples waiting for the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit. For us Carmelites, Mary is a constant presence in
our lives, guiding us and protecting us as we seek to follow Christ.
The brown scapular has for many centuries summed up the Carmelite's relationship with Our Lady. The scapular is a piece of cloth based on the traditional Carmelite friar's garb. Wearing the scapular is a sign of consecration to Mary, the Mother of God, and is a symbol showing that the person is putting on the virtues of Mary and is being protected by her. Mary symbolises for the Carmelite everything that we hope for - to enter into an intimate relationship with Christ, being totally open to God's will and having our lives transformed by the Word of God. Carmelites have always thought of Mary as the Patroness of the Order, its Mother and Splendour. We seek to live in spiritual intimacy with her so that we can learn from her how to live as God's children.
Divine Intervention
Elijah and Mary are inspirational figures for all Carmelites. They
play a very important part in the life and spirituality of the Order
which sees itself as belonging to Mary and looks to Elijah as our
spiritual father.
From the time of her clothing in the Carmelite religious habit (1583) until her death (1607) the life of Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi is said to have had a series of raptures and ecstasies.
- First, these raptures sometimes seized upon her whole being with such force as to compel her to rapid motion (e.g. towards some sacred object).
- Secondly, she was frequently able, whilst in ecstasy, to carry on working e.g., embroidery, painting, with perfect composure and efficiency.
- Thirdly, during these raptures Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi gave utterance to maxims of Divine Love, and to counsels of perfection for souls. These were preserved by her companions, who (unknown to her) wrote them down.
Sister Marie of St Peter, a Carmelite nun in Tours France, started the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. She said that in an 1844 vision Jesus told her: "Oh if you only knew what great merit you acquire by saying even once, Admirable is the Name of God, in a spirit of reparation for blasphemy."
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| St Therese of Lisieux |
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| Lúcia Santos (left) with her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, 1917 |
Habit and scapular
The original way of life of the order was changed to conform to that of the mendicant orders on the initiative of St. Simon Stock and at the command of Pope Innocent IV.
Their former habit of a mantle with black and white or brown and white
stripes—the black or brown stripes representing the scorches the mantle
of Elijah received from the fiery chariot as it fell from his
shoulders—was discarded and they wore the same habit as the Dominicans, except that the cloak was white. They also borrowed much from the Dominican and Franciscan constitutions. Their distinctive garment was a scapular
of two strips of dark cloth, worn on the breast and back, and fastened
at the shoulders. Tradition holds that this was given to St. Simon Stock
by the Blessed Virgin Mary, who appeared to him and promised that all who wore it with faith and piety and who died clothed in it would be saved. There arose a sodality
of the scapular, which affiliated a large number of laymen with the
Carmelites. The order made some grandiose claims, however, contesting
the "invention" of the rosary with the Dominicans,
terming themselves the brothers of the Virgin, and asserting, on the
basis of their traditional association with Elijah, that all the
prophets of the Old Testament, as well as the Virgin and the Apostles,
had been Carmelites. A miniature version of the Carmelite scapular is
popular among Roman Catholics and is one of the most popular devotions
in the Church. Wearers usually believe that if they faithfully wear the
Carmelite scapular (also called "the brown scapular" or simply "the
scapular") and die in a state of grace, they will be saved from eternal damnation. Catholics who decide to wear the scapular are usually enrolled by a priest, and some choose to enter the Scapular Confraternity. The Lay Carmelites of the Third Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
wear a scapular which is smaller than the shortened scapular worn by
some Carmelite religious for sleeping, but still larger than the
devotional scapulars.
The Carmelite Order Today
Carmelites, conscious of being part of
the Church and of history, live in a fraternity that is open to God and
to people, able to listen and give an authentic response to the
evangelical life according to their own charism, and they commit
themselves to build the Kingdom of God wherever they are. Indeed they
are committed to evangelisation in houses of prayer, centres for
spiritual exercises, parishes, Marian sanctuaries, schools, religious
associations; and to Justice and Peace wherever human dignity is trodden
underfoot, especially among the poor, the marginalised, the suffering.
