I- THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCHOOL OF MARY
II- THERESE CO-PATRONESS OF THE SCHOOL
1- Her Spirit and that of the School are Highly Compatible
A Revelation of God’s Face
Human Weakness an Obstacle or an Opportunity for Holiness?
2- Spiritual Life According to Therese, Her Message for Us
a- Practical Aim
b- Loving Jesus
c- Find Ways to Love Him
III- THERESE AND THE SCHOOL
1- Therese is Patroness of Formation (of Novitiates)
2- Therese: a Common Path which can be Followed by all the Weak too
3- All the Spiritual Journey is Included in Therese’s Doctrine
4- Our Lady and Therese
5- Blessed Marie Eugene OCD and Fr. Louis Guillet OCD
6- Therese is Involved in the School of Mary
CONCLUSION
Our Lady is Patroness of the School of Mary. The School is Hers. St. Therese is Co-Patroness of the School. How come one wonders? Why her? If we deepen our understanding of the School of Mary, its mission, and its characteristics, and if we deepen our understanding of St. Therese’s mission in the Church, we will find that not only do they meet, match and blend, but that Therese has every reason to be behind the School of Mary, encouraging it, promoting it, strengthening it and protecting it.
We will start by quickly offering some of the characteristics of the School and then we will move on to see those of Therese.
Before we start, it is important to underline an important point mentioned in another article (see here): Therese is not just any saint, she is not just any Doctor of the Church. Her holiness and her doctrine are above and beyond other types of holiness and other teachings. If we have an open mind, then, to receiving more and to having new horizons appearing in front of us, then we will be able to enter into the mystery of her person and mission. So let us abandon all preconceived ideas about her and be open to discovering this genius.
We will divide the article into three parts. In the first part we will see the characteristics of the School of Mary. The second part will address Therese as co-patroness of the School. And the final part will cover the relationship between “Therese and the School”, and what it is in Therese that makes her fit in well and be the School’s co-patroness.
Now, let us have a look at the important characteristics of the School of Mary. This will help us later see how and why Therese perfectly blends in with the spirit of the School.
I- The Characteristics of the School of Mary
The School of Mary not only deeply believes that the call for holiness is for all but draws from it all the consequences of it on the pastoral level. In fact, “to place pastoral planning under the heading of holiness is a choice filled with consequences” (John Paul II, Novo Millenio Ineunte, 31) Pope John Paul II, here, invites us to consider the call for holiness, “this elementary truth”, “as the foundation of pastoral planning”.
We can break the call for holiness into two understandable and palatable stages of our spiritual journey here on earth: first, reaching Union with Christ and then aiming for the Fullness of Love which corresponds to Christian death. They are both illustrated in these two statements of St. Paul: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20) and “I am filling up in my flesh that which is lacking of the tribulations of Christ for His body, which is the church” (Col. 1:24) The School of Mary, under Mary’s guidance, honours union with Jesus as a fundamental value of our Baptism and considers the fullness of love an achievable goal for any human being, leading to a real Christian death, out of love.
Secondly, the School of Mary’s mission is to offer the practical means to empower Christians, so that they can respond fruitfully to the Call to Holiness. The School, also, draws from the Living Catholic Tradition and follows through each Stage of Growth in order to encourage ‘Union with Jesus’ and ‘Fullness of Love’. In this sense the School intends to offer formation for all the stages of growth in spiritual life, adapting it to the need at each level.
In addition, at the centre of what the School of Mary offers is Spiritual Formation. Courses, Tuition, Didactic Material (videos, books, articles, advice…).
The School’s methods, therefore, are practical, innovative, and complete. The formation in spiritual life is intended to be translated into daily practice accessible to all. It teaches concretely how to enter into direct contact with God, in order to receive the torrents of grace that He came to give us. It uses the means offered for us in the Scriptures and in the Living Tradition of the Church in order to reach this magnificent goal. Moreover, one of the most important and characteristic ‘innovation’, amongst the many of the School is to offer the individual greater practical clarity, that is, what steps to follow to allow the work of the Holy Spirit to flow. In fact, by knowing with greater precision exactly what God awaits from us, communication with Him is not only more fluid but is regular. In this way the “saltiness” of the high goal offered by God and His means to reach it both stay undiluted. Also, and this is no less important, the goals and means to reach them are thereby easily at the reach of the weakest.
