Jean Khoury
Summary: This study proposes that Thérèse of Lisieux discloses a renewed intelligibility of union with God traditionally designated as spiritual marriage. Without adopting the classical terminology of Teresa of Ávila or John of the Cross, Thérèse nonetheless lives and expresses the same theological reality, yet under a radically different experiential horizon. The apparent contradiction between human weakness and divine indwelling becomes, in her experience, the privileged locus of grace. Weakness is no longer perceived as an obstacle to union, but as its very condition of possibility. In this light, spiritual marriage emerges not as an exceptional mystical summit, but as a vocation universally accessible, especially to the weakest. Thérèse thus permits the tradition of mystical theology to be perceived anew from within the logic of merciful love.
St. Teresa of Avila
Teresa of Ávila lived the spiritual marriage in a clear and marked way. She describes it in one of her Relations. It occurs while she was receiving Communion from the hands of saint John if the Cross.
“While at the Incarnation in the second year that I was prioress, on the octave of the feast of St. Martin, when I was receiving Communion, Father John of the Cross who was giving me the Blessed Sacrament broke the host to provide for another Sister. I thought there was no lack of hosts but that he wanted to mortify me because I had told him it pleased me very much when the host were large (not that I didn’t understand that the size made no difference with regard to the Lord’s being wholly present, even when the particle is very small). His Majesty said to me: “Don’t fear, daughter, for no one will be a party to separating you from Me,” making me thereby understand that what just happened didn’t matter. Then He appeared to me in an imaginative vision, as at other times, very interiorly, and He gave me His right hand and said: “Behold this nail; it is a sign you will be My bride from today on. Until now you have not merited this; from now on not only will you look after My honour as being the honour of your Creator, King, and God, but you will look after it as My true bride. My honour is yours, and yours Mine.” This favour produced such an effect in me I couldn’t contain myself, and I remained as though entranced. I asked the Lord either to raise me from my lowliness or not grant me such a favour; for it didn’t seem to me my nature could bear it. Throughout the whole day I remained thus very absorbed. Afterward I felt great pain, and greater confusion and affliction at seeing I don’t render any service in exchange for such amazing favours.” (Spiritual Testimonies 31, Avila, Incarnation, Nov. 18, 1572)
As we can see, the grace itself is clearly perceived and understood, and it is accompanied by a kind of ceremony. Moreover, she constructed her architectural work, The Interior Castle, as a work directed towards the spiritual marriage (the Seventh Mansion). In the final chapter of the seventh mansion, she explains why God grants us such graces. In a way, it is the real goal of the spiritual journey.
“It will be good, Sisters, to tell you the reason the Lord grants so many favours in this world. Although, if you have paid attention, you will have understood this in learning of their effects, I want to tell you again here lest someone think that the reason is solely for the sake of giving delight to these souls; that thought would be a serious error. His Majesty couldn’t grant us a greater favour than to give us a life that would be an imitation of the life His beloved Son lived. Thus I hold for certain that these favours are meant to fortify our weakness, as I have said here at times, that we may be able to imitate Him in His great sufferings. We have always seen that these who were closer to Christ our Lord were those with the greatest trials.” (Interior Castle, 7 M4:4-5)
This is why she will say at the beginning of the seventh mansion:
“May it please His Majesty, if He may thereby be served to move my pen and give me understanding of how I might say something about the many things to be said and which God reveals to the one whom He places in this dwelling place. I have earnestly begged this of His Majesty since He knows that my intention is to make known His mercies that His name may be more praised and glorified. I hope, not for myself but for you, Sisters, that He may grant me this favour. Thus you will understand how important it is for you not to impede your Spouse’s celebration of this spiritual marriage with your souls, since this marriage brings so many blessings, as you will see.” (Interior Castle, 7 M 1:1-2)
If we understand that this marriage brings us so many blessings, we will understand then “how important it is for” us “not to impede” our “Spouse’s celebration of this spiritual marriage with” our soul!
