#Therese of Lisieux

[austerity-audacity-asceticism]

The atomic habits of St. Therese of Lisieux

I used to be one of those people that were like “oh I love St. Joan of Arc, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Paul, St. Teresa of Avila” because I thought they were Cool and Heroic and they did Big Things

And whenever someone would talk about “The Little Flower of Lisieux” I was like “mehhhhh… okay”

Not in a way that was totally disrespectful, but not totally aware of the enormity of her interior life

Because guys

Wow

You’d have to read The Story of the Soul to really appreciate just WHY she is a doctor of the Church

(She’s the Doctor of Divine Love, btw)

Because St. Therese? She was in the details

They like to say the devil is in the details, but let’s face it— God is in the details, and in his mercy and wisdom, he placed St. Therese there for us to learn from and imitate in our own ways

She had to reconcile her great desire to be a saint with the enormous legacies of the saints that came before her, especially Joan of Arc and St. Teresa of Avila

(She, along with St. Joan, are the patron saints of France. I’m sure that’s something St. Therese never dreamed of)

And she had the realization that God would not have given her a desire that she was incapable of, and that there must be a way for someone “as small as her” to become a great saint

Which lead her to meditate on Mathew 18:4 (Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven)

And she was like “oh, okay. This desire planted into my heart is an invitation to become a little child, because the Lord wants to be the one to carry me to Heaven” 

(I am heavily paraphrasing so that you guys won’t be spoiled for Story of a Soul. Go read it!!!)

All of this is to say that her writings and her life reflect a simple but profound theology 

The Little Way is one of total dependence on the providence of God, of total surrender and self-mortification— the emptying of the cup of one’s self little by little, so that the Lord can fill it with his graces and abundance, and ultimately, with His own divine self 

The Little Way is one of the smallest acts of radical love, because the only person who needs to see it is God 

The Little Way is St. Therese going out of her way to nurse the nuns that she didn’t get along well with 

The Little Way is St. Therese is doing her best to hold cheerful conversations with a particularly surly nun 

The Little Way is St. Therese relishing being splashed with dirty laundry water as a sign of the smallest of suffering that only God would see

I called this particular post her “atomic habits,” because she believed that small acts can lead to holiness when done with great love for our Lord 

Small acts of love and self mortification were the things that she sought for while in the Carmel 

St. Therese elucidated in her signature sincere and effervescent style the enduring idea that there is no suffering too small, no act of love too small, to offer the Lord— because what he wants is souls, what he wants is us

That’s not to say that her interior life was always rich 

She suffered so much from months of aridity that she grew an affection for atheists, even going so far to say, and I quote:

[God] allowed my soul to be overwhelmed with darkness, and the thought of Heaven, which had consoled me from my earliest childhood, now became a subject of conflict and torture. This trial did not last merely for days or weeks; I have been suffering for months, and I still await deliverance. I wish I could express what I feel, but it is beyond me. One must have passed through this dark tunnel to understand its blackness ... When I sing of the happiness of Heaven and the eternal possession of God, I do not feel any joy therein, for I sing only of what I wish to believe. Sometimes, I confess, a little ray of sunshine illumines my dark night, and I enjoy peace for an instant, but later, the remembrance of this ray of light, instead of consoling me, makes the blackness thicker still.

It’s thought that St. Therese experienced this interior anguish up until the end of her battle with tuberculosis, with her final words being: “My God, I love you!” 

To summarize everything, reading St. Therese is a study not only of radical love, but also radical humility 

From a spoiled child to a martyr of the Carmel, St. Therese lived an inner life that very few of her own sisters in the convent were aware of 

Her life is also a testimony to God's perfect timing; St. Therese wanted to be a missionary in Hanoi, but was prevented from doing so when she contracted tuberculosis. She was later named a patron saint to missionaries.

St. Therese's Little Way informed the spirituality of many of the saints and intellectuals that came after her: St. Josemaria, St. John Paul II, Mother Teresa, St. Teresa of the Andes, Blessed Cecilia Eusepi, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Dorothy Day

On her feast day, let’s take the time to reflect on what small things we can do today for the Lord; what small sufferings we can offer him with great love and humility 

God would never inspire me with desires which cannot be realized; so in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a saint. — St. Thérèse of Lisieux

St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.

