Continuing to Follow the Little Marian Way with Saint Thérèse
Our hearts overflow with joy today as we celebrate the feast of the great petite Thérèse. She brought us, as a monastic family, to this property of Silverstream, and she has personally led so many of us monks. She is our secondary patroness and the patroness of our novitiate. Before we occupied this property, the Visitandines had already dedicated their monastery to Saint Thérèse. In 2019, we dedicated a statue outside the novitiate to the Little Flower.
What Thérèse did, but through Mary
In August, Vultus Christi dedicated four posts to the subject of total consecration to Mary, taking inspiration from the teaching of Saint Thérèse. First, we looked at Saint Thérèse’s offering to Merciful Love along with Saint Louis de Montfort’s Total Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then, in the second post, it became clear that spiritual childhood and the reality that we are the children of Mary is the very basis and inspiration for Total Consecration. Then, the question arose: just how does Saint Louis de Montfort’s idea of slavery fit together with this reality that Mary is our mother and we are her children, and the fact that this is the basis for true devotion to her? Finally, we proposed a Theresian view of true devotion to Mary as a living out of the games of love that children play when they love their mothers very much.
Saint Thérèse was deeply devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Father John Hardon quotes her blood sister, Mother Agnes, as saying that Saint Thérèse was very familiar with True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, had made the Total Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and considered this fact very important. The Blessed Virgin is present throughout all her texts, and her tender, filial love for the Blessed Virgin Mary permeates all that she writes. Some months before she died, she composed a beautiful poem on the Blessed Virgin entitled: “Why I Love You Mary.” She said it summarised all her thoughts on the Blessed Virgin.
Nonetheless, the writings of Saint Thérèse indicate an instinct to go directly to Jesus. Certainly she does make her prayers through Mary when she does not want Jesus to feel obligated to grant her her prayers, but her heart is always naturally inclining towards Jesus — as we would expect the heart of a bride to do for her bridegroom! Her vision of Jesus is one of tenderness and complete confidence in His Love and His Infinite Mercy. Nowhere in her writings is there the fear of Jesus’ anger or wrath towards sin that is given by many Saints as a reason for devotion to Mary. Her writings tend to focus on mercy, confidence, love, and spiritual childhood with respect to Jesus and to God the Father. Mary is there, but the emphasis is on her Son. For instance, she entrusts her oblation to Merciful Love to Mary, but it is made to the Trinity and to the Lord Jesus without explicitely being made through Mary. It is an interesting question worth examining at another time whether Saint Thérèse could have made her offering through Mary, and what that would have meant!
Even though Saint Thérèse did not write much about going through Mary, many of the things she wrote work well if we apply them to Mary, and I think she would have been fully favourable to this holy liberty! After all, she took the liberty of putting the very words of the Lord in her own mouth when she said: “It is better for you that I go.” Surely she would rejoice to hear her words applied to Mary.
Lectio Divina
The four stages of Spiritual Reading (Lectio Divina), as classically ennumerated by Guigo the Carthusian in his seminal work The Ladder of Monks, are:
- Lectio — the attentive, slow, and prayerful reading of a spiritual text for the purpose of prayer.
- Meditatio — the lingering upon, ruminating over, and repetition that attempts to understand the text, to make it one’s own, to have it make that long journey from the head to the heart such that it becomes part of oneself, and also to associate it and bring it together with other texts, doctrines, and spiritual truths. Meditation is a rich exercise that involves the senses (and the imagination is one of our inner senses), emotions, intellect, memory, and will.
- Oratio — which takes inspiration from the meditation to transform what one has read into prayer and to turn the heart to pray.
- And, sometimes, God raises the soul to contemplatio, or the wordless loving gaze upon God and His attributes that unites the soul to God in love.
For the rest of the post, let us present various texts of Saint Thérèse, and then, in short meditationes, let us linger over their Marian moral sense to try to glean from it how we would live true devotion to Mary in a Theresian manner.
Mary is “Our Mother”
(LT 127) April 26, 1891 From Thérèse to Céline.“Our Father, who art in heaven”? Oh! how consoling are these words, what infinite horizons they open to our eyes….
