St. Thérèse
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One
Today is the feast of Therese the Little Flower. Honestly, I have a hard time relating to a flower, but Hans Urs von Balthasar, possibly the greatest theologian in the 20th century wrote a wonderful book on Therese and Elizabeth of the Trinity called Two Sisters in the Spirit. There Von Balthasar says Therese had the heart of a warrior, she was a fighter. Now I can relate to that! In fact, Jesus said that, “The Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by storm.”
This warrior spirit of Therese explains her love for Joan of Arc. She writes, “When I began to learn the history of France, the story of Joan of Arc’s exploits entranced me; I felt in my heart the desire and the courage to imitate her; it seemed to me that the Lord meant me for great things too. I was not mistaken, but, in place of voices from heaven calling me to war, I heard in the depths of my soul a voice sweeter, more powerful still, the voice of Jesus calling me to other conquests more glorious…I realized that my mission was not to get a mortal king crowned but to get the King of heaven loved and to bring the realm of hearts under his sway.”
Now, here is the key that unlocks the power of the spiritual warrior that was Therese. She states, “Jesus does not demand great deeds but only gratitude and self-surrender.”
Two
Being a warrior and surrendering doesn’t seem to fit together in my mind. That’s because we misunderstand what it means to surrender to God.
Surrender to God simply means this: You do what is within your power. Then you let God do what He wants through all the people and events that are beyond your power or your zone of responsibility.
That is what it means to surrender to God.
Three
What most prevents us from becoming saints is our inability to surrender to God.
What often happens is that when we are confronted with painful occurrences, we either rebel, endure them unwillingly, or resign ourselves to them passively. But God invites us to a much more positive and fruitful attitude: that of Therese of Lisieux, who said, “I choose it all!” I choose everything that God wants for me. I won’t content myself with merely enduring, but by a free act of my will I decide to choose what I have not chosen.
Externally it doesn’t change anything about the situation, but it does change me. This consent, inspired by love and trust, makes me free and active and enables God to draw good out of everything that happens to us whether good or bad.
St. Maximilian Kolbe writes, “A cross consists of two pieces of wood, crossed at one point. In everyday life our cross consists in our will crossing the will of God. In order to remove it, it is necessary to conform ourselves to the will of God.”
Four
In all that we cannot control we are invited to surrender to God
Many people however misinterpret surrender to mean giving up and they don’t want to give up. Neither do I. I am a fighter. In surrender, we must make a choice and take action. We could resist and rebel against God, that is what I normally do, or we could make the choice to go with what God is doing. We can accept it (choose it), choose what God has allowed with trust in His Divine Providence. And then cooperate with God by saying “Yes” to His will in four ways:
By doing the duty that now lies before you or the inspirations to follow
By enduring the suffering He allows
By delighting in the pleasures that flow from good
And sometimes we are called not to act, or rather wait patiently and let God act while He takes care of everything
Surrender is not giving up and it is certainly not passive. It is a very active choice to let God do what He wants through people and events out of your control. We must then exert all our effort to cooperate with God, saying yes to His will and doing what follows. This is how we fight.
Five
Still, I usually fight in the wrong way. I fight against God. This is where we struggle. We fight to force our will and we resist the will of God. We often find ourselves fighting God.
This is when we should surrender. To surrender means to stop fighting against God. Surrender to His will through what He commands or permits. Surrender is to say yes to God’s will, choosing to accept His will sp that He can Fight in and through you. This is the most powerful way to fight. Let the All-Powerful God do the fighting for you. This is the secret of the little way of St. Therese.
“I have always wanted to be a saint. Alas! I have always noticed that when I compared myself to the saints, there is between them and me the same difference that exists between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and the obscure grain of sand trampled underfoot by passers-by. Instead of becoming discouraged, I said to myself: God cannot inspire unrealizable desires. I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness. It is impossible for me to grow up, and so I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections. But I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short, and totally new…We are living now in an age of inventions, and we no longer have to take the trouble of climbing stairs, for, in the homes of the rich, an elevator has replaced these very successfully. I wanted to find an elevator which would raise me to Jesus, for I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection. I searched, then, in the Scriptures for some sign of this elevator, the object of my desires, and I read these words coming from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: “Whoever is a LITTLE ONE, let him come to me.” And so I succeeded. I felt I had found what I was looking for. … The elevator which must raise me to heaven is Your arms, O Jesus! And for this I had no need to grow up, but rather I had to remain little and become this more and more.”