The School focuses on the sacramental workings occurring during the listening process of the Liturgy of the Word and the reception of Holy Communion. The fruits of attending to these are Lectio Divina and Prayer of the Heart. The School also espouses a renewed vision of Our Lady, deeply inspired by the roots of Montfort’s School, which is fundamental in understanding a renewed vision of spiritual life, where the “mediation of Our Lady” is presented in a much more powerful way centred on Christ.
After having explored briefly what the School is and what are its main characteristics, let us turn now toward Therese to see what characterises her. It will then become very clear as to why she is co-patroness of the School and how discreetly but fruitfully she is behind its daily life and work.
II- Therese Co-patroness of the School
What does the patronage or co-patronage of a saint mean? Usually, it means that the cause for which the saint is patron is dear to him or her, and that he intercedes for the persons involved in the cause and offers help. If, for example, we say that St. Luke is the patron of physicians, this means that they can pray to him in their needs, can count on his intercession, draw closer to him and they can take him also as a role model.
The School is a place for spiritual formation. It is neither a new movement in the Church, nor is it a religious Order, but rather it inspires spiritual formation for all the Church. Spiritual Formation is a specific pastoral task or ministry in the Church and is very much present in all orders, congregations, and consecrated life, where it is always offered by the Church. The first and main stage of this is the Noviciate, where the first steps in religious life are taken. The novice receives in fact two types of formation which are complementary: religious formation and spiritual formation.
The School’s mission in the Church, therefore, is to offer essentially spiritual formation to all walks of life, be it lay or consecrated, regardless. It is a very important and crucial task and mission – a sacred mission where the Church transmits to each person the richness of its practical Spiritual Doctrine. This transmission is a delicate process, and it involves three important blended characteristics: science, experience and discernment/transmission.
Now if we say that the main task of the School is Formation, and we say at the same time that not only Our Lady is Patroness, but that St. Therese herself with Our Lady is Patroness of the School, this means that the main contribution of Therese for the School is in helping Spiritual Formation in the School. She does this in many ways: directly in the secret of the heart of each person, either discreetly or overtly through spiritual friendship, like a real sister walking beside each member, but, at the same time, she fulfils her mission as a spiritual formator in the School through her Doctrine. Let us remember that Therese is not just a saint or a great saint, that she does not only intercede from heaven, or even is here walking with us on earth as she promised. Therese is much more than that: she is a Teacher, a Formator, like a Mistress of Novices. In fact, Therese is the Patron of all Noviciates and Novices in the Carmelite Order.
She has been declared “Doctor of the Church” by Pope John Paul II in 1997 (see the link).
Therese has revolutionised spiritual life and spiritual formation. Her mission when she was here on earth was to be Mistress of Novices. Moreover, even if – because of her young age – she wasn’t granted the title of “mistress of novices”, she fulfilled this mission. Everything she learned from God and practised with full dedication and the gift of herself she conveyed to her sisters, novices and also to two priests. This wealth of teaching can be found in her manifold writings: the Autobiographical Manuscripts A, B and C, her Letters (especially to her sister Celine and to the two Priests), her Poems, her Plays, her Prayers, and her last words when she was ill. (All can be found online here.)
Let us remember that Thérèse wanted everybody to know and love God as she did. She wanted to lead us directly to God and in an “easy” way. Her little way is a way to reach God, to reach the fullness of holiness, as she herself describes: I wanted to be a saint, a great saint, and I wanted the full holiness God wanted to give me.
With Therese we have holiness in its entirety and it is on offer to everybody, especially the weakest amongst us.
1- Her Spirit and that of the School are Highly Compatible
St. Therese has been sent to us by God for our modern times, or post-modern times. Her language is certainly characteristic of her milieu in the mid French 19th Century and can be a hindrance for many. But if we can make the effort of going to the core of what she is trying to say, if we cross the hurdle of language and style, each time we will receive strong graces and direction in our daily spiritual life.
