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Therese of Lisieux: Spiritual guide

Spiritual Life, Spring 1999 by Culligan, Kevin

I OR THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS, Therese Martin has been a spiritual guide for millions of people.1 She has fulfilled her desire "to spend my heaven in doing good on earth" by guiding Christians throughout the entire world to a deeper and more satisfying relationship with God through her "little way" of confidence and love.2

She has guided popes and housewives, clergy and laity, young and old, scholars and the unlettered, rich and poor, "people of every race, language, and way of life."s She has challenged us to believe that holiness is for everyone, not just a chosen few. She has taught us that this holiness does not consist in extraordinary religious experiences but in fidelity to God's will in the ordinary happenings of everyday life. She has gently turned us away from an unhealthy obsession with satisfying God's demanding justice by inviting us to surrender our lives to God's merciful love for us. She has shown us how to live as children of God.

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Therese's Formation as a Spiritual Guide

For a guide with such universal influence, Therese had surprisingly little formal preparation for her special ministry. Even her own experience of receiving spiritual direction was irregular. She had no one human guide to companion her throughout life on her spiritual journey or to serve as a role model for her guidance of others. Fr. Pichon, her official director, understood her and led her wisely, but he moved to Canada. Fr. Alexis Prou, the Franciscan retreat master, with whom Therese felt herself "understood in a marvelous way," reassured her that her "little way"'was pleasing to God: "He launched me full sail upon the waves of confidence and love which so strongly attracted me, but upon which I dared not advance."4 Fr. Alexis, however, was a popular and traveled preacher who was not available for regular consultation. Nobody was the father of her soul the way John of the Cross was for Teresa of Avila.5 Unlike Jane Frances de Chantal, Th6r6se had no Francis de Sales to visit her, write her letters, and support her.

Yet, she was not without spiritual help. Therese had her family. Her oldest sister Marie was the "indispensable adviser" who guided her through "the terrible sickness of scruples" in early adolescence more skillfully than did Abbe Domin, the chaplain at the Benedictine school.6 Therese told Marie later that she was "the angel who led me and guided me on the road of exile right up to my entrance into Carmel."7 Her next oldest sister, Pauline (Sr. Agnes of Jesus), who would eventually become her prioress in Carmel, was the one who "formed my heart."8 She was an angel of God for Therese, who was "charged with leading me and announcing to me the mercies of the Lord."9

Once in the Lisieux Carmel, Therese's religious community took up her spiritual guidance. The prioress, Mother Marie de Gonzague, and novice mistress, Marie of the Angels, eased her through an attack of doubt the night before her final profession of vows. In the example of the elderly Sr. Genevieve, Therese saw the holiness she desired for herself. She describes "her good fortune" in knowing this holy woman:

God, who had given me so many graces, willed that I should live with a saint. Not one that was inimitable, but one who was made holy by the practice of the hidden virtues, the ordinary virtues. A saw the degree to which Jesus was living within her and making her act and speak. AM that type of sanctity seems the truest and the most holy to me, and it is the type that I desire because in it one meets with no deceptions.10

Therese also had the Bible. The Prophet Isaiah's account of the suffering servant in the Old Testament strengthened her to accept her father's institutionalization in a mental hospital at Caen. Other passages from Isaiah provided the insight that led to her discovery of her way of confidence. The New Testament always gave her reliable spiritual guidance, especially when other spiritual books proved useless. St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians helped her discover her vocation to be love "in the heart of the Church, my Mother."11 Above all, the Gospels strengthened her. "It is especially the Gospels," writes Therese, "which sustain me during my hours of prayer, for in them I find what is necessary for my poor little soul. I am constantly discovering in them new lights, hidden and mysterious meanings."12

There were also other books. The Imitation of Christ, which she began reading before entering Carmel, convinced her that "love can do all things."13 The writings of St. John of the Cross, which she took up at seventeen as a Carmelite novice, confirmed her own consuming desire for holiness. Describing the impact of Carmel's Mystical Doctor upon her, Therese wrote, "I begged God to work out in me what he wrote."14

Gradually, Therese recognized that her real guide was Jesus. "Never have I heard Him speak," she declared, "but I feel that He is within me at each moment; He is guiding and inspiring me with what I must say and do."15 Jesus was firmly directing Therese through the help she received in her family, in the community life of Carmel, in a retreat master's encouragement, in the occasional letter from Fr. Pichon, in the books she read and, most of all, through Sacred Scripture. In a letter to her sister Celine, Therese describes what it is like to be guided by Jesus:

Therese of Lisieux: Spiritual guide

Spiritual Life, Spring 1999 by Culligan, Kevin

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