How consoling it is to think of Mary as our Mother! How unbounded the horizons this thought opens our eyes too!
Mary Caresses Us
(Story of a Soul, Ch VII): The Bishop came into the cloister…and was very kind to me. I believe he was very proud I had succeeded and told everyone I was “his little girl.” He was always kind to me on his return trips to the Carmel. I remember especially his visit on the occasion of our Father St. John of the Cross’s Centenary. He took my head in his hands and gave me a thousand caresses; never was I so honored! At the same time, God reminded me of the caresses He will bestow on me in the presence of the angels and saints, and now He was giving me only a faint image of this. The consolation I experienced at this thought was very great indeed!
Will not Mary too give us a thousand carresses in the presence of the angels and the saints? When will we ever have been so honoured!
God Looks upon Mary’s Merits
~(LT 77) From Thérèse to M. Martin. January 8, 1889: I have, nevertheless, done nothing to be worthy of such a great grace, but God has been pleased to look upon the merits of my dear Father [i.e., Saint Louis Martin], and it is because of this that He is granting me this remarkable favour.
We have done nothing worthy of the favour of the Father and of the Most Blessed Trinity. But surely God looks upon the merits of our dear heavenly Mother, and it is because of this that He grants us such remarkable favours!
To Please Her
(LT 143) July 18, 1893 From Thérèse to Céline: Céline, do you understand? It is not for the purpose of weaving my crown, gaining merits, it is in order to please Jesus…. When I do not have any opportunities, I want at least to tell Him frequently that I love Him; this is not difficult, and it keeps the fire going. Even though this fire of love would seem to me to have gone out, I would like to throw something on it, and Jesus could then relight it. Céline, I am afraid I have not said what I should; perhaps you will think I always do what I am saying. Oh, no! I am not always faithful, but I never get discouraged; I abandon myself into the arms of Jesus. The little drop of dew goes deeper into the calyx of the flower of the fields, and there it finds again all it has lost and even much more.
Do we not understand? We should give all to Mary, and not for the purpose of weaving our own crowns, of gaining merits, but solely in order to please Mary, and Jesus through her. And it is not hard to please her. If we have no opportunity to do good works or sacrifice anything, we can at least tell Mary frequently that we love her, and Jesus is delighted to know we love her, and we can tell her we love Jesus too! This is not so difficult. And it keeps the fire going. But even were this fire of love to seem to have gone out, all we would have to do is throw some little nothing on it, and Mary would relight it. No, no, we are not always faithful, but with Mary — with Mother-Love — how could we ever get discouraged? Let us abandon ourselves to her maternal arms, as a baby carried at his mother’s breast, and let her put us in the arms of Jesus, abandoned to both. This will make us even more delightful to Jesus and to Mary.
Give All Things to Mary
Last Conversations, Yellow Notebook of Mother Agnes, July 12, n 3: I hold nothing in my hands. Everything I have, everything I merit is for the Church and for souls. If I were to live to eighty, I will always be as poor as I am now.
To hold nothing! To enter heaven with empty hands! To have given everything to Mary. Everything merited to give to her, for the Church, for souls! If we live to a hundred and twenty, let it be the same: let us live poor. Let us die poor.
Working for Mary
Last Conversations, Yellow Notebook of Mother Agnes, Aug 18, n 3: “I [Mother Agnes] asked: ‘You want to acquire merits?’ [St. Thérèse answered]: ‘Yes, but not for myself; for poor sinners, for the needs of the whole Church; finally, to cast flowers upon everybody, the just and the sinners.’”
Let us give Mary all we have, past, present, and future, and all the value of our satisfactions and prayers, all we could merit, for love of Mary, to please Mary, for her to use for poor sinners and for the needs of the Church, and so as to cast flowers upon everyone, the just and the sinners. Even the littlest thing given to Mary can cast these flowers. And since it is so easy to do, let us not shy away from even hard and rugged things, nor deny her even things that seem unworthy. Let us work for her like a slave, but a slave of love!