Modern history
The French Revolution, the secularization in Germany, and the repercussions on religious orders following the unification of Italy were heavy blows to the Carmelites. By the last decades of the 19th century, there were approximately 200 Carmelite men throughout the world. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, new leadership and less political interference allowed a rebirth of the Order. Existing provinces began re-founding provinces that had gone out of existence. The theological preparation of the Carmelites was strengthened, particularly with the foundation of St. Albert's College in Rome.The Discalced Carmelite Order also built the priory of Elijah (1911) at the site of Elijah's epic contest with the prophets of Ba'al (1 Kings 18:20-40). The monastery is situated about 25 kilometers south of Haifa on the eastern side of the Carmel, and stands on the foundations of a series of earlier monasteries. The site is held sacred by Christians, Jews and Muslims; the name of the area, is el-Muhraqa, an Arabic construction meaning "place of burning", and is a direct reference to the biblical account.
There are several Carmelite figures who have received significant attention in the 20th century, including Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, one of only three female Doctors of the Church, so named because of her famous teaching on the "way of confidence and love" set forth in her best-selling memoir, "Story of a Soul"; Titus Brandsma, a Dutch scholar and writer who was killed in Dachau Concentration Camp because of his stance against Nazism; and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (née Edith Stein), a Jewish convert to Catholicism who was also imprisoned and died at Auschwitz. Saint Raphael Kalinowski (1835–1907) was the first friar to be sainted in the Order since co-founder Saint John of the Cross. The writings and teachings of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, a Carmelite friar of the 17th century, continue as a spiritual classic under the title The Practice of the Presence of God. Other non-religious (i.e., non-vowed monastic) great figures include Saint George Preca, a Maltese priest and Carmelite Tertiary.
To this vast and varied challenge of the Carmelite friars, one will find in close collaboration: communities of cloistered nuns, Congregations of sisters, Consecrated Lay people, numerous groups of Third Order Lay members and Confraternities of the Scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. All these groups, born of the Spirit throughout the centuries, and inspired by the Carmelite Rule are intimately united by the bond of love, of spirituality and of the communion of spiritual goods. They constitute the Carmelite Family in the Church. At present the Carmelite Order (the friars) is formed of Provinces, General Commissariats, General Delegations, Hermetical Communities and an Affiliated Community with a total of about 2,000 religious. They are found in all the continents.
By 2001, the membership had increased to approximately 2,100 men in 25 provinces, 700 enclosed nuns in 70 monasteries, and 13 affiliated Congregations and Institutes. In addition, the Third Order of lay Carmelites count 25,000-30,000 members throughout the world. Provinces exist in Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Hungary, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Portugal and the United States. Delegations directly under the Prior General exist in Argentina, France, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, the Lebanon, the Philippines and Portugal.
Carmelite Missions exist in Bolivia, Burkino Faso, Cameroon, Colombia, India, Kenya, Lithuania, Mexico, Mozambique, Peru, Romania, Tanzania, Trinidad, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Monasteries of enclosed Carmelite nuns exist in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. Hermit communities of either men or women exist in Brazil, France, Indonesia, Lebanon, Italy and the United States.
References
- THE ORDER OF CARMELITES - www.ocarm.org
- "The Carmelite Order". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
- "Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
- O’Riordan, Maureen. "Doctor of the Universal Church". Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- O’Riordan, Maureen. "Writings". Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- EWTN History of the Scapular
- Matthew Bunson, 2008, The Catholic Almanac, ISBN 978-1-59276-441-9 page 155
- Gerald M. Costello, 2001, Treasury of Catholic Stories, OSV Press, ISBN 978-0-87973-979-9, page 128
- O’Riordan, Maureen. "Therese and the Holy Face of Jesus". Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- Haffert, James Mathias; Mary in Her Scapular Promise. AMI Press, 1954.
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