More from the Little Flower

Therese presents for me a new way to understand what Jesus meant in the story of the rich young man and his instruction to give all he has away. She along with Balthasar provides much to meditate on in two passages from Romans. Mining the thought of the Little Flower provides an inexhaustible source of golden wisdom. The text below in quotes, except for the Scripture quotes, is from the writings of St.Therese and the rest from Balthasar's Two Sisters in the Spirit (pp. 257- 259).

The mentality that confronts Therese so frequently in the Catholic asceticism of her day … is the Old Testament mentality of justification by works ….

This attitude assumes that man’s relations with God are based entirely upon justice, and this limited conception of justice … can only imagine one ideal – to step up one’s own achievements so as to produce a corresponding increase in God’s favors. But this ideal overlooks … the very basis and raison d’etre of God’s testament with the chosen people: Abraham’s faith, which implicitly includes hope and love as well.

God first revealed himself as the God of justice, not as the God of love. And besides wishing  to prepare humanity for love by means of the law, God also wished the failure of the law and its works to demonstrate what happens when men rely upon their own achievements apart from the Cross of Christ. (Rom 5:20)

Therese inserts her New Testament theology and asceticism at the exact point where the transition takes place. Her “little way” to “little sanctity” at first appears … as one way among many others and she contrasts it particularly with the “great ways” of the “great saints” …. These great saints have done mighty deeds for God, but they are so superior as to discourage Therese …. But the more she gets to know the little way, the more she realizes … that it is the only way.

… as time goes on and she assumes the role of David, armed with a sling and venturing into the open to attack the Goliath of “great sanctity”. “The great saints have gained heaven by their works; myself I wish to imitate the thieves, I wish to take it by a trick, a trick of love that will give me entry, me and other poor sinners.”

And what is this trick? “It is quite simple. Hold nothing back. Distribute your goods as soon as you get them …. If at the moment of death, I were to present my little coins to have them estimated at their true worth, our Lord would not fail to discover dross in them that I should certainly go and deposit in Purgatory.” And now she transfers  … her amused gaze … toward God, teasing the God of justice: “When I think of the good God’s statement: ‘I shall come soon and bring my reward with me, repaying everyone according to his works’, then I say to myself that he will find himself very much embarrassed with me, because I have no works! So he will not be able to repay me according to my works. Very well, then, I trust he will repay me according to his works.”

Therese is here preaching a lesson straight from the gospel of Paul: “Now to him that works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt. But to him that works not, yet believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reputed to justice, according to the purpose of the grace of God” (Rom 4:4-5).

And: “ since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God they are justified by his grace as a gift , through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus …. (Rom 3:23-24)

The Little Way of St. Therese

Everyone at some time or another has the opportunity, even responsibility, for the formation of someone in their life. It is not just ordained religious or consecrated religious who can benefit from the ideas in the following. Parents, teachers, good friends all have opportunities to be guides for others.
The following pseudo-dialogue between St. Therese and Hans Urs von Balthasar was constructed from material in Two Sisters in the Spirit, a study of St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, written by von Balthasar.                                                                                                       
Therese:

You did not hesitate, dear Mother, to tell me one day that God was enlightening my soul and giving me the experience of years. … I am too little still to coin well-turned phrases in order to give the impression of great humility. I prefer to admit quite simply that the Almighty has done great things in the soul of his divine Mother’s child; and the greatest of all is to have shown me my littleness, my impotence.

Balthasar:

Before she could write such words, Therese had to become detached from her own person in an entirely new way, through the praise and even more the graces that her office brought with it. Her period as novice mistress teaches her … the complete discrepancy between [her] office and [her] achievement. Indeed, this discrepancy represents the essence of very ecclesiastical office … simply to be an instrument of the divine will and a channel for divine authority.

Therese:

When I was given the office of entering the sanctuary of souls, I realized at a glance that the task was beyond my strength.

Balthasar:

Obviously, an instrument can do nothing of itself, and the person who wishes to serve as a divine instrument must rest completely resigned to whatever use the divine hands make of it. And, when someone resigns himself into God’s hand, his own gifts and experience are shown up for the puny things they are. At one time they can be of use, and at another time they remain unused or may even be disturbing.

Therese:

From a distance, it seems easy and pleasant to do good to souls, to make them love God more by molding them according to one’s own aims and ideas. Up close, it is quite the contrary … one feels it is … impossible to do good without God’s help …. One feels it is absolutely necessary to forget one’s likings, one’s personal conceptions, and to guide souls along the road that Jesus has traced out for them without trying to make them walk in one’s own way.

Balthasar:

This sentence contains Therese’s own judgement on herself and her existential method; clearly her tenure in office had taught her the limits of this method … it was only her ebbing strength that prevented her from explicitly revising it to bring it into line with her interior progress.

Therese of the Child Jesus did at least learn to modify her method. Everything purely personal is expunged … there remains the one immovable landmark, the office manifesting the will of God. It is as though she stands aside from herself and she can turn the light on herself or away from herself … not as she feels but as her office demands. Everything personal only counts as material that can be used or just as well left aside.

Therese:

From the first, I saw that all souls have more or less the same battles to fight, but they differ so much from each other in other aspects …. It is impossible to act with all in the same manner. With some souls, I feel I must make myself little …. If I am to do any good with certain others … I have seen that I have to be firm ….

Oh how it [that is, the grain of sand with which she identifies herself] desires to be reduced to nothing … nothing but to be forgotten …, not contempt, not insults, that would be too much glory …. To be despised it would have to be seen, but it wants to be forgotten. Yes, I want to be forgotten, not only by creatures but also by myself.

Balthasar:

When she thus turns herself into an instrument, she excludes the possibility of judging the work she is doing …; in the first place the achievement is due to the artist, not to the brush; secondly, there is here no relationship between the quality of the instrument and the work it accomplishes.

Therese:

If the canvas painted by an artist could think and talk, it would certainly not complain of constantly being touched and retouched by the brush; nor would it envy the lot of that instrument, knowing that it owes the beauty in which it has been clothed to the artist, not to the brush. Nor could the brush, for its part, boast of the masterpiece it had helped to produce, for it would not be unaware that artists … sometimes amuse themselves by making use of the poorest and most defective instruments.

St. Therese on Being Holy

Sanctity does not consist in this or that practice, it consists in a disposition of the heart that makes us humble and little in God's arms, teaches us our weaknesses and inspires us with an almost presumptuous trust in his fatherly goodness.