St. John of the Cross
St. John of the Cross, for his part, does not speak of his own experience of the spiritual marriage, but offers a developed description of it in the Spiritual Canticle. Certainly, he sings of union with God in his poem The Spiritual Canticle (which is undoubtedly, implicitly, his experience as well), yet he does not speak directly and explicitly of his own experience. He attempts both to universalise (something Therese would later do with the “common way”) and to offer the maximum graces possible, while indicating that one does not receive everything. He is careful, very clearly in the first and the last stanzas, to state that what he describes is not felt, that it takes place in the spirit.
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus
Thérèse is given to us by God as the living incarnation of their teaching, universalisable (that is to say, for everyone, the common way), accessible to all, even to the weakest.
However, what is striking in Thérèse is twofold. On the one hand, she does not use the expression “spiritual marriage”. Moreover, there does not seem to be a particular moment in her life when she lived the reality of the spiritual marriage as expressed by her spiritual parents. On the other hand, she appears seized by a reality that she tries to understand, to accept, to live. This reality is an apparent contradiction. On the one side, she sees herself as weak, incapable of imitating the holiness as it was portrayed in her time (the saints are colossi, mountains of strength, holiness, virtues…). In fact, union with God, as it is lived, described, and understood (often in an extraordinary manner), seems unattainable to her. Yet on the other side, she continually feels within herself the desire to attain it. God cannot inspire an unrealisable desire. There must be a solution, a way, an explanation. The contradiction must be only apparent. But how?
Her smallness and her weakness received the seal of a strong and radical experience. On this point there is no doubt. The first five years of her life in Carmel were a constant descent, down to the depths. A descent ever more intense, reaching the exterior and then the interior part of her heart, as she says in a letter to her sister Céline.
For her, the great question concerns this contradiction (which is, in fact, only apparent): how can God, Jesus, dwell in a being so small, so weak, so poor? In reality, she poses the question of union, but in different terms that are nevertheless entirely analogous: the indwelling of so great a God within so weak and small a soul. After the experience and the discovery of her nothingness, God now leads her towards the next discovery: not only can He do this, but He wills to do so. There is no other way. It is not only possible; it is the path. There is no other. It is a kind of slow yet certain dawn that emerges and leads to a Eureka. In July 1894, she already gathers the elements of the solution to the apparent contradiction, and it will be God Himself in Scripture who confirms this for her through the texts of the Old Testament that Céline brings with her when entering the monastery in September.
In that summer of 1894, Letter 165 stands out as a beacon letter within Thérèse’s itinerary. It recapitulates a number of earlier themes!
“J.M.J.T.
Jesus
July 7, 1894
Dear Céline,
[…] I do not know if you are still in the same frame of mind as the other day, but I will tell you just the same about a passage from the Canticle of Canticles which expresses perfectly what a soul is when plunged into aridity and how nothing delights or consoles it. “I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, to look if the vineyard had flourished, and if the pomegranates had budded… I no longer knew where I was… my soul was all troubled because of the chariots of Aminadab” (chap. XNUMX, vv. XNUMX and ll).