A Revelation of God’s Face
She offers a fresh renewed view of spiritual life, or our relationship with God. One has to admit that the more Therese accepted to plumb the depths of spiritual life, accepting God’s purifying work within her, to remove all that is not God from her, the more a new Face of God was revealed to her. Her understanding and perception of who God is, of His goodness, of His unconditional love, make her say: my mission is to “make God loved as I love Him”. In this sentence is fully included the revelation of the true, mind-blowing, Face of God. This is what she wants to transmit to us: it can be understood as the bedrock of all that Therese can give us – the root of everything.
It can be argued, however, that since her parents were holy therefore the image of God she imbibed as a child was influenced by the holiness of her parents. Well, yes and no. More obvious is the fact that she had four sisters, and none of them had this experience of God, of these mind-blowing new intuitions that she reveals about God, about His weakness so to speak, because He is Love. They did not experience this in the slightest despite the fact that they received the same education as her, and also despite two of them becoming her “mother” after the early death of her actual mother. Nobody could have received such genial intuitions about God, especially in her Jansenist milieu where the emphasis was more on God’s justice, sin and reparation.
Another important characteristic shines out in Therese’s Doctrine: she clearly understood, because of the persons she had to help, that her teaching about holiness and how to reach it had to be “for all”, especially the weakest and the most wounded. She keenly checked all that she taught, saying that she did not want to offer to the practice of those who sought God anything which could not fit in with the “common way”. She did not want to offer a new alien way, a new School of spirituality. She wanted what she offered to be valid for all, as a common denominator for everyone in the Church. Paradoxically, she wanted to make the hard journey of holiness easily accessible. She excluded extraordinary phenomena, and extraordinary penances. She tried the latter and concluded that it was not for her, that it was not for the “common way”. Given the times in which Therese lived her thinking was new and revolutionary, and may be true of many today who are not familiar with her thoughts. In her time, many nuns from other monasteries objected to her doctrine or spirituality, finding it unorthodox. Interesting, wouldn’t you agree? I would prefer to be on Therese’s side. Looked at from a practical viewpoint, one can easily sense if a person has met Therese or not – there will be a definite and radical difference in their spirit. Therese does not “climb the arduous ladder of holiness”. She goes in a very different direction and sadly is still not really known even amongst nuns.
For these reasons and the many others we will see below, we consider that Therese’s spirit and doctrine are of the Schoolof Mary. We do not consider that it is possible to seriously commit to a deep and full spiritual life and journey without the Guidance and Formation of Therese herself. It is a challenging statement to say this, we know it, and many will object, but this is an unavoidable truth and fact. Therese sadly is still not understood properly in the Church. In a way she is far back in the ranks of other saints, yet she is well above them, as regards her teachings and her spirit. In a way she is like a stumbling block for holiness.
Her spirit however, – if and when well understood and lived – is fully the spirit of the School of Mary.
Let us now consider her doctrine, the formation she offered and still offers to the Church. We should begin by remembering that she said that after her death, she would spend her time here on earth doing good. How many, though, have witnessed this proximity of Therese? Here in the School, we underline a special aspect of this proximity of Therese. Like a real sister, she walks beside us here on earth. Certainly, she does it discreetly, sometimes too discreetly; sometimes she lifts the veil; but in faith, she is always present. But this being present is perceived by us in the School essentially under one aspect: Spiritual Formation. All the help she provides, either by her intercession, or by using her writings to talk to us, or just discreetly teaching us, showing us, in practical terms how to love Jesus, is a help which has at heart our spiritual growth, i.e. loving Jesus more and more, the divine way, the way she Loved Him.
Now, while considering only a part of the very many aspects of her formation, please remember her desire to be with us, sitting beside us, and wanting to teach us the Secrets of God’s Heart, how to love Him, how to understand Him, how to “capture Him by the heart,” as the literal translation of the French, “prendre Dieu par le Coeur,” puts it. This utterly incredible expression Therese uses, comes from another world. Is God weak? God being Love, amazingly, has his weakness. As Therese declares : He is very weak in Maths. He loses. If we find the way to His heart, we can obtain his Love. If we learn the language of the heart and seduce God, we are able to capture Him and make Him prisoner of our love! These are expressions coming from another world. Shocking even! Is this possible? Is this true? Is this God? The real God, Almighty God? The Creator of Heaven and Earth, the one who gives life and maintains everything alive? Therese says: yes.
She is a genius and really revolutionises spiritual life and formation.
Human Weakness an Obstacle or an Opportunity for Holiness?
