By: Sister Laetitia Therese, O.C.D.
“Holiness is a disposition of the heart which makes us humble and small in the arms of God, conscious of our weakness, and confident to the point of audacity in the goodness of our Father.”
~ St. Therese of Lisieux
As we begin the month of October, let us set out confidently with our sister, St. Therese, trusting that we are being held and cared for by our Heavenly Father. St. Therese can sometimes be dismissed as overly sweet and sheltered, but in reality her growth in trust of the Father’s love was life-long and involved a path marked with suffering. She was the youngest of nine children, four of whom preceded her in death in infancy or early childhood. She had to live separately from her family until she was weaned from a wet nurse as her mother was struggling with problems related to her growing breast cancer. Therese’s mother died when she was four years old and her older sister, Pauline, who became a second mother to her, entered the cloistered Carmelite convent when she was still very young, leaving her, again, in a place of emotional abandonment. Therese ended up having an emotional breakdown that manifested itself in physical illness and almost cost her life, but she was saved through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is only a small snapshot of some of the challenges she faced in her life.
St. Therese entered the cloistered Carmel at the quite remarkable age of fifteen and lived a seemingly unextraordinary nine years as a sister before dying of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-four. In fact, when she died the sisters wondered what would be written about her in their internal obituary because there was not much to say. The genius of St. Therese, her understanding of spiritual childhood, was rooted in humility. She understood herself before God. God is Father- great, loving, and merciful and she of herself was nothing. And yet, with God, she had everything because of His goodness. Hence, she could rejoice the more she saw her physical, emotional, and spiritual poverty because she knew that He delights to pour out the treasures of His grace on those willing to receive them. Her daily small, hidden acts of humility and charity were the fuel for the Holy Spirit to transform her in His love.
St. Therese of Lisieux… pray for us!