This is really the image of our souls. Frequently, we descend into the fertile valleys where our heart loves to nourish itself, the vast field of the scriptures which has so many times opened before us to pour out its rich treasures in our f avor; this vast field seems to us to be a desert, arid and without water… We know no longer where we are instead of peace and light, we find only turmoil or at least darkness… But, like, the spouse, we know the cause of our trial: our soul is troubled because of the chariots of Aminadab… We are still not as yet in our homeland, and trial must purify us as gold in the crucible. At times, we believe ourselves abandoned. Alas! the chariots, the vain noises that disturb us, are they within us or outside us? We do not know… but Jesus really knows. He sees our sadness and suddenly His gentle voice makes itself heard, a voice more gentle than the springtime breeze: “Return, return, my Sulamitess; return, return, that we may look at you!…” (Cant. chap. XNUMX, v. XNUMX.) What a call is that of the Spouse!… And we were no longer daring even to look at ourselves so much did we consider ourselves without any splendor and adornment; and Jesus calls us, He wants to look at us at His leisure, but He is not alone, with Him, the two other Persons of the Blessed Trinity come to take possession of our soul… Jesus had promised it in days gone by when He was about to reascend to His Father and our Father. He said with ineffable tenderness: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and we will make in him our abode.” To keep the word of Jesus, that is the sole condition of our happiness, the proof of our love for Him. But what, then, is this word?… It seems to me that the word of Jesus is Himself… He, Jesus, the Word, the Word of God He tells us further on in the same gospel of St. John, praying to his Father for His disciples, He expresses Himself thus: “Sanctify them by your word, your word is truth.” In another place, Jesus teaches us that He is the way, the truth, the life. We know, then, what is the Word that we must keep; like Pilate, we shall not ask Jesus: “What is Truth?” We possess Truth. We are keeping Jesus in our heartsl… Often, like the spouse, we can say: “Our Beloved is a bundle of myrrh,” that He is a Spouse of blood for us… But how sweet it will be to hear one day this very sweet word coming from the mouth of our Jesus: “You are the ones who have always remained with me in all the trials I have had, so I have prepared my kingdom for you, just as my Father has prepared it for me. The trials of Jesus, what a mystery! He has trials then, He too?… Yes, He has them, and often He is alone in treading the wine in the wine press; He looks for consolers and can find none… Many serve Jesus when he is consoling them, but few consent to keep company with Jesus sleeping on the waves or suffering in the garden of agony!… Who, then, will be willing to serve Jesus for Himself?… Ah! we shall be the ones… Céline and Thérèse will unite always more and more; in them, will be accomplished this prayer of Jesus: “Father, that they may be one as we are one.” Yes, Jesus is already preparing His kingdom for us, just as His Father prepared it for Him. He prepares it for us by leaving us in the trial. He wills that our face be seen by creatures, but that it be as though hidden so that no one recognize us but Himself alone!… But what joy, too, to think that God, the entire Trinity, is looking at us, that It is within us and is pleased to look at us. But what does It will to see in our heart if not “choirs of music in an army camp”? (Canticle, ch. XNUMX, v. XNUMX.) “How, then, shall we be able to sing the Lord’s canticles in a strange land?… For a long time, our harps were hung on the willows of the shore. We were not able to use them!… Our God, the Guest of our soul, knows it well, so He comes to us with the intention of finding an abode, an EMPTY tent, in the midst of the earth’s field of battle. He asks only this, and He Himself is the Divine Musician who takes charge of the concert… Ah! if only we were to hear this ineffable harmony, if one single vibration were to reach our ears!…
“We do not know how to ask for anything as we ought, but the spirit pleads within us with unutterable groanings” (St. Paul). We have, then, only to surrender our soul, to abandon it to our great God. What does it matter, then, if our soul be without gifts that sparkle exteriorly since within us the King of kings shines with all His glory! How great must a soul be to contain a God!... And yet the soul of a day-old child is a Paradise of delights for Him; what will it be, then, for our souls that have fought and suffered to delight the Heart of our Beloved?…”
In a certain sense, the reality of union was already within her, but she was unable to live it, to accept it, to adhere to it. From this point forward, there is no longer any contradiction; there is something better, infinitely better: one’s weakness ought to be loved. Thus it has a power over God; it attracts God; it draws Him within. It attracts His merciful Love.
“what pleases Him [in my little soul] 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”
“to love Jesus, to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and transforming Love. … The desire alone to be a victim suffices, but we must consent to remain always poor and without strength, and this is the difficulty, for: “The truly poor in spirit, where do we find him? You must look for him from afar,” said the psalmist. … He does not say that you must look for him among great souls, but “from afar,” that is to say in lowliness, in nothingness…. Ah! let us remain then very far from all that sparkles, let us love our littleness, let us love to feel nothing, then we shall be poor in spirit, and Jesus will come to look for us, and however far we may be, He will transform us in flames of love….Oh! how I would like to be able to make you understand what I feel!… It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love….” (St. Therese, Letter 197)
Weakness, therefore, is compatible with God. The true nature of God, His true face, is revealed to her: He is Merciful Love, that is to say, love that bends down towards poverty, that feels itself drawn to it, that desires to dwell within it, and that delights in doing so. Hurrah.