Everything We Do
“I would not want to have picked up a pin to avoid purgatory. Everything I did was done to please God, to save souls for Him”; “You do a great injury to God in believing you’re going to go to purgatory. When we love, we can’t go there.” “From Sister Marie of the Eucharist to M. Guérin,” In Last Conversations, July 8, 1897
Let us give everything to Mary, keeping nothing for ourselves, not even to lesson our stay in purgatory! As Saint Teresa of Jesus said: what does it matter if we are in purgatory will the end of the world? Are not the eternal souls that Mary loves so much worth utterly forgetting ourselves?
When One Loves, One Does Not Count
(LT 224) June 7, 1897, L’abbé Bellière to Thérèse, quoting Saint Thérèse’s poem Vivre d’Amour!. L’abbé Bellière writes: ‘Father told me: “You must give yourself to God totally, who is asking all from you; you cannot be in His service by halves, you will be a good priest or nothing.” This is my own sentiment, and I want to give without counting, being very sure “That when one loves, one does not count,” so that when I set foot on African soil, I may continue:
“I have given all…lightly I run.
I have nothing any longer
but my only riches,
To live by Love!”
O Mary! Your love is so great! How could we count the cost? How could we love by halves? Is there not a sense in which it must be all or nothing for us? With Saint Thérèse, we choose all! No, dearest Mother, not by halves! Giving all, lightly let us run, then shall we have nothing any longer. Our only riches? To live by love of you, and Jesus in you. To live by the Spirit of Love alone!
Even the Just Sadness, Consequences, and Punishments Due to Sin
Last Conversations, Yellow Notebook of Mother Agnes, July 3, n. 2.: I hasten to say to God: My God, I know I have merited this feeling of sadness, but let me offer it up to You just the same as a trial that You sent me through love. I’m sorry for my sin, but I’m happy to have this suffering to offer to You”
Some think they must hold back from giving Mary the sufferings they richly deserve because of their own fault. Let us know better. Saint Louis de Montfort says that Mary knows how to cut the rot out of a bad apple and make it pleasing to God. Saint Thérèse gave everything to the Merciful Love of Jesus, knowing that the Mercy of Jesus had to stoop down to nothingness. She believed that even the sorrow caused by sin could be given to Jesus’ Mercy. Is not Mary something like the Mercy of God in a Mother, in a Human Person? Shall we not be bold to give her everything, even if it seems unworthy? What would a sinful human mother do if her child came with all his miseries? Can Mary be less generous?
Until There is Nothing Left
Céline, don’t you find that on this earth there is nothing left for us! Jesus wills to have us drink His chalice to the dregs by leaving our dear Father over there. Ah! let us refuse Him nothing; He has so much need of love and He is so thirsty that He expects from us the drop of water that must refresh Him!. . . Ah! let us give without counting the cost. One day, He will say: “now, my turn.”
How much Mary’s maternal heart suffers because sinners are closing themselves off to Jesus, their only true joy and the health of their soul? She is thirsty to help them, thirsty for them to love Jesus. Mary, grant that we may refuse you nothing! No longer to count the cost! And then, surely, one day we’ll hear you say: “Now it’s my turn.”
Recognise our Nothingness
Last Conversations, Yellow Notebook of Mother Agnes, Aug 6, n. 8. Mother Agnes writes: I asked her to explain what she meant by “remaining a little child before God.”
She said: “It is to recognise our nothingness, to expect everything from God as a little child expects everything from its father; it is to be disquieted about nothing, and not to be set on gaining our living. Even among the poor, they give the child what is necessary, but as soon as he grows up, his father no longer wants to feed him and says: ‘Work now, you can take care of yourself.’ It was so as not to hear this that I never wanted to grow up, feeling that I was incapable of making my living, the eternal life of heaven.”
Mary, our confidence in you…can it have any limits? If we will live to be a hundred and twenty, will we still not be your little ones? Why store up treasure for ourselves when we are so small that we are unable to make a living? Let’s just give everything to you, and you can distribute it as you will. Then, if we need anything, you’ll give it to us for nothing.
To Copy Her Virtues
(LT 172) From Thérèse to Mme. Guérin. November 17, 1894: These are the ones who on earth have copied your virtues in order to perfume this sad world and that God might still encounter here below some flowers that charm Him and hold back His arm which would punish the wicked….
These exact words, can they not be applied to Mary?
See her as God’s Merciful Goodness Manifest
Story of a Soul, Chapter VIII: To me He has granted His infinite Mercy, and through it I contemplate and adore the other divine perfections! All of these perfections appear to be resplendent with love; even His Justice and perhaps this even more so than the others seems to me clothed in love. What a sweet joy it is to think that God is Just, i.e., that He takes into account our weakness, that He is perfectly aware of our fragile nature. What should I fear then? Ah! must not the infinitely just God, who deigns to pardon the faults of the prodigal son with so much kindness, be just also toward me who “am with Him always”?
Mary, you are the source of such confidence in the Merciful Goodness of God! In you we see all His attributes clothed in such love! What a sweet joy it is to think that God is Just, and that He takes into account the littleness of His Lowly Handmaid. Ah! must not He pardon the faults of your little ones for whom you pray? Will He not be so just as to be tender towards us, we who are your little children, always with you?
Confidence
(LT 129) From Thérèse to Céline. July 8, 1891: Let us not grow tired of prayer; confidence works miracles. And Jesus said to Blessed Margaret Mary: “One just soul has so much power over my Heart that it can obtain pardon for a thousand criminals.” No one knows if one is just or sinful, but, Céline, Jesus gives us the grace of feeling at the bottom of our heart that we would prefer to die rather than to offend Him; and then it is not our merits but those of our Spouse, which are ours, that we offer to Our Father who is in heaven, in order that our brother, a son of the Blessed Virgin [i.e., a fallen-away priest for whom Saint Thérèse was praying], return vanquished to throw himself beneath the mantle of the most merciful of Mothers….
Confidence in you works miracles, O Blessed Virgin! Your soul has such power over the Sacred Heart. You can obtain pardon for billions of crimals! No, we know not if we are just or sinful, but your maternal love makes us feel at the bottom of our heart that we would prefer to die rather than lose you. All your merits are ours, as are also all the merits of your Son. We offer them to the Father who is Our Father, and you are become a Daughter in Him. We thank you that Jesus has truly become our brother from you.
Story of a Soul Ch VII Ah! I recognized here the thoughtfulness of my dear Céline, and it’s really true that “love never sees anything as impossible, for it believes everything is possible and everything is permitted.” Human prudence, on the other hand, trembles at each step and doesn’t dare to set down its foot, so to speak, and so God willed to try me and He made use of it as a docile instrument. On the day of my wedding I was really an orphan, no longer having a Father on this earth and being able to look to heaven with confidence, saying in all truth: “Our Father who art in Heaven…”
For Mary, nothing is impossible. Let us believe this! Let us trust in her with all out heart, leaning not on our own understanding. She is our mother who is in heaven.
Story of a Soul Ch IV: I always feel, however, the same bold confidence of becoming a great saint because I don’t count on my merits since I have none, but I trust in Him who is Virtue and Holiness. God alone, content with my weak efforts, will raise me to Himself and make me a saint, clothing me in His infinite merits.
Let us let Mary raise us up in her maternal arms and clothe us in the merits of Jesus Christ.
Everything We Give Her is Big
Letters 2, LT 164: “Let us wound Jesus by our eye and by a single hair, this is, by the greatest thing and by the littlest. Let us not refuse Him the least sacrifice. Everything is so big in religion… to pick up a pin out of love can convert a soul. What a mystery!…”
Nothing is too small to give her. She makes everything big.
Letters 1, LT 85. “Jesus wills to make their salvation depend on one sigh from our heart. . . . What a mystery! If one sigh can save a soul, what can sufferings like ours not do?. . . Let us refuse Jesus nothing!. . .”
Even one sigh is enough for Mary to save a soul!
Letters 1, LT 93: “Don’t lose any of the thorns you are meeting every day; with one of them you can save a soul!. . .”
Each thorn that we meet, like each tear of Our Lady shed during Our Lord’s Passion, can save a soul!
