A LITTLE FLOWER SHOWED US HOW

1 October 2005
Memorial of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face,
Virgin and Doctor of the Church

A LITTLE FLOWER SHOWED US HOW
Mt 18:1-5

Theresa Martin was born in Alencon, France in the year 1873. Her father was a watchmaker and her mother was a housewife who passed away while Theresa was still a little child. Obtaining a dispensation from the Holy See, Theresa entered the Carmelite monastery at Lisieux at a very young age of 15 years old only. She never stepped out of the same monastery from then on.

Inside the monastery, she lived a life of humility, simplicity and trust in God even as she served as sacristan and novice mistress. While she was looked up to by her fellow sisters, some among them also ridiculed her. While Theresa was lying in her deathbed, one sister was overheard saying to a fellow sister, “I wonder what Mother Abbess would write about Sour Therese. She has not done anything extraordinary.”

Indeed, Theresa did nothing but ordinary things inside the Carmelite monastery. But she did ordinary things extraordinarily well for love of God. She offered everything she did – no matter how simple and ordinary it was – for the salvation of souls and the growth of the Church. She would always pray for and sacrifice for priests and the missions.

After long and painful days of suffering tuberculosis of the bones, Theresa passed away on September 30, 1897, at the very young age of 24 years old. She left us with a beautiful and inspiring autobiography – written under obedience to the order of her Abbess – entitled “The Story of A Soul”. Though she was not a priest herself, she is patroness of priests. Though she did not go to the missions, she is patroness of the missions. And though she did not write other than her autobiography, she was declared by Pope John Paul II “Doctor of the Church”, the third woman to be given that title. Theresa is Doctor of Divine Love.

Theresa was a woman of great dreams, high ambition, and intense desire. Even as a child, she prayed to become a saint someday. Moreover, she wrote that she wanted to become three things: a priest, a missionary, and a martyr in some foreign land. All three things, God did not grant her. She could not become a priest because she was a woman. Instead of going to the missions, she lived most of her life secluded inside a monastery. She was not martyred in some distant land but she suffered the ridicule of her fellow sisters and a debilitating illness until she died. “Man proposes but God disposes” – we see this saying come alive in the life of Theresa. But through it all, she remained not only loveable but loving as well. She discovered the real essence of our vocation in life. Thus, she wrote in her autobiography: “Then, nearly ecstatic with the supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed: O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. Certainly I have found my proper place in the Church, and you gave me that very place, my God. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things, as my desire finds its direction.”

Theresa never got what she wanted. But she got what she prayed for: she became a saint. In God’s heavenly garden, Theresa was a little flower but certainly a big saint. Love makes little flowers big saints, for it is the perfection of love that makes people holy.

We learn three lessons from St. Theresa’s life:

First, we may have great dreams for our selves that are not necessarily unbecoming of a child of God. But God’s plans for us are always the best. We propose while God disposes; and we find joy in that. Our fulfillment in life is not in the fulfillment of our ambitions but in the fulfillment of God’s dreams for us. Like St. Theresa, we obey God’s will with childlike trust because we know and are convinced that God is our Father. He wants and does what is only best for us.

Second, holiness is for everyone. Holiness is not beyond our reach. Holiness is the perfection of love. The more loving we are the holier we become. When we do things with great love, ordinary things become extraordinary. When we do ordinary things extraordinarily well for love of God, we sanctify not only what we do but our selves as well. Whoever we are, whatever we do, wherever we go, doing things extraordinarily well for love of God is always possible because love knows no boundaries; and therefore holiness is always within our reach. We can become saints if we dream of becoming one. We can become saints if we love greatly. We can become saints because God wants us to become saints.

Third, as holiness is our common vocation, and holiness is the perfection of love, it is love that spells our greatness before God and men. Titles are very deceiving. They do not guarantee holiness of life. Priests are not first class citizens in the Kingdom of God. Lay people are not lesser in dignity compared with the ordained ministers. Our greatness is measured by our love. Are we priests who are loving or are we priest who simply enjoy being loved and adulated? Are lay persons who are loving or are we simply a loveable lay person? In the heart of the Church, our mother, let us be love, not only loved.

There is nothing wrong about desiring to be great. But, as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, our greatness is already found in our being a child of God. What can be greater than being a child of God? Nothing. St. Theresa showed us that by her childlike confidence in God.