"God's Big Way through
St. Thèrése's  Little Way"
by Kay Murdy

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GOD'S BIG WAY Through St. Thèrése's Little Way
Copyright © 2008 Kay Murdy

"For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy." - St. Thèrése of Lisieux

J. R. R. Tolkien was the author of The Lord of the Rings, the fantasy hailed by some as "the book of the 20th century." It was Tolkien who helped author C.S. Lewis take the final step toward faith in Christ. The Lord of the Rings is a tale about the sovereignty of God whose love and power are so great that He is able to work all things together for good (Ro 8:28). It is a story about God who uses even the Enemy's wicked designs to bring about the ultimate fulfillment of His perfect plan. Take a close look at the members of the Fellowship of the Ring. Ask yourself which one is the most like an epic hero. Is it the handsome, mysterious, swashbuckling Aragorn? Keen-sighted, swift-footed Legolas? Hard-fisted Gimli? Strong, dauntless Boromir? Wise and aged Gandalf? Each is a hero in his own way, of course. And yet not one of them is chosen to carry the menacing Ring into the heart of Mordor. Instead, it is Frodo, a boyish-looking hobbit who bears the burden to its final destination.

This idea that God uses small hands to accomplish great deeds could almost be called the heart and soul of Bible. It is Moses against Pharaoh, David against Goliath, Gideon against the Midianites, Judith and Esther against the powerful enemies of God’s people all over again. It's a reminder that "God's ways are not our ways" (Is 55:8) that when the power of evil confronts us with overwhelming odds, the answer is not to fight fire with fire, but to look for deliverance in unexpected places. Hope and salvation, Tolkien seems to say, often arise in small and unnoticed corners. Like a hobbit-hole in the Shire- or a manger in a Palestinian stable.

Ordinary folk like you and me must be greatly loved by God since there are so many of us. Yet within the ordinariness of each of us is something unique and irreplaceable. Whenever the Holy Spirit has desired to renew the face of the earth, it has been through some humble, ordinary, yet extraordinary person such as St. Thèrése of Lisieux

Thèrése Martin lived the uneventful, ordinary life of an enclosed Carmelite nun in a small provincial French town in the late nineteenth century. She was a nun for a mere nine years, calmly and heroically meeting a painful death at the age of twenty-four years. Her companions numbered a little more than two dozen, and many of them never recognized anything so very special about her. Littleness, hiddenness, nothingness, powerlessness, "a little zero" – these are the words Thèrése uses to explain the mystery of Christ at work in her life. Thèrése declared: 

O Jesus! I feel that if you found a soul weaker and littler than mine, which is impossible, you would be pleased to grant it still greater favors … I beg you to cast your divine glance upon a great number of little souls . . . worthy of your love!

The paradox in Thèrése is the power of her powerlessness since it calls forth the might of God. Her appeal was for divine strength to work in and through her weakness. When we acknowledge our weakness, giving up the right to be in control of our lives, divine power becomes infinitely available to us. Paul said that the Lord told him:

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me . . . for whenever I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:9,10).

Thèrése was born on January 2, 1873, the youngest of five daughters of Louis Martin, a watchmaker, and his wife Zelie, a lace maker. When Thèrése was four and a half years old, her mother died of breast cancer. Thèrése’s sixteen-year old sister, Pauline, became her second mother. In 1877 Louis Martin moved his family to the small town of Lisieux where he became both father and mother to his children. He called Thèrése his "little queen" and often took her walking or fishing in the surrounding countryside.

The shock of her mother’s death changed Thèrése from a lively, self-confident child into an introverted, shy one. At age ten, Thèrése was deeply distressed when Pauline, her favorite sister and surrogate mother left to become a Carmelite nun. This shock went so deep that Thèrése fell seriously ill with a fever and people thought she was dying. Her family was at wits’ end and even the doctors could find no explanation for the hallucinations and convulsions that afflicted her. Thèrése said the worst part was all the people sitting around her bed staring at her like "a row of onions."

