As we enter the month of October, I always think of a poem we learned in elementary school entitled “October’s Bright Blue Weather.” Even considering the title brings gratitude for living in the Northeast of the USA because of all the natural beauty that we witness as trees put on a colorful show and big pots of fall mums can be seen everywhere. There is a bit of sadness mixed in with the dying down of garden-fresh vegetables and disappearing fields of corn, but the slowing of activity with the shortening of daylight calls to our need for rest. We do well to heed the advice.
Today Christians mark the feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, one of the most revered saints of the Catholic Church. She lived only 24 years, a simple life by all external standards, but is celebrated the world over for her life of love in God. There are many ways to get to know her – many books and commentaries on her life. Today I found a quote of hers that I had never heard before. It speaks to me of her spirituality as well as to the season that is ending and the one we are entering. It is perhaps most appropriate for one whom we know under the title of “The Little Flower.”
I understood that every flower created by God is beautiful, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would no longer be enameled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, Our Lord’s lovely garden.
Today Christians the world over celebrate an unlikely “celebrity” of the Church. For someone reading a sketch of her life for the first time – just the facts – St. Therese of Lisieux would appear to be no one special, although tragic maybe, because she only lived until the age of 24 years, having contracted tuberculosis at a young age. What one learns, however, in studying her own writings and the evidence in other sources, is that she is one of the most popular saints in the history of Christianity. How is this possible for someone who entered a cloistered Carmelite community at the age of 15 years and lived a daily routine of prayer and household tasks until her death nine years later?
Today people all over the world, especially in a small town in France called Lisieux, celebrate the feast of their most famous inhabitant of all, Therese Martin. She lived in Lisieux all her life, entered the Carmelite convent at age 15, never left, died at age 24 and was proclaimed a saint 28 years later, proving what Mother Teresa of Calcutta, one of the most recent saints named by the Roman Catholic Church believed: that it isn’t necessary to do great things but only to do small things with great love. Therese herself spoke that same language, noting that one might achieve holiness even in doing humble tasks like bending to pick up a pin if it is done with love. Who thinks that way? Obviously those suffused with God’s love who live ever conscious of God’s presence in all that they encounter in each moment of life – and beyond. Before she died, Therese was clear about eternal life. She said she planned to “spend my heaven doing good on earth.”
The Sophia Center for Spirituality 