At a certain point, Therese talks about saints who are like “mountains whose summit is lost in the heavens” (Ms C 2vss). However, she finds herself rather like “the dark grain of sand trodden under the feet of passers-by”. She thought: “instead of becoming discouraged, I said to myself: The Good Lord cannot inspire unrealizable desires, so despite my smallness I can aspire to holiness”. But how? If she is weak? Does she need to grow? Does she need to become like these mountains? Her down to earth mind and wisdom replied: “growing up is impossible”. Why? By the grace of God acting in her, she can see her imperfections, weaknesses, and limitations. So, what is the solution? How can one become a saint? She answers this crucial question: “I have to put up with myself as I am with all my imperfections”, but she does not stop there. She goes on to advocate that it is not only by putting up with all the imperfections that holiness can be achieved, but three more practices at least need to be enacted.
1- Accepting and putting up with our weaknesses is something. But loving them, cherishing them is a completely new step: “what pleases Him is that He sees me loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind hope that I have in His mercy…. That is my only treasure” (Letter 197)
2- Using each opportunity which presents itself to us to love, every little thing. “Martyrdom by pinpricks” she calls it. She enlarges on this by likening it to throwing flowers on the path of the little Jesus here on earth. Sacrifices, out of love, small hidden pains and struggles to offer Him.
3- To offer ourselves to the Holy Spirit, i.e. to God’s Merciful Love. It is important to study her Act of Oblation to the Merciful Love of God, for in this act, lies a crucial teaching which permeates all our spiritual / Christian life. The following words aptly evidence her thoughts:
“I want to look for the way to go to Heaven by a very straight, very short little way, a completely new little way. We are in a century of inventions, now it is no longer worth climbing the steps of a staircase, among the rich an elevator advantageously replaces it. I would also like to find an elevator to take me up to Jesus, because I am too small to climb the rough staircase of perfection. So I looked in the holy books for the indication of the elevator, the object of my desire, and I read these words from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: If someone is very small, let him come to Me. So I came, guessing that I had found what I was looking for and wanting to know, oh my God! what you would do to the little one who would answer your call, I continued my research and here is what I found: – As a mother caresses her child, so I will comfort you, I will carry you on my bosom and I will rock on my knees! Ah! never have more tender, more melodious words come to rejoice my soul, the elevator which must raise me to Heaven, these are your arms, O Jesus! For that I don’t need to grow up, on the contrary I have to stay small, to become more and more so. O my God, you have exceeded my expectation and I want to sing your mercies.” (MsC 3r°)
Let us return to the greatest hurdle, or the new challenge Therese offers to the Church, to a new revelation: holiness is possible for the weak. This is quite something in the history of Holiness. We are used to having saints like spiritual athletes, or soldiers who are so courageous in spiritual warfare. Having said that, even Therese is very courageous, but she claims her weakness and she does not consider it as an obstacle. Not only this but loving it and cherishing it is something very new and powerful. She knows that “the characteristic of love being [is] to lower itself” (Ms A 2v°) Consequently, if God finds weak people, He lowers himself to them and “by descending in this way, the Good Lord shows his infinite greatness”. (Ms A 3r°)
Seeing our condition and weaknesses being revealed on a large scale since World War II, especially from the sixties and the seventies, one asks oneself: the Church reminds us that the Call to Holiness is for all, so if we are so weak and often lead wretched lives in poor conditions – “Amazing grace how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me” – how can we aspire to holiness? It is impossible. Growing up like these mountains of holiness we hear about is simply impossible. There must be a way. Since the School of Mary wants to offer holiness to all, showing the way, we think that Therese is deeply and urgently needed. We need to learn her way, we need to learn the Gospel as she sees it and understands it, and understand that our weakness, if we offer it, is combustible for the Divine Love in us. In the School of Mary we deeply think that not only is holiness possible for all, but also and more importantly, we deeply believe that we can learn at the School of Therese, Doctor of the Church: we consider her message not only important, but vital for the entire Church today and tomorrow.
2- Spiritual Life According to Therese, Her Message for Us
Let us now explore some aspects of Therese’s Way. Therese spent nine years in Carmel. She entered at the age of fifteen, April 1888. From 1893, still very young, she began helping in the noviciate for the formation of her sisters. In fact, in the three years before 1893, she went through the deepest purification, especially during the last years leading to the end of 1892. This purification is considered by her as the greatest grace she received, because it revealed her own nothingness to her. This is what she treasured most.