Family and Carmelites alike prayed to Our Lady of Victories. When it seemed that Thèrése would either die or lose her sanity, she saw the family’s statue of the Virgin smile at her, and she was cured. By the time she was eleven years old Thèrése had developed the habit of prayer where she would think in solitude about God, life and eternity. In her First Communion at the age of eleven, Thèrése received her first "kiss of love," a sense of being united with Jesus. She wrote:

I felt that I was loved. There were no demands made, no struggles, no sacrifices; for a long time Jesus and poor little Thèrése looked at and understood each other. That day, it was no longer simply a look, it was a fusion; they were no longer two. Thèrése had vanished as a drop of water is lost in the immensity of the ocean. Jesus alone remained.

The Grace received that day left Thèrése with an urge to pray for sinners. When she heard of a certain Pranzine who committed three murders, she decided to save him from hell through prayer and sacrifice. She wept with joy when she heard that just before his execution, the prisoner kissed the crucifix. For Thèrése, her "first child" had obtained God’s mercy. She hoped many others would follow.

Yet another crisis occurred for Thèrése when her sister Marie entered the Carmelite convent. This was too much for Thèrése who now lost a third mother. At the age of fourteen, she became a hypersensitive, weak-willed young girl. Every time she even imagined that someone was criticizing her or didn’t appreciate her, she would burst into tears. Then she would cry because she had cried!

Thèrése had dreamed of entering the Carmel since the age of nine. But how could she possibly live in union with Jesus in this pitiful state? How could she handle the rigors of Carmelite life if she could not handle her own emotional outbursts? She prayed that Jesus would help her, but there was no sign of an answer. Grace intervened to change her life.

On Christmas day in 1886 (it is remarkable how many marker events in Thèrése’s life occurred on major feasts!), the fourteen year old girl hurried home from Midnight Mass. In France, young children left their shoes by the hearth and their parents would fill them with gifts. By fourteen, most children outgrew this custom. But Thèrése’s sister Celine didn’t want her to grow up, so presents continued to be left in "baby" Thèrése’s shoes.

As Thèrése and Celine climbed the stairs to take off their hats, their father, tired from the lateness of the hour, could be heard saying from the parlor below: "Thank goodness that is the last time we shall have this kind of thing." Thèrése froze, and her sister looked at her helplessly, knowing that in a few minutes Thèrése would be in tears over what her father had said. But the tantrum never came. Instead, something incredible happened. Jesus did what she could not do herself. He made her more sensitive to her father’s feelings than her own. She swallowed her tears, walked down the stairs, and exclaimed over the gifts in the shoes as if she hadn’t heard a word her father said. Thèrése calls this her "Christmas conversion."

Conversion can begin with a transforming moment that changes one’s way of seeing and being. Saul was changed when Christ knocked him off his high horse on the road to Damascus, but he had to translate that moment into a lifetime of conversion. Years later Paul was still saying:

Not that I have already . . . reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own (Phil 3:12-15).

Thèrése wrote of her Christmas day conversion that suddenly a cloud lifted and she felt an outpouring of grace. Her life was transformed; her vision widened. Her childhood selfishness vanished, she says,

To put it quite simply, charity had found its way into my heart, calling on me to forget myself and try to bring happiness to others.

Thèrése often testified to the wealth of grace that was constantly being poured out by the divine giver. She used an example from her childhood when her older sister Leonie thought herself too old to be playing with dolls, and she held out a basket of playthings to her younger sisters saying, "Choose one." Thèrése wanted everything offered her and taking the entire basket replied, "I choose all." So too with the graces offered her by God, Thèrése said, "I choose all."

At the age of fourteen, on Pentecost Sunday, Thèrése sought her father’s permission to enter the Carmel. Told that she would need a special dispensation from the pope because of her youth, she decided to approach Pope Leo XIII himself. In order to dissuade Thèrése from her wild plan, her father took her and her sister Celine on a pilgrimage to Switzerland, Florence, Venice, Assisi and also Rome. On their trip, Thèrése was shocked when she learned that priests were not angels, but "weak and fragile human beings, greatly in need of prayer." She vowed that when she entered the Carmel she would make priests the special aim of her prayers.