[aodesconcertodomundo]

"I learned from experience that joy does not reside in the things about us, but in the very depths of the soul, that one can have it in the gloom of a dungeon as well as in the palace of a king." - St Therese of Lisieux. 🩷

[victusinveritas]

Saint Therese of Lisieux dressed as Saint Joan of Arc for a play, "The mission of Joan of Arc, or The Shepherdess of Domremy listening to her voices."

[apenitentialprayer]

Caryll Houselander, on Thérèse of Lisieux

[T]he "Little Flower of Jesus" and her shower of roses [...] grow out of the dark and bitter wood of the Cross. Saint Thérèse expressed herself in a way that belittled her own greatness. Her constant reiteration of the word "little," her indiscriminate scattering of sugary adjectives all over her autobiography, hide the bones of suffering that she is really speaking about, like a pretty printed cloth thrown over a skeleton. Consequently, many think that her "little way" means her "easy way," and so miss the whole point of her message. She did not teach the way of Spiritual Childishness, but of Spiritual Childhood. She did not simply become a child, but a Christ-child, the child of God, whose suffering is the suffering of the Cross, whose love is the love of the Cross. Her own life was neither easy nor ordinary; it had the quality of iron. She suffered to the limit of mind and body and spirit. She suffered beyond the pitch of human endurance from the exploitation of her unselfishness; she knew as much as that other Carmelite, St. John of the Cross, of the dark night of the soul, and far less of sweetness than he. She knew the desolation of Christ's cry on the Cross: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matt 27:46). She did not value her extraordinary sufferings more than her ordinary ones; she estimated the minute irritating things of every day as being of equal value to the tragic things in her life. She knew that the nervous irritability of an exhausted body, tortured by the rattling of a rosary in the silence, had the same kind of power to redeem as the pains of her death. No one has ever realized the value of little things as she did; for no one has ever realized more that the Christ-Child suffered in her, and that the Christ-Child can suffer nothing that is not in the redeeming Passion of Infinite Love. It is this sentimental, passionate little nun, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who, in her own life, has defined the sanctity of today, the answer to the Herods of today; it is the sanctity of Spiritual Childhood. To overcome the world we must become children. To become children we must fold our consciousness upon the Divine Infant who is the center of our being; who is our being itself; and all that we are must be absorbed in Him; whatever remains of self must be the cradle in which He lies. This is the answer to Herod in all times, the answer of St. Thérèse of Lisieux in our time: "the little way of Spiritual Childhood," which is the one-ing of the soul with God, in the passion of the Infant Christ.

- Caryll Houselander (The Passion of the Infant Christ, pages 66-67)

Cross and Roses, by Shania Brown

[thegirlintheblackdress]

Dear sister in Heaven ❤️🌹

[guineverescastle]

Princesses of Heaven by Fabiola Garza

[cmonbartender]

Banner of Thérèse of Lisieux in Église Notre-Dame-de-Confort de Meilars

[spiritualdirections]

In today's Gospel, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like children. He doesn't mean that it belongs to the childish, or to those who have to be told not to put dirt up their noses, or to those who lack potty training. What he does mean is to be humble, as Fr. Hanson argues:

St Therese reintroduced modern people to what it means to be a child of God more than in name only. Her teaching may not come across in the sweeping, apocalyptic tenor of a prophet, nor with the urgency of a private revelation. Yet for those with ears to hear, the muted tones of her “little way” of spiritual childhood resonate with the equally subdued character of daily life. Woven of aspirations, trials, successes and setbacks, our daily experiences spontaneously converge in a cry for God’s help. How often do we find ourselves needing and asking for strength—even courage—to make it through the ordinary duties and pressures of life? St Therese’s little way defuses the distress that our weaknesses might cause by encouraging an open avowal of one’s limitations. She declares: “It is so good to feel that one is weak and little!” This is because Jesus reserves His saving mission for the lost, the sick, and the forsaken. When we recognize our place in one or more of those categories, then we reach the same conclusion as St Paul who not only refused to conceal but preferred to boast of his weaknesses (cf. 2 Cor 11:30; 12:9-10). Therese explains her little way: “It is to recognize our nothingness, to expect everything from God as a little child expects everything from its father … to be disquieted about nothing, and not to be set on gaining our living,” that is, “the eternal life of heaven.” Therefore she resolves: “I never wanted to grow up,” in spirit, so as to avoid taking credit for whatever good she might do. Rather, to remain little means “believing oneself capable of anything,” while never becoming discouraged over failures, “for children fall often, but they are too little to hurt themselves very much.” For those who seek signs and wonders this is not the way. But for all who seek to know “the only true God and Jesus Christ” (cf. Jn 17:3), it is all one needs to know.

