Vigils Reading – St Theresa of Child Jesus

10SN0102

10.01.2022

The mission of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: a reading from a book by Hans Urs von Balthasar. 1

There can be no doubt that Thérèse of Lisieux was directly entrusted by God with a mission to the Church. Thérèse’s mission, at the very first glance, displays the marks of a clearly defined, and quite exceptional character. This is much less due to the personal drama of the little saint than to the sacred Form into which the trickling grains of petty anecdotes are compressed, into a hard, unbreakable block, by a firm invisible hand. It is contrary to all expectation that the simple, modest story of this little girl should eventually culminate, as it irrefutably does, in the enunciation of theological truths. Originally she herself never dreamt that she might be chosen to bear some fundamental message to the Church. She only became aware of it gradually; in fact, it did not occur to her until her task was almost completed, after she had already lived out her teaching and was writing the last chapters of her book. Suddenly, as she saw it all laid out before her, she recognized its strangeness, that in her obedience she had unwillingly conceived something beyond her own personality. And now that she saw it she also understood it, and seized it with a kind of violence.

Ever since her childhood Thérèse had shown a striking inclination to meditating and reflecting upon herself. [This] meant that when she discovered her mission she became intensely conscious of it in a manner rare amongst the saints. At that moment she realized she was to be set on a pedestal, and that every bit of her life, even its smallest details, would be used as a pattern for many of the little ones. She regards the publication of her manuscript as an important work; she knows that all the world will love me@, and that her writings will do a great deal of good. During her last months, as if making her last will and testament, she repeats constantly: One must tell souls Exactly the same expressions recur in reference to the mission she is soon to begin in heaven: AI feel that my mission will soon begin C to teach souls to love God as I love Him, to give them my  little way. If my wishes are realized, I shall spend my Heaven on earth until the end of the world. Similarly she recognizes the function within the Church of her mission. She not only foresees the proclamation of her own sanctity Y but she also, as it were, foresaw the canonization of her doctrine. The two are not separable C it is not so much her writings as her life itself which is her doctrine, especially since her writings speak about her life more than anything else. Nor does she hesitate to propose her life as an example for the Church, because it is in her life that she sees the realization of that doctrine which can do so much good.

So her life only contains exemplary value for the Church insofar as the Holy Spirit has possessed her and used her in order to demonstrate something for the sake of the Church, opening up new vistas onto the Gospels. That, and that alone, should be the motive for the Church’s interest in Thérèse. That, and that alone, should engage the attention of those who feel themselves put off my many features of her cultus, or even of her character, or who experience indefinable objections to them. In fact, there are few other cases in which it is so prudent to distinguish between the mission of a saint and its essentials.

In the case of Thérèse of Lisieux the dramatic tension between her mission and her person needs specially to be borne in mind, and to be appreciated primarily in theological terms; the essence of sanctity has to be grasped as truly evangelical, as belonging to the Church, as a mission and not simply as an individual ascetical, mystical manifestation. Moreover it is not just because of contemporary needs but because of the depth of revealed truth that portraits of the saints must in future be remodeled, so that the saints can again live amongst us, and in us, as the best protectors and inspirers of the community of the saints, which is the Church.

¹

Thérèse of Lisieux: The Story of a Mission, trans. by Donald Nicholl, New York: Sheed and Ward, 1954, pp xix ff.