She will say that God is her prisoner, a prisoner within her. She proclaims that He wishes to remain within her as in His living tabernacle. From this point onward, this is an acquired reality.
“1. On the evening of Love, speaking without parable,
Jesus said: “If anyone wishes to love me
All his life, let him keep my Word.
My Father and I will come to visit him.
And we will make his heart our dwelling.
Coming to him, we shall love him always.
We want him to remain, filled with peace,
In our Love!…
2. Living on Love is holding You Yourself.
Uncreated Word, Word of my God,
Ah! Divine Jesus, you know I love you.
The Spirit of Love sets me aflame with his fire.
In loving you I attract the Father.
My weak heart holds him forever.
O Trinity! You are Prisoner
Of my Love!…” (Poem 17, Living on Love)
Holiness is possible. Union is possible for all, even for the weakest. One must accept to descend, to descend. One must allow God to lead us down into our poverty so as finally to dwell there and reign there.
“And now what science is He [Jesus] about to teach us? Has He not taught us all?… Let us listen to what He is saying to us: “Make haste to descend, I must lodge today at your house.” Well, Jesus tells us to descend… Where, then, must we descend? Celine, you know better than I, however, let me tell you where we must now follow Jesus. In days gone by, the Jews asked our divine Savior: “Master, where do you live?” And He answered: “The foxes have their lairs, the birds of heaven their nests, but I have no Place to rest my head.” This is where we must descend in order that We may serve as an abode for Jesus. To be so poor that we do not have a place to rest our head.” (St. Therese, Letter 137)
In a certain sense, Thérèse lives union with God, the spiritual marriage, through the birth of this dawn within her, which becomes a stable sun. An equation initially impossible for human reasoning to resolve: one must be a mountain to receive God and be united with Him; her smallness, her weakness, seem an obstacle. To make herself great is impossible. Yet she senses that there must be a solution. Guided by her spiritual intuition, she seeks and ultimately finds.
It will not be the spiritual marriage as described by Teresa of Ávila. It is not a matter of feeling or seeing what John of the Cross describes. Rather, it will be a more correct, more real perception of the spiritual marriage, of union with God.
Henceforth, a major element of the spiritual path leading to the fullness of charity (to holiness), that is to say Union with God, or spiritual marriage, becomes entirely accessible to every human being, above all to the weakest. This is a major discovery. It is a revolution in spiritual theology. Holiness is possible for all. Thérèse is led to rewrite the spiritual marriage. Thanks be to the Lord. Thanks be to Mary.
Conclusion
What emerges, then, is not a rejection of the classical doctrine of spiritual marriage, but its unexpected illumination. In St. Thérèse, “union with God” is no longer perceived primarily through extraordinary phenomena, nor through the language of spiritual heights, but through the radical acceptance of littleness. The decisive locus of divine communion is discovered precisely where one would least expect it: in poverty, weakness, and acknowledged nothingness. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9) says the Lord to Paul who probably found that weakness is not compatible with God.
This insight does not diminish the traditional teaching of St. Teresa of Ávila or St. John of the Cross; rather, it renders their doctrinal horizon existentially universal. What appeared reserved to the spiritually heroic is disclosed as accessible to all. St. Thérèse does not redefine union with God in conceptual terms, yet she reconfigures its lived intelligibility. Weakness is no longer an obstacle to divine indwelling, but its privileged space.
In this light, spiritual marriage appears not as an exceptional summit granted to a few, but as the very vocation inscribed within Christian existence. The originality of Thérèse lies precisely here: she allows the tradition to be seen anew from within the experience of grace itself. Holiness, far from being the preserve of the strong, becomes the horizon of every soul willing to consent to its own smallness before God.
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