Being in charge of the novices, Therese spontaneously started to teach the novices to live the way she lived. All the tiny insignificant ways to love Jesus in the daily life of the monastery were offered to inspire he sisters. All that had worked for her in the previous years (1888-1892) was offered to the novices. More so the main lessons she had learned from the years of purification which had led her to discover what she called her own “little way” to God, started to become an essential part of her teaching and formation. In a way, much of what we know about St. Therese comes from this “creative” and fecund period of her life (1893-1897). In fact, her poetry and plays start to develop from 1893 onward. It is true that her letters to Celine, from the very moment she entered in Carmel till 1892, are a very important body of teaching because they show us, live, how Therese loved Jesus, how she manages to find small ways (martyrdom by pinpricks) to love Jesus and grow. These letters show us also how Therese behaved during the most important purification period of her life which ends by Christmas 1892. This body of teaching is of utmost importance and cannot be forgotten when we want to understand Therese – it is the hidden part of the iceberg of who Therese is.
Let us now examine some of the characteristics of her spiritual life, the one she first lived, and then taught to her novice sisters. It is all centred around spiritual formation. Her doctorate – Therese is Doctor of the Church – is centred around spiritual formation.
a- Practical Aim
All her teaching has a practical aim to teach us and help us to love Jesus and make Him loved by others. Talking about making Jesus loved by others, let us remember that Therese has two dimensions in her love of neighbour:
- love in the immediate daily life, therefore love for her sisters inside of the Monastery.
- The invisible and distant work/mission she is supposed to fulfil as a Carmelite: she entered to pray for Priests. This is not unusual, as St. Teresa of Avila set out the goal of her Reformation very clearly (see Way of Perfection chapters 1 and 3). Thus. any act on her part, during the day, had three circles: 1- herself, 2- her relationship with her sisters inside of the monastery, and 3- the invisible repercussions of her life on the Priests.
Now let us go back to the first goal: to love Jesus. The genius of Therese is to face reality as it is, seeing under the light of God how, in a practical way, a simple and in fact small way, she can use the events of the day to love Jesus. Her life is led by this unique Goal. In fact, to make Him loved just blossoms from her love for Him. Let us take one example: she is climbing the stairs going to her cell, and on her way, she has to cross the Prioress’ cell. She feels the temptation to seek human consolation by knocking on her door and talking to her. She feels the challenge and sees what Jesus is asking her to do: to act for his love and not to search for her emotional comfort or consolation. What is at stake here is not only Jesus who is present in her conscience and her seeing what Jesus is waiting from her to do, but also the possibility for her to offer this desire as a sacrifice, preferring to love Jesus and not herself. This example is simple, a very down to earth challenge, but it shows the dynamism of Therese’s life. In truth, Spiritual life is made up of the daily events, and the art of loving Jesus is the art of seeing in the daily events opportunities, open windows, to love Jesus. This does not mean that we always succeed in face of such simple challenges, but these are the true challenges and the ways to love. The ideal of spiritual life is not to be found in other great things. It lies in this “martyrdom by pinpricks” or “martyrdom with pinpricks”. It is not a brilliant great martyrdom with swords and great sufferings, but is rather a total practical focus on what is happening around us and the opportunities that daily events offer us to love Jesus, to renew our love for Jesus, to prefer the love of Jesus over our comfort or own emotions and feelings. It goes without saying that with Therese we discover what true spiritual love means, and we learn to distinguish between a false spiritual love and a true perfect one. Coming out of oneself, choosing Jesus above oneself, is very challenging and can feel insurmountable even if the act can seem very simple, and one whose content is taken from daily life.