[julesofnature]

If all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflowers.

Therese of Lisieux

[synderesis08]

Everything is grace

[roseoflisieux]

Santa Teresinha do Menino Jesus

[ohholydyke]

Ok but like unironically this is so Thérèse of Lisieux coded

Like the concept of being so small that you lack the ability to move and raise yourself up without falling because you lack the ability to balance and regulate yourself on the way, but nevertheless you keep trying, and you keep moving in your own small way, and God loves you nevertheless as he loves and cherishes all creation, and there is always a small way—an elevator, a way to be lifted up to God—a way that does not require you to be bigger or stronger or more righteous bc you don’t need to be. God loves you all the same.

So there are several species of frogs that have evolved to be so small that their vestibular balance system doesn't work well and I'm sorry but it's the funniest thing to watch them try to jump.

[batshebasbride]

Microdosing the Little Way by stacking my messy roommate’s insane amount of unwashed dishes in the sink

[apenitentialprayer]

God, Like a Mother

I assure you that the good Lord much is better than you think. He is satisfied with a look, a sigh of love. . . […] Look at a small child, who has just angered his mother by getting angry or by disobeying her; if he hides in a corner with a sulky air and cries out in fear of being punished, his mother will certainly not forgive him his fault, but if he comes to stretch out his little arms to her, smiling and saying, "Kiss me, I won't do it again." Will his mother be able not to press him to her heart with tenderness and forget his childish tricks? Again, by the heart, he will never be punished.

- Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (Letter 191, To her sister Léonie)

A mother once hid herself in a garden amongst some densely growing shrubs, and her little son went in search of her here and there, crying as he went. Through the whole garden he went, but could not find her. A servant said to him, "Sonny, don't cry! Look at the mangoes on this tree and all the pretty, pretty flowers in the garden. Come, I am going to get some for you." But the child cried out, "No! No! I want my mother. The food she gives me is nicer than all the mangoes, and her love is sweeter far than all these flowers, and indeed you know that all this garden is mine, for all that my mother has is mine. No! I want my mother!" When the mother, hidden in the bushes, heard this, she rushed out and, snatching her child to her breast, smothered him with kisses, and that garden became a paradise to the child. In this way My children cannot find in this great garden of a world, so full of charming and beautiful things, any true joy until they find Me. I am their Emmanuel, who is ever with them, and I make Myself known to them.

- "The Master," from Sadhu Sundar Singh's At The Master's Feet

Jesus Christ therefore, who Himself overcame evil with good, is our true Mother. We received our being from Him and this is where His Maternity starts. […] Our highest Father, God Almighty, who is Being, has always known us and loved us: because of this knowledge, through His marvelous and deep charity and with the unanimous consent of the Blessed Trinity, He wanted the Second Person to become our Mother, our Brother, our Savior. It is thus logical that God, being our Father, be also our Mother. Our Father desires, our Mother operates, and our good Lord the Holy Spirit confirms; we are thus well advised to love our God through whom we have our being, to thank Him reverently and to praise Him for having created us; and to pray fervently to our Mother, so as to obtain mercy and compassion, and to pray to our Lord, the Holy Spirit, to obtain help and grace.

- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

Mother and Child in an Orange Grove, by Virginie Demont-Breton, oil on canvas

[apenitentialprayer]

#HEY THOSE ARE MY GIRLS

st. thérèse of lisieux resting on st. joan of arc (art by me!)

[thegirlintheblackdress]

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, by Edgard Maxence