Conference 2 | Love as a Vocation Transcript
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Merciful and loving Father, we come to You in this our second conference reflecting upon the life of St. Therese. We pray that You will enlighten our minds and speak to our hearts, and move us to greater acts of charity, especially towards the poorest of the poor. We make this prayer through Christ, our Lord. Amen. St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Again, we continue with our theme which is speaking of the life of St. Therese and imitating her in the virtue that she shows to us. And the virtue that she shows to us is the virtue of charity. And as I said in our first conference, if we look at charity, or love, and we compare it to mercy, they’re interconnected. They’re like two sides to the same coin. So when we speak about God’s love, we speak about His mercy. We realize they’re two sides of the same coin. And we also remember our Lord’s words where He says ‘Be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful’. And so, we strive to do the very same thing in our own lives.
Drawing from the sources that we’ve been using; obviously ‘The story of the soul’, the autobiography of St. Therese; and then ‘The little way of St. Therese [of Lisieux]’ by John Nelson; and another book that I’ve found just to be, I really think it’s a spiritual classic, and it’s called ‘Under the Torrent of His love’ this, and it refers to St. Therese as a spiritual genius, which I also agree. And it’s by a Fr. Eugene Marie of the Little Child of Jesus, drawing his name, his religious name from that of St. Therese. But ‘Under the Torrent of His love’. And I would say outside of her own autobiography, if you really want to understand her little way, and especially her understanding of God’s mercy, this would be the best book. It’s a fabulous book; outstanding book; not too thick, but it’s one of these things you have to work yourself slowly through, and it’s just not a ‘front-to-back read’. It’s something you really want to draw on, the beauty that draws from it, that we could gain from it.
So, first Corinthians 11, chapter 11, verse 1 ‘Be an imitator of me as I am an imitator of Christ’. We look at St. Therese and we see how it is that she shows us that virtue of love, and especially also mercy; two sides, same coin.
If we look at the life of St. Therese, there’s a theme that she constantly draws from, gives to us, and it’s the image of stairs. And, you know, whether it was in her family home; whether it was in the Carmel; wherever it was; she always has these images of stairs; and she herself even walking up the stairs gave her an opportunity to reflect upon these things. I know sometimes if I have gone in retreats and I got off to go on a nice little walk, I know that the Lord really blessed me with quiet time, to reflect upon certain things, and to gain spiritual insights. And St. Therese, she was one who came to understand that very well in relationship to the stairs. There’s uhm… when she was being asked the question about God’s mercy by the novices, and the community (and this would be towards the end of her life); when she was asked \ about that, and she was trying to explain her image of God' mercy, how she came to understand, she’d say this: she said, 'It’s like we are a little child. And a little child who is in search for his mother, and crying out for his mother. And the little child’s looking to the top of the steps. And so, the image that she
gave us is God, who is this Merciful Father, is at the top of the steps. And we were able to, you know, descend these steps if we’re able to do that, we’ve God’s given gifts, and talents in order to be able to do that. But, uhm, but really not to the fullest degree. Really not to the fullest of our abilities. All we‘ve got to do, He would say this, we got to do some sort of effort, right? Make some sort of effort, because we're so small, because we're so little and we can barely maybe even lift up our foot. But in doing that, making that effort -what she said-, what God does, the Father who loves us so much, is He comes down the stairs, He doesn't require us to go up by ourselves, but He swoops us into His arms, and He takes us up to the top of the stairs'. And so, the imagery that we're receiving, that is the image of Heaven.
You know, we don't live a life that is a passive life, where we just sit back and we allow God to do everything for us. God first acts in our life; He acts in our life out of love and what we are called to do, the only proper response to love is love itself. We're called to, to, you know, lift that foot, lift that foot, make that gesture towards heaven, and our Lord in His love and His mercy for us, for all of us, He comes down and He embraces us, sweeps us up into His arms and carries us up into heaven. It was an image that she has given to us, the image of mercy, and that desire to ascend to heaven.
As I mentioned in our first talk, a lot of what she comes to understand in terms of God’s mercy, she comes to know from her father, her saintly father (literally saintly father), Saint Louis Martin. And much of that had to do with how he just spoiled her, in a good sense; not in a bad sense, you know, he didn’t spoil her rotten, but what he did was, he spoiled her and showered her with affection. And so, the love and the affection that we show other people, that can give others an insight into God’s love and His mercy. Our love, our mercy that we show to people we know is imperfect, but we get a foretaste of it, we gain a glimpse into what God’s mercy is all about.
And so, what does that tell to us in terms of how is it that we are to approach our God, and to live our life as the little way of St. Therese? It means that we have to make a gesture, we have to make the smallest of movements, right? In other words, we don’t want to flee from our Lord, or walk back from our Lord, or just remain passive. But our actions, in some ways, somehow, always must be directed towards God. and that’s an expression of love. The only proper response to love is love itself, and God loves us in terms of… comes downs and swoops us in His arms and carries us up into heaven. But our orientation always has to be for the Lord.
There’s a beautiful little quote that she has. Her father has taken her into Paris. And she has seen an elevator for the very first time in her life (this is someone who gains a lot of spiritual insight in stairs). And so, she’s seen an elevator for the first time, and she said, ‘We live in an age of inventions. We need no longer climb up a flight of stairs with great effort. I’m determined to find an elevator to carry me to Jesus, as I was too small to climb the steep steps of perfection. In Holy Scriptures it says I saw the
elevator and I wanted and I read: ‘Whoever is a little one, let them come to me’. So, she saw,
transferring that notion of the stairs to an elevator, easier access, much faster, and much of that just comes simply being little, being like a little child, and approaching our Lord in that way as well. Saint Therese even at a young age had a great spiritual maturity, and she had this… (it wasn’t always that way), but she had a great spiritual maturity that happened to her on Christmas Eve. And it happened in a place where she was praying, that she could be more generous of giving of herself to
others, and giving of herself to Jesus. And this is something she desired and she longed to do. And at that moment, you know, what she heard was, she heard: ‘Therese, get over yourself, it’s not about you.’ In other words, He was calling her to a much higher level, to a much greater level in maturity. And when we think about our own prayer life: what does our prayer life look like? You know, we have prayers; think about: different kinds of prayers. We have prayers of petitions (‘I want, give me!’), right? Those are the things we teach little children when they are young, to always ask for things, and ask for them, and ask for them politely, and that’s something that's good, something that we want to do most of our lives. We’ve got prayers of intercession, where we can ask somebody to intercede on our behalf; we do that with saint Therese, asking her to intercede in our behalf. And we have prayers (and this is a sign of spiritual growth in our own lives), prayers of thanksgiving, where we say thank you. Now when we are little and we ask for something, a lot of times a little kid would say ‘give me… give me… give me!’. And what do we have to teach the little child to say? ‘Thank you’. Say ‘thank you!’ And as they grow older, and older, and older, that becomes second nature. It’s a sign of maturity. Well, it’s the same with us in our prayer life. You know, when we are little we rely upon God for all things, and we want to do that throughout our entire life. But it’s a sign of our spiritual maturity; we want to make sure that we are setting aside times to offer prayers of thanksgiving. And that happened with the life of saint Therese. When she had, in 1886, on Christmas Eve, when she had this, uhm, this spiritual awakening. Where she heard our Lord say ‘It’s not about you’, right? It’s just not about you. But to realize she was a member of this corporate body, right?, she was a member of the body of Christ. And so, it had a great, great impact on her life.
So, thinking about, for ourselves, what does our prayer life look like? Saint Therese says that, ‘Prayer is
raising one’s heart and one’s mind to God’. So, it’s an act of, kind of moving beyond ourselves. Lifting
our hearts and our minds, raising our hearts and our minds to the One Who has the power to save us, whether they’re prayers of, you know, petitions, things we’re asking for; whether they’re prayers of intercession for someone else; or as we're speaking now, whether they're prayers of thanksgiving. You know, it takes that act of the will to be able to do that, to raise one heart and one’s mind to God and to realize that, He can, right? He has the power to save us. And to look for those little blessings that we have in our lives, and to offer prayers of thanksgiving. Now, we know the highest form of prayer is the mass, and we know Eucharist comes from the word of thanksgiving. And so, each time we enter into the celebration of the sacrifice of the mass, I think that’s important for us to remember that, as we come from our daily lives and we come into mass, that we want to bring those things before the Lord. Not only that we need the things in our hearts, but also the things that we are thankful for. Because what is the act of, the primary act of the mass? Is to offer praise and thanksgiving to God. Praise and
thanksgiving to God, that’s our primary act. Sometimes people think that is to come get something; we DO get something: we’re blessed with the Word, and we’re blessed with the eucharist. But it’s our primary act, is to offer praise and thanksgiving to God. And in doing so, what we’re doing is, we’re giving something to God that is rightfully His, and only His; that’s an act of justice, right? But giving something to Him that is His, that is His and ONLY His, and that being our praise and our worship. And in doing so what we do is, we acknowledge Him for who He is: He is our God, and we are His people.
So, Therese too, in her own prayer life, she reflected this, she said she prayed: ‘It is your arms Jesus which are the elevator to carry me to heaven. There’s no need for me to grow. In fact, just the opposite: I must become less and less’. So what she was doing, even as a young child, she was living that life, that
spiritual childhood, that spiritual poverty, that little way, even as a very, very young child. When we hear those words that she must become less, I think we think about saint John the Baptist, ‘I must decrease in order that He might increase’. In order we might be, we should be poor in spirit, so that we can be filled up with the Spirit of the Lord. That’s also very, very important for us.
So saint Therese, the virtue that she really models for us, is that model of love, love of God, and love of neighbor. And there’s a story that was told: when she was young, that she was with her father (this was not long before she was making her holy communion, and she was with her father), and she saw a poor man; it was probably a beggar, a poor man, somebody who was in great need. And she heard that on the day of first holy communion, the Lord would grant whatever you would ask of Him. Now, obviously, it has to be something that’s good, can’t ask for something that’s bad, because God loves us and only wants what’s best for us; and so she heard this, that she could ask for anything on the day of your first holy communion. And so, on the day of her first holy communion that’s what she did. So Jesus, who was reaching out to her, and who was loving her, and who was imparting His very own life within her, was moving her to a greater act of charity. And we have proof of that, by that on the day of her first holy communion she offered her prayers and intentions for that poor man. Now, we don’t know if she ever saw the man again, we don’t know whatever happened of the man, but we do know that she offered up the day of her first holy communion for this poor man. That’s an act of charity. Charity is willing the good of the other. And we want to imitate that example that saint Therese set before us; the perfect act, the way to do this is to also pray for people. Praying for people is an act of charity.
The eucharist in the life of saint Therese was central. There’s a beautiful story about her when she reflects about her holy communion as well as receiving holy communion after that. First of all, I remember reading, ‘and she was reflecting upon the day that she received holy communion. And essentially she said that on that day it was no longer Therese and Jesus, but rather she became one with
Jesus. In a sense, if we look at the ocean, and we see an ocean as an image of God’s mercy, and we see
ourselves as being dropped into that, a drop of water being dropped into that ocean, we become one with the ocean’; and she said, she ‘being the little one, the little way, she became one with Jesus like
never before’. And that makes perfect sense to all of us because Jesus tells us that: ‘He who eats my
flesh and drinks my blood, has my very own life within him'. And Jesus gives us that promise that what
He will do, is He will raise us up, right? He will raise us up. And as we know from John's gospel, chapter 6, 'My body is true food, my blood is true drink… he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood…', right? Jesus tells us that over, and over, and over again. And also when we receive the holy communion, to remember that what we receive, and what we have at that moment is a guaranteed encounter with the living Christ, guaranteed encounter with the living Christ. We know that when we come forward to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, although it may appear under the form of bread and wine, that ‘it is simply bread and wine’. But we know that those; the substance that it truly is, although the substance like saint Thomas would tell us, the substance of what it truly is: it is the body and blood of Jesus Christ. So it's an encounter with the living Christ, a guaranteed encounter with the living Christ. And saint Therese understood