But at the end of the day, it is this type of practical attitude facing daily, normal, small events which helps boost our growth.
b- Loving Jesus
As we can see what is at stake is the love of Jesus. One can easily see in Therese’s writings and in Therese’s daily life from the witnesses who lived with her, that Jesus was really at the centre of her daily life and daily occupation. One cannot really stress this reality enough. Jesus is her everything, her only love (she wrote this on the lintel of the door to her room). He is the spouse and the sun of her life. This does not mean that she was swimming in consolations. As she said: “my consolation is of not having any”. Ironically, then, the little gentle rosy and smiling image we have of Therese does not correspond to her daily reality, for as she reminds us: “To love is to give everything and to give oneself.” Her way to love Jesus is truly a strong and virile way.
c- Find Ways to Love Him
As we mentioned above, all her efforts were to find ways to love Jesus. Any story she would hear of, or any simple event of her daily life was converted, transformed into loving Jesus. She heard once about hypnotism, and she reacted saying:” I want to be hypnotised by Jesus.” Her love for Jesus was so perseverant and strong that one of her sisters said to her: you are “possessed by the love of Jesus” as some people can be of the devil. A strong statement of course, but it tells us the impression she left on her sisters.
The art of spiritual life and the art of formation for her was to find in reality and the events which surround us means and ways to love Jesus. It is an everyday open field and it centres around simple and little things. One does not try to create a reality or dream another reality. One just opens one’s eyes to daily events and sees through them the various opportunities to love Jesus.
III- Therese and the School
Therese’s way of understanding spiritual life has various aspects which are prophetic, i.e. meant both for our time and future times. In many aspects she revolutionises Spiritual Life and Spiritual Formation. In addition to the aspects mentioned above, let us explore some of these aspects.
1- Therese is Patroness of Formation (of Novitiates)
Therese was in charge of the formation of her sisters and also had the great opportunity not only to have a clear awareness that she was bringing something new to spiritual life, but to spread it out of the walls of her monastery by writing to the two Priests with whom she was entrusted to pray for – as is the habit in Carmel. In this sense, not only do we see her in action but also, we see her especially in the latter part of her life (1893-1897) as well as increasingly, having a sharp awareness of her mission. It was clear to her that the way she was led to know God and love Him was different from the way it was in her time. Sadly, it is still valid today. So, if Therese says I would like to make God loved the way I love Him, it is still valid today and it deserves all our attention. She constantly underlines the fact that the way she sees and understands God is different from the common way and she insists that this is her mission.
If we deepen our understanding of the root of this “new” way of seeing God, we will find it in the “obscure” years prior to 1893, where she was led by God to discover deeper aspects in Him, in His Love, in who He is and in who she is. This journey had been decisive for her. We cannot stress enough the importance of the study of these years and the spirituality she developed during these years. As she puts it, Isaiah 53 and the Holy Face became the core of her devotion and prayer life. God showed her through this text and through the Holy Face, a new and revolutionary Face of himself in the Passion. Isaiah 53 is a mysterious text, written many years before the Lord’s birth and it incredibly describes deep aspects of the Passion of our Lord. The Holy Face is the Face of Jesus imprinted on the piece of cloth Veronica used to wipe the Lord’s face during his Passion and kept as a tradition. Therese received this tradition. Today with the help of the Turin shroud we have impressive representations of the Holy Face. It was the combination of Isaiah 53, which talks about the Lord during his Passion as not being beautiful or attractive, together with the imprint of the Holy Face, and also the mental illness of Therese’s father, that allowed God to reveal the hidden beauties of His Love to Therese.
It comes as no surprise then, that Therese having been herself responsible for the formation of her sister novices, was later considered in Carmel as the patroness of novitiates.
2- Therese: a Common Path which can be Followed by all the Weak too
A fundamental point in the doctrine of Therese is that it is offered to all, even to the weakest amongst us (and aren’t we all weak?!). Therese progressively became aware that she was supposed to offer her doctrine to many souls, and she perceived that she needed to offer it to all, and especially to the weak. At a certain point she tried various means of mortification using the tools of her time and very quickly she renounced using them, first because she found it not suitable for her, but also, she said: “I need to offer something that can be practised by all, especially the weak souls.” This point brings two things to mind. First, Vatican II reminded us that all are called to holiness, regardless of their state of life. So, when Therese says that she would like to offer her way to all, it is as if she is offering a “new” way for holiness to all. This is perfectly in tune with what we need today and tomorrow. We need then to pay great attention to her teaching. The second point is that if Therese offers a way for holiness for the weak, all of us can dare aim for it. Often till today, speaking about holiness and aiming for it stays a taboo subject which, to a certain extent, we find difficult to deal with. We are torn between audacity and temerity. Should we aim for such a great realisation? But is this a lack of humility on our part? Aren’t we weak? Can we aim for holiness? With Therese, if we believe her, we should be encouraged to aim for is without fear of being temerarious. On the contrary, magnanimity is a virtue and Therese developed it constantly. Aiming for great things is not a lack of humility, especially that this is God’s will for us. There must be then a way to reach it. Not by downgrading holiness to a fake image of it, but by finding the right way and walking the walk.
