There is only one sadness in life: not to be a saint (Leon Bloy).

As we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints, I see no one more fitting than St.Therese of Lisieux, my friend, my guide, my favorite saints, my aspiration and inspiration, to offer to my readers. She teaches us in very simple ways how to become a saint through her little way.

What is the “Little Way” of St. Therese anyway? It is to become like a little child and acknowledge our powerlessness before the mighty God. As she puts it at the very beginning of her autobiography, “God’s Love is made manifest as well in a simple soul that does not resist His grace as in one more highly endowed”. Self-abasement is the characteristic of love; it seems that God enjoys coming to little souls. If all souls resembled the holy Doctors who have illuminated the Church, it seems that God would not stoop low enough. But He has created the little child, who knows nothing and can but utter feeble cries, and the poor savage who has only the natural law to guide him, and it is to their hearts that He deigns to stoop”.[1]

As the German writer Rudolf Stertenbrink puts it, “at the center of Theresian spirituality stands the concept of being a child in the presence of God”.[2] Therese wanted nothing more than to become more and more a child in the presence of God. Let us probe into the essence of a child! A child knows that it is nothing in and of itself; it has nothing; it can do nothing. A child is weak, innocent, naïve, and utterly dependent on others. A child has to look up because it expects everything to come from above. That’s what Therese believes will bring us in radical friendship with God. As she puts it in a letter to her sister Leonie on July 12, 1896:

“Look at a little child who has just vexed its mother, either by giving way to temper or by disobedience. If he hides in a corner and is sulky, or if he cries for fear of being punished, his mother will certainly not forgive the fault. But should he run to her with its little arms outstretched, and say: “Kiss me, Mother; I will not do it again!” what mother would not straightway clasp her child lovingly to her heart, and forget all it had done? …She knows quite well that her little one will repeat the fault—no matter, her darling will escape all punishment so long as it makes appeal to her heart.[3]

With this, there is nothing counterintuitive about spiritual childish. As Stertenbrink asserts, “who is it within us who believes, hopes, prays, forgives, loves, and trusts? Who is it within us who weeps and laughs?”[4] It is the child at the bottom of our heart. The children within us is the part that most resembles the creator. A person who wants to brow and flourish must not lose contact with the child within. The disciples rebuked the little children who were coming to Jesus perhaps because they had lost contact with the child lying within their souls (cf. Luke 18:15-17). The perspective constitutes a fundamental characteristic of the Little Way. Whoever discovers this child hidden deep within is saved from dependence upon the past and fear of the future. It becomes possible in “the present moment”.[5] I bet there are some reading this who are caught up in the past mistakes. The Little Way offers a way out. Anyone can try it. If you fail, you just try again.

The ‘Little Way’ does not come without a fight. As a novice master, observing the novices, she noticed, “all souls have more or less the same battles to fight”.[6] So they need purification in order to be at the service of God. In a letter she sent her sister Céline on July 7, 1894, she reminds her of the spiritual dryness our soul sometimes undergoes as we journey in this valley of tears. “I went down into the garden to see… if the vineyard had flourished, but the pomegranates were in bud…”(cf. Song of songs 6:10, 11). There are times when the sweet consolations of God’s love and mercy are only “arid and waterless waste”. Since we are wayfarers, we feel “as gold is tired in the fire so must our souls be purified by temptation”.[7] What must be the proper attitude in these trying periods? She suggests that we fight even without the hope of winning the battle.[8] We must keep going no matter how strong the struggle may be.

One night, she had a dream in which soldiers were needed for a war; she readily accepts to go. Not surprisingly, her heroes were the Crucified Jesus and the martyrs. To make Christ known, she would not mind being mistreated like the crucified Lord, flayed like St. Bartholomew, plunged into boiling oil like St. John, ground by the teeth of wild beasts like St. Ignatius of Antioch, a bread worthy of God. She would offer my neck to the sword of the executioner like St. Agnes and St. Cecilia, and like Joan of Arc she would murmur the name of Jesus at the stake.[9] Although she was not privileged enough to suffer martyrdom, she fought to do every small acts as if it were her last act. In the same way, to master the little way, we must be armed with the spirit of the sword fighting as if that was our only chance; we never fight alone; Jesus, who had come to bring not peace but war, empowers us to fight and fights for us. We become victorious through these fights. Is there any winner who did not have to fight/struggle? Thats what makes the victory succulent actually. Victory is won at the point of the sword.[10]

The ‘Little Way’ is the way of love. Realizing that she is not called to the battlefield like a warrior, or to die at the stake like Joan of Arc— the heroine of France– “God made me understand that my personal glory would never reveal itself before the eyes of men, but that it would consist in becoming a Saint”[11]— she commits herself to battle by means of love. Inspired by the sight of a statue of The Blessed Joan of Arc, she prayed, “I burn to do battle for Thy Glory…. I know the warfare in which I am to engage; it is not on the open field I shall fight… My sword is Love! O my Jesus! I will do battle, then, for Thy love, until the evening of my life”.[12] She believes that no battle is fiercer and more final than the battle of love conducted with the sword of the spirit.[13] That battle is against the flesh, the will to power, the pharisaic attitude of self-glorification persisting in the faith. Fighting to love is the only worthy battle. When we fight with assiduous passion, “the heavenly militia comes to my aid since it cannot bear seeing us defeated after being victorious in the battle of love”.[14] We fight more courageously when we have heaven fighting for us and that’s our great victory.[15] So while we must be coward in the battle against the flesh, the battle to love must be fought relentlessly. If we persevere, then the heart becomes bolder and we will march from victory to victory.[16] Fight! Fight! Fight!

In the next post, I will give more concrete examples of what the little way entails.

[1] Story of a soul, 14

[2] Rudolf Stertenbrink, Wisdom of the Little Flower, 22

[3] Therese Letter 3, July 12, 1896

[4] Stertenbrink, 21

[5] ibid 21

[6] Story of a soul, 239

[7] Letter 18, July 7, 1894. http://www.catholicbible101.com/St.%20Therese%20Story%20of%20a%20soul.pdf

[8] Counsels and reminiscences of Therese, the little flower, http://www.catholicbible101.com/St.%20Therese%20Story%20of%20a%20soul.pdf

[9] Story of a Soul, 193

[10] Urs Von Balthazar, Therese, 171

[11] Story of a Soul, 72

[12] Prayer inspired by a statue of Joan of Arc, http://www.catholicbible101.com/St.%20Therese%20Story%20of%20a%20soul.pdf

[13] Von Balthazar, 174

[14] Story of a Soul, 222

[15] ibid

[16] Von Balthazar, 172