Vigils Reading – St Theresa of the Child Jesus

THE CHILD DESTINED

TO BE A SAINT

From “The Hidden Face: A Life of Thérèse of Lisieux” by Ida Goerres

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To what extent little Thérèse had, in the depths of her self, really

renounced her beloved sister…is revealed clearly enough by her own description

of the agonies suffered in the visiting room at the Carmel… Thérèse resigned

herself to her sister’s abandonment…but in the dark, speechless abysses of the

blood all the forces of nature rebelled, immoderately and irreconcilably, against

this deprivation…

The demonic influence…should be perceived in the uncanny struggle that

must have gone on in the unconscious depths of her soul… A crisis which

produces a state of confusion and agitation in body and soul, which attacks

simultaneously a person’s alertness, confidence, presence of mind and powers

of resistance, can at the same time…also mean a grave temptation, a diabolical

invitation to discouragement in the face of life. It can lead to stifling inhibitions,

to erroneous interpretations of the self, to lifelong hypochondria about one’s

“weak” sides — all attitudes which may later on hinder radical, heroic

commitment… She was terrified by the incomprehensible forces that

overwhelmed her.

Nevertheless, we believe that a decision must have taken place deep

within her when, in the midst of her direst distress, the saving grace of the vision

of Mary shone upon her. We believe that at this point Thérèse was confronted

with a temptation, for all that it was hidden in the unplumbed depths of her

soul. For here she was confronted with alternatives, and the second of these was

the perilous one. She could accept the offered comfort, the new support and

protection. That is, she could abandon her wild despair over what she had lost,

could really carry out the unendurable renunciation within the core of her ego,

could release the hand of Pauline and reach across the irrevocable gulf for the

hand of the Blessed Virgin. Or…she could cling to her despair, could hold tight

to her neurosis, could maintain her protest…

Such decisions take place not by deliberate processes of thought, but far

below such strata of thoughts and words, by a lightning-like opening or closing

at the core of our being.

Precisely here we see the child destined to be a saint: not that the miracle

happened to her, but that she obeyed it. She did ‘the right thing’…in simple

obedience… She was beyond all human aid and almost insane with fear because

her state of abandonment was so incomprehensible to her. And yet, through all

this, her submissive heart clung, uncomprehendingly and tormentedly, but

prayerfully and trustfully, to God.

In this case, too, she learned the lesson that was later to be enunciated

again and again in her spiritual message to the world: that grace can do

anything, that grace offered, vouchsafed out of pure mercy, not to be won by any

degree of struggle; that acceptance of and dependence upon this grace is man’s

crucial ‘act’ which will save him gloriously when all toil and effort, all exercise of

will in renunciation, cannot help him to overcome his innate nature. To be sure,

she did not yet unconsciously know this, would not know it for a long time to

come. But she had experienced it; this lesson had entered her very being and

could no longer be expunged.