Therese said that after her death she would continue her mission of forming us spiritually, but she knew very well that her writings would help but that it would not be enough. This is why she said that she would spend her heaven on earth. What would she be doing? One can continue to think that her whole mission on earth now is to obtain graces or miracles for us. However, she explains this posthumous mission as her being this invisible friendly fraternal presence beside us, explaining to us, guiding us, teaching us how to love Jesus. In this way Therese reaches out today to us through these two means: her writings and her personal invisible and discreet presence. Her doctorate is embodied first in the way she lived, her doctorate being her doctrine on spiritual life (how to love Jesus and make him loved) and her doctorate is also this fraternal discreet presence which is meant to show us, almost from within, how to love. Let us take her as a guide. The surest guide.
When she said she would offer a new way, she understood that this way had to be accessible to all of us, practicable, and mostly sure. She even said to one of her sisters that if her way was wrong, she would certainly appear to her and tell her not to follow it.
Let us renew our awareness of the mission of Therese, the meaning of the Doctorate and their implications for the Church. The School of Mary is fully aware of the fundamental importance of Therese for spiritual formation in the Church.
Let us also remember that it was at the age of seventeen that she read St. John of the Cross (Spiritual Canticle and Living Flame), works which show incredible parts of the spiritual journey, spiritual engagement, spiritual marriage and transformative union. The descriptions given by St. John of the Cross are really incredible! After she had read these two books, she made this prayer: “Lord I ask you to graciously realise in me all what I read.” This makes her a supreme guide, since the entire doctrine of St. John of the Cross is included in hers. Does this mean that one has to feel or experience all that St. John of the Cross describes? Not really. Therese is very clear on this point. Not only this, but she always stated that her consolation was not to have any. She also said that as much as people want to see God she did not want to, because she knew that this was not possible here on earth. She added that as for possessing Jesus, she already does possess Him and she did not know what more she could have when she died. A sister asked her: you say that you are going through a tough trial where you don’t feel anything, so what about your beautiful poems where you sing Jesus’ love and joy and celebration? to which Therese answered: “I sing what I want to believe”. What matters is that “it is happening deep inside of me” (not that I feel it).
3- All the Spiritual Journey is Included in Therese’s Doctrine
What is of utmost importance with Therese is, as we just said above, that the whole doctrine of St. John of the Cross is included in her way and in her formation. This means that the entire journey of sanctification as described by St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila is included in her own journey. So not only is holiness on the menu, so to speak, but also the journey which leads to it.
It is worth mentioning here that Therese never read in extenso the Ascent of Mount Carmel and Dark Night. These works of St. John of the Cross were not in the second volume of his works she had in her hands. She read only in extenso the Spiritual Canticle and the Living Flame. In light of this, then, the question one can ask is: did she undergo the deep purification of the dark night of the spirit? If one reads her letters to her sister Celine in the years prior to 1893 one can easily find the various elements of the Dark Night, this deep purification that God operates in us, showing us our complete and entire nothingness and His utter Mercy. A new revelation of his true Face as mentioned above. Her observation leads us to consider her letters to her sister Celine as a “modern” form of the Dark Night of the Spirit. They lead us to understand how the Passion of the Lord is core in the Dark Night, in the sense that the human being integrates in a very personal way the Passion, receives it and is being born anew by it. Baptism in its deepest aspect offers a total development in this phase of growth. St. Paul in fact says, that we take part in the Lord’s Passion and Death, leading us to our own spiritual resurrection, and union with the Lord.
It is worth noting a confirmation of the above by Blessed Fr Marie Eugene OCD who in his magnum opus “I Want to See God” / “I Am Daughter of the Church” places the way of spiritual childhood of Therese as a fruit of the Dark Night and as a support when we are in it. Putting together the “spiritual childhood” and the Dark Night of the Spirit, the first as the fruit of the latter, is a very deep insight.