Thèrése never forgot the purpose of her pilgrimage to Rome. When the Martin family finally went into an audience with the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII. This was the pope who wrote Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor) the landmark encyclical on worker’s rights at the height of the Industrial Revolution and the multiple social problems to which it gave rise. Thèrése and her family were forbidden to speak to him, but that didn’t stop her. As soon as she got near the Pope, she grasped his hand and begged him to allow her to enter the Carmelite convent. The pope simply answered, "You will enter if God wills it." Thèrése was distraught by this seemingly evasive answer and had to be carried out—in tears—by the papal guards. Now she only had Jesus to turn to.

Back in Lisieux, the Vicar General was impressed by Thèrése’s courage and she was soon admitted to the Carmelite convent that her sisters Pauline and Marie had already joined. In 1888, the Feast of the Assumption, Thèrése Martin said a tearful goodbye to her family. She was going to live "for ever and ever" with Jesus and twenty-four enclosed companions. At the age of fifteen Thèrése left a home where she had almost no responsibilities and had been coddled by a doting father and devoted sisters. As the youngest, she was treated, far longer than her siblings, like a baby. She must have been an awkward postulant without any domestic skills, not the most helpful addition to a convent with daily tasks to get through, the cold, the sparse diet, the difficulties of communal life, and prayer—two hours’ of prayer and four and a half hours liturgy!

When Thèrése was sixteen the family had another shock when they learned that their beloved father had developed cerebral arteriosclerosis and had suddenly disappeared not to be found until four days later. Louis Martin continued to deteriorate and suffered a series of stokes that left him affected not only physically but mentally. He was taken to the asylum for the insane, and as a cloistered nun Thèrése couldn’t even visit him. When she learned of this humiliation of the father she adored, she wrote to her sister, "Oh, I do not think I could have suffered more than I did on that day."

The death of Louis Martin freed Celine to enter the Lisieux Carmel. Thèrése’s suffering was somewhat assuaged by the fact that four of the sisters were now together again (Her sister Leonie joined the Visitation sisters). Sister Thèrése of the Child Jesus took the Carmelite habit in 1889 after a retreat marked by a deep sense of inner barrenness. She began to understand Christ as the suffering servant of God foretold by Isaiah.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.

Thèrése had good reasons for adding "of the Holy Face" to her religious name. For virtually all her life in religion, Thèrése experienced so much dryness in prayer that she stated, "Jesus isn’t doing much to keep the conversation going." She often fell asleep during prayer, but she was not dismayed.

I should be desolate for having slept [for seven years] during my hours of prayer and my thanksgivings after Holy Communion; well, I am not desolate.

Thèrése consoled herself by saying that mothers loved children when they lie asleep in their arms so that God must love her when she slept during prayer. With wry good humor she wrote during a retreat:

Jesus was sleeping as usual in my little boat; I see very well how rarely souls allow him to sleep peacefully within them. Jesus is so fatigued with always having to take the initiative and to attend to others that he hastens to take advantage of the repose I offer him.

It was the reading of St. John of the Cross that brought Thèrése relief. In the Spiritual Canticle and the Living Flame of Love, she discovered a theology of grace that saw a God of infinite mercy who interacts with us at every moment, in all that happens in our lives. Thèrése developed a mystical gaze that saw God everywhere, which she expressed in three often-quoted words: "Everything is grace." Everything? Really everything? Thèrése said "Everything":

The joys, the sorrows, the mood I’m in, whatever burdens me, whatever elates me, opens me up to God. We who are weak have one great power, to take hold of everything as grace, or to ignore it. The little way is a journey of recognition, of seeing the divine more clearly in areas of my life where God has been hidden."

Finding God in the ordinary – even the humdrum – doesn’t mean we settle for nothing more than being average. Thèrése saw the opposite. She thought there must be a way for people living hidden, little lives like hers to become saints. She writes:

Unfortunately, when I have compared myself with the saints, I have always found that there is the same difference between the saints and me as there is between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and a humble grain of sand trodden underfoot by passersby. Instead of being discouraged, I told myself: God would not make me wish for something impossible and so, in spite of my littleness, I can aim at being a saint. It is impossible for me to grow bigger, so I put up with myself as I am, with all my countless faults. But I will look for some means of going to heaven by a little way which is very short and very straight, a little way that is quite new.

Thèrése realized she could not count on her own merits to become a saint; she needed God’s grace to raise her up. She wrote:

We live in an age of inventions. We need no longer climb up a flight of stairs with great effort. I am determined to find an elevator to carry me to Jesus, as I was too small to climb the steep stairs of perfection. In Holy Scriptures, I sought the elevator I wanted, and I read: ‘Whoever is a little one, let him come to me.’ It is your arms, Jesus, which are the elevator to carry me to heaven. So there is no need for me to grow up. In fact, just the opposite: I must become less and less.

Thèrése knew that if she could become a saint, it is something we can all become. She writes:

Sister Marie of the Eucharist wanted to light the candles for the procession; she had no matches; however, seeing the little lamp which was burning in front of the relics, she approached it. Alas, it was half out; there remained only a feeble glimmer on its blackened wick. She succeeded in lighting her candle from it, and with this candle, she lighted those of the whole community. It was, therefore, the half-extinguished little lamp which had produced all these beautiful flames which, in their turn, could produce an infinity of others and even light the whole universe. Nevertheless, it would always be the little lamp which would be first cause of all this light. How could the beautiful flames boast of having produced this fire, when they themselves were lighted with such a small spark?"

We cannot go to God alone, but only in the company of the Communion of Saints. Very often, without our knowing it, the graces and lights that we receive are due to a hidden soul, such as Thèrése, who begged them from God for us, and whom we shall only know in heaven. Thèrése writes:

In heaven, we shall not meet with indifferent glances, because all the elect will discover that they owe to each other the graces that merited the crown for them.

Thèrése knew that she might fail God in many ways, but the basic will to be all that she could be for God never faltered. Thèrése knew that this moment is the only part of time we can be sure of. If we squander it, we can’t depend on some future opportunity. So many of us have the attitude of Augustine who said, "Lord, change me. But not today." One of Thèrése’s novices was her cousin Marie Guerin, who told Thèrése, "I promise you that I’ll be a saint when you have left for heaven, and at that moment, I’ll put my whole heart into it." Thèrése answered, "Don’t wait for that. Begin now." Marie Guerin did not have a long future to count on. She died eight years later at the age of 35.

Thèrése wrote, "I wanted to love, to love Jesus with a passion, giving him a thousand proofs of my love while it was possible." These thousand proofs of love describe her longing to be every vocation in the church —apostle, prophet, missionary and priest.

I feel in me the vocation of the priest. With what love, O Jesus, I would carry you in my hands when, at my voice, you would come down from heaven. And with what love would I give you to souls. . . . I would like to travel over the whole earth to preach your name. One mission alone would not be sufficient for me. I would want to preach the gospel on all the seven continents – simultaneously. I would be a missionary, not for a few years only but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages. But above all, O my beloved Savior, I would shed my blood for you.

Thèrése admits one martyrdom would not satisfy her. She sought them all.

I would be scourged and crucified. I would die flayed like St. Bartholomew, I would be plunged into boiling oil like St. John; I would undergo all the tortures inflicted upon the martyrs. With St. Agnes and St. Cecilia, I would present my neck to the sword and like Joan of Ark, my dear sister, I would whisper at the stake your name, O Jesus.

Our ears are uncomfortable with what sounds like the romantic outpourings of a young middle-class French girl who in many ways lived a privileged existence. We have to move beyond the language; otherwise, we will miss the essential value of Thèrése’s message. Thèrése understood clearly the core Christian meaning of martyrdom as not being focused on suffering, but rather on totally committed love that stops at nothing to manifest and fulfill that love.

Yet even martyrdom would not fulfill Thèrése’s desires. Seeing a list of the various members who make up the church in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, she wanted to be every one of them, and yet this still did not content her. She continued reading and discovered her place: "Strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way" (1 Cor 12:39) – the way of love. Thèrése wrote:

"I understood that the Church had a heart and that this heart was burning with love." In delirious joy she cried out, "O Jesus, my love, my vocation, at last I have found it. My vocation is love!"

Toward the end of Thèrése’s short life, her sister Pauline, Mother Agnes of Jesus, ordered her to write down her "childhood memories." Thèrése obeyed and, in 1886 she gave her prioress an 86 page notebook in which she interpreted her life in the light of God’s merciful love; her remembrances of her joys and sorrows – the "Story of a Soul." At the beginning of her autobiography, Thèrése opens the gospels and finds these words "He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him" (Mk 3:13). She writes: 

This is the mystery of my vocation, my whole life, and especially the mystery of the privileges Jesus showered upon my soul. He does not call those who are worthy, but those whom He pleases.

Thèrése is probably best known by the title of "The Little Flower." This derives from a passage near the beginning of her autobiography where she compares herself to a humble little flower of the meadow.

Thèrése knew that she would never be able to perform great deeds. She wrote: "The only way I can prove my love, is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love." Thèrése no longer worried about the size of her actions. She took every chance to sacrifice, no matter how small it would seem, something so simple as folding the mantles the older sisters left behind, of being patient when an elderly sister rattled her rosary beads in chapel. She writes:

There is one sister in the community that has a knack of rubbing me the wrong way at every turn; her manner, her speech, her character just strikes me as unlovable . . . I reminded myself that charity is not a matter of fine feelings; rather it means doing things. So I determined to treat this sister as if she were the person I loved best in all the world. . . . . This sister made life such a tug-of-war for me. When I felt tempted to take her down with an unkind retort, I would put on my best smile instead, and change the subject . . . when the struggle was too much for me, I would turn tail and run. One day she said to me, ‘what is it about me that gets the right side of you. You always have a smile for me." . . . What really attracted me about her was Jesus hidden in the depths of her soul; Jesus makes the bitterest mouthful taste sweet. I could only say that the sight of her always made me smile with pleasure—naturally I did not explain that the pleasure was entirely spiritual.

Some criticize Thèrése’s dramatization of the most minute wounds. A classic example is the story she told of being splashed with dirty water in the laundry and making of it an identification with Jesus’ passion. Today the scenes of suffering available through media coverage overwhelm us. The overload of pain can numb us. And everyone knows personal agony: the death of a spouse or a child, the end of a marriage or career, sufferers of cancer and AIDS, alcohol and drug abuse. By comparison, Thèrése’s "sufferings" seem to be trivial. Yet we can not take the weight of one’s personal anguish, set it on a scale, and determine relative degrees of suffering. No personal grief or struggle outweighs another. Those who suffer, whether through the minutia of everyday offences or from overwhelming agonies, can recognize a companion in Thèrése who knows intimately the path they are walking.

Thèrése’s approach to pain is profoundly theological. She moves instinctively to the Passion. Consistently, right up to the very end of her life, she translates all suffering into a person-to-person interaction with Jesus. Thèrése understands that great as the weight of her suffering, she can endure it. The God we reach for on the Little Way proportions everything according to our strength. She writes:

How sweet and merciful the Lord really is, for He did not send me this trial until the moment I was capable of bearing it.

For Thèrése to share in Christ’s redemption she must be transformed, and that meant her earthly life would be "consumed." It is a terrible irony that the very illness that destroyed her is called "consumption." Tuberculosis, or consumption, as it was then called, was the scourge of Thèrése’s time, comparable to what cancer is today. While there can be no certainty, recent research suggests that Thèrése first contracted the tuberculosis bacterium in her first year of school. The symptoms of Thèrése’s strange childhood illness are congruent with those of encephalitis resulting from infection of the brain by tuberculosis. It is possible for such an infection to go into remission and then to reappear many years later.

All the profound spiritual insights born of the days of grace and pain of Thèrése’s young life were radically put to the test by the events of the final eighteen months of her life. Afflicted by a sore throat that stubbornly resisted treatment, Thèrése suffered two hemorrhages between Holy Thursday and Good Friday of 1896. Far from panicking, she saw this as a summons from her divine Spouse and looked forward to joining him soon. She kept working without telling anyone until she became so sick a year later that everyone knew it. This intense physical anguish was compounded by an even more profound spiritual trial.

On Easter Sunday she fell into a dark night of the soul, an "underground labyrinth," a "fog" overtook her along with a complete loss of any consoling sense of God’s presence. Worst of all, Thèrése lost her joy and confidence and she felt she would die young without leaving anything behind. This trial of faith and hope was to last, with a few brief moments of respite, to the end of her life. But she turned the test into a redemptive one, agreeing to remain alone in the darkness, a "night of nothingness" so that atheists might receive the light.

In her last agony, Thèrése says Jesus permitted her soul to be invaded by thick darkness, and that the thought of heaven, up until then so sweet, was no longer anything but the cause of struggle and torment. She heard a mocking voice promising her a "death which will give you not what you hope for but a night still more profound, the night of nothingness." A prey to constant darkness, she came to understand the temptations of suicide but lived in trust and love until the very end.

Thèrése experienced what John of the Cross describes as an advance purification of the spirit. John says, "Sometimes this experience is so vivid that it seems to the soul that it sees hell and perdition open before it. These are the ones who do down into hell alive."

When Thèrése says suffering is her role in the Church she expresses a profound theological truth. Through our baptism we are members of Christ’s Body. Paul writes, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" (Rom 6:3). Paul longs for this mystical union with the suffering Christ when he says, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20).

Near the end of Thèrése’s life, she reached a desert where nothing she read was of any use to her, only the Gospels fed her. She wrote:

Jesus teaches me in secret; it is not by means of books, for I do not understand what I am reading. . . . I close the book that is breaking my head and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons, perfection seems simple to me . . . Leaving to great souls and great minds the beautiful books I cannot understand, much less put into practice, I rejoice at being little since children alone and those who resemble them will be admitted to the heavenly banquet.

As the tuberculosis began to affect her intestines, Thèrése coughed up blood, slept little and was unable to eat. The Doctor treated her with the methods of the time but they could do nothing to help her. The prioress, Mother Marie would not allow pain relievers, but this was not a sadistic decision on her part. Pain relievers were considered them incompatible with the heroism called for in the life of Carmel. On her deathbed, Thèrése was given only a teaspoon of morphine to dull the excruciating pain.

As her death drew near, Thèrése’s blood sisters were allowed to be with her as much as possible. Mother Agnes kept a record of everything she judged worth writing down. It gives us a day-by-day account of what Thèrése said in conversations, her humor, and small anecdotes involving other sisters. Once she called to Mother Agnes, "Give me a kiss, a kiss that makes noise; so that the lips go ‘smack.’" The day after the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Thèrése pronounced the words so often quoted, that defined her activity in heaven.

I feel especially that my mission is about to begin, my mission of making God loved as I love him, of giving my little way to souls. If God answers my desires, my heaven will be spent on earth until the end of the world. Yes, I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth.

After Thèrése died her sister nuns found a little document in the New Testament which she always carried at her heart. It was an Act of Oblation, her complete dedication to Christ. An oblation is something offered in worship or devotion, a holy gift usually offered at an altar or shrine. Thèrése offered her soul to Christ, well aware that this would entail great suffering. A few days later she was pierced by a ray of fire so burning that she thought she was going to die. Yet she wrote:

I have experienced it only this once and for a single moment; then I quickly fell back into my usual aridity. . . Do not think that I am overwhelmed with consolations. Far from it! My joy consists in being deprived of all joy here on earth.

Under expressions of a ready smile Thèrése hid much misery. It was not until she died that the sisters discovered she was anything but happy. Yet Thèrése never lost sight of the presence of God and expressed this through the careful attention that she gave to the smallest of tasks.

Thèrése’s "Little Way" is very apt for our times. It is a lowly path that anyone can travel. It teaches no fixed method of prayer, except the disposition of the open, vulnerable heart. It is absent of any extraordinary mystical experiences, extraordinary penances or asceticism, and avoids dependence on numerous good works. Thèrése liberated the faithful from impossible demands, the anxiety of doing something wrong, or in the wrong way, or not doing enough. Her little way is present in the routine and the commonplace. The same is truth is hidden in Jesus’ parables of the tiny mustard seed, the leaven hidden in a batch of dough, in the dust of a house, in a newly plowed field or a merchant’s stall. The hidden treasure is the truth that salvation is in this present moment of grace.

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement wrote:

In Thèrése's understanding, no act, however apparently insignificant, is without meaning when done within the awareness of God's loving presence. Whatever our situation in life-—a mother with children at home or a mother working, a store clerk, a scholar, a nursing home assistant, a suburbanite, an assembly line worker-—all of us, in the ordinary and required activity of daily life, have available to us in the Little Way a means to holiness, to love as God loves us. The Little Way is the ordinary way we can all become saints.

Thèrése was very anxious that the "Little Way" should not be misunderstood. She warned that the "Little Way" is not a restful one, full of sweetness and consolation; it is quite the opposite. The "Little Way" of love is the daily practice of the action of love; a self-giving love, kenosis, an emptying of self for the other. It is an imitation of Jesus who Paul says:

Though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross (Phil 2:5-8).

Thèrése doesn’t give us a closed book, a finished treatise or a step-by-step ladder for reaching union with God. Like St. Francis, her life is her message. That doesn’t mean we imitate the particular circumstance of her life. We can’t ask her for a detailed blueprint for our personal spiritual progress.

Thèrése’s message is not a final word but rather a beginning word meant to open new pathways to pursue, possibilities to consider. She gives us a seed of the Little Way to be planted within our own days and years. Out of that seed we bring forth something very different from what Thèrése did.

Recently, Dominic Berardino, president of SCRC, interviewed me on the radio. I related an incident that happened many years ago when I went back to work after years of raising a family. Without job skills I went to work in a department store. While folding towels one day I was grumbling to myself, "Is this what you want me to do with my life, Lord? Just fold towels?" Within the recesses of my heart I heard the Lord answer, "Keep folding." I told Dominic on the air that other people get profound messages and all I get is, "Keep folding." At that very moment it struck me. This was Thèrése’s message of her little way and it took all those years for me to understand it.

Thèrése Martin died on September 30, 1897, at the age of 24 years, whispering, "My God, I love you!" Her face was radiant. She died unknown and very few mourners lamented her passing. One year later to the day, her memoirs were published. This was the spark that started the fire of devotion to the saint of the ordinary. Fifty years after her death, her autobiography has been translated into more than sixty languages. Her book, "Story of a Soul" is the "Diary of Anne Frank" of the spiritual life.

In 1925 Thèrése of Lisieux was canonized. The Church has declared her the patron of the missions and of France. Thèrése, a strictly enclosed nun, was called to be a missionary in a life devoted to prayer. In Catholic churches of every corner of the globe one will find some form of shine to St. Thèrése. Fr. Kevin O’Grady reminded me that when he first invited me to speak in Australia, it was at St. Thèrése parish in Lakemba, the first parish in the world to bear her name. Fr. O’Grady said the Pastor jumped the gun by a week or so and made her a Saint before the Pope did!

Thèrése has been named not only a saint but a Doctor of the Church. Fr. Roland Rolheiser said that the basis for that decree was simple. "You call somebody a doctor because he or she heals," he said. "Therese heals because she reminds them they have already been loved in a perfect and completely satisfying way by God." A recent worldwide tour of her relics drew crowds of tens of thousands. She was once asked, "What name should we call you when we pray to you in heaven." She replied, "You will call me little Thèrése."

Novena Rose Prayer to St. Therese

O Little Therese of the Child Jesus, please pick for me a rose from the heavenly gardens and send it to me as a message of love. O Little Flower of Jesus, ask God today to grant the favors I now place in your hands (Mention specific requests). St. Therese, help me to always believe as you did, in God's great love for me, so that I might imitate your "Little Way" each day. Amen.

God our Father, you have promised your kingdom to those who are willing to become like little children. Help us to follow the way of "the Little Flower" with confidence so that by her prayers we may come to know your eternal glory. Little Flower, in this hour, show thy power. Amen

Miraculous Prayer to St. Therese
O glorious Saint Therese, whom Almighty God has raised up to aid and counsel humankind, I implore your Miraculous Intercession. So powerful are you in obtaining every need of body and soul our Holy Mother Church proclaims you a "Prodigy of Miracles . . . the Greatest Saint of Modern Times." Now I fervently beseech you to answer my petition [describe your petition here] and to carry out your promises of spending Heaven doing good on earth . . . of letting fall from Heaven a Shower of Roses. Henceforth, dear Little Flower, I will fulfill your plea "to be made known everywhere" and I will never cease to lead others to Jesus through you. Amen.

You can buy my tape of this talk or any other workshop tape by contacting: spirit@scrc.org

For more information about St. Thèrése of Lisieux check out this website devoted to her life and writings:
 http://thereseoflisieux.org
 

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