4- Our Lady and Therese
One of the most discreet and secret aspects of Therese’s life is Our Lady. It is by reading and studying all the writings of Therese (and not only her poem on Our Lady) that one can measure the importance and real place of Our Lady in Therese’s life. Being a woman, maybe the accent and expression of her love is more explicit toward the Lord Jesus. But in no way does this mean that Our Lady fails to have an absolute place in her life. In fact, it is of the utmost importance to study the place of Our Lady in Therese’s life. Her last prayer is simply sublime and difficult to grasp: “O Mary, if I were the Queen of Heaven and you were Thérèse, I would like to be Thérèse so that you could be the Queen of Heaven!” (September 8, 1897) Who can understand such a statement?
It is not because she speaks less of Our Lady that this means that the Blessed Mother’s place is of less significance in Therese’s life. By deepening our knowledge of this important aspect in the life of Therese we might end up changing our opinion about her relationship with Our Lady and consider her as a small “icon” of Our Lady as some have said in the past.
5- Blessed Marie Eugene OCD and Fr. Louis Guillet OCD
In the School of Mary we consider ourselves in the lineage of Therese, but so also do Blessed Marie Eugene and the less known Fr. Louis Guillet OCD (1902-1992), both French Carmelites from the southern Carmelite province. They both belong to the generation of people who were in utter awe of Therese. They were alive when she began to rise to prominence and witnessed her “glory” in the Church, but most importantly they knew by intuition that Therese was a saint of a totally other league. They spent their lives reading and re-reading her writings and contributed to spreading her teaching, each in his own way. It is important to keep this impression of awe when dealing with Therese in order not to idealise her but to learn from this Prophet sent to us by God, indeed an exceptional prophet who finally – Fr. Marie Eugene prayed for it for years – became in 1997 a Doctor of the Church.
6- Therese is Involved in the School of Mary
For all the above reasons it is easy to see two things: first, the similarity of the vision, goal and purpose of the School of Mary and of St. Therese. One can easily measure to which extent the spirit of each is the same. As a consequence, the second aspect is derived: one can easily guess Therese’s full involvement in the life of the School of Mary. Being co-patron of the School of Mary with Our Lady needs to be understood as a real presence, involvement, and action of Therese on a daily basis in the School of Mary. All the doctrine and mission of Therese is of the School of Mary and vice versa.
If the School intends to offer the formation and the means to reach holiness to all in the Church, it is fully in the spirit and aim of St Therese. It is by studying and deepening our understanding of Therese, it is by accepting her fraternal presence, guidance and intercession, that we can understand and deepen the identity and the mission of the School.
Conclusion
The goal of this article is to illustrate, albeit very briefly, who Therese is and also, at the same time, to show what the School is, and to which extent Therese is co-patroness of the School and very much present and active in the life of the School. It is an invitation for each person who comes across the School of Mary to be aware of Therese and her place in the Church and not to fall into the temptation of considering her as a saint amongst others, or even a doctor among others. She is unique and I hope that some of the aspects developed above have caught the attention of the reader, his or her curiosity and desire to deepen their understanding of Therese and to receive her fraternal presence and guidance, and most importantly to live and love the way she lived and loved.
This article does not claim to say everything about Therese, and one is acutely aware of the importance of many other aspects, not the least her Act of Oblation and its implications in spiritual life and in prayer life. The Act of Oblation in itself is a huge subject and deserves separate treatment (see here).
In my humble view, studying St. Therese is a necessity, especially for the third millennium. Whoever wants to really progress in deep spiritual life, whoever feels called to Form others in Spiritual Life, needs to study St. Therese and put what she says into practise. One can start with her three Autobiographical manuscripts, A, B and C (see here). Her style of writing seems “childish” at times. One needs to be careful, because behind such style there is a very wise and deep “genius” from whom we can learn very important things.
A last word on Therese, then, would be to say that her zeal needs to be studied, as well as the important subject of the real meaning of her final trial which lasted eighteen months. Indeed, these and many other aspects, need to be studied and deepened and lived. This article is just a starting point and not a final one, or even a summary.
Jean Khoury
Our Lady of Mount Carmel – Assumption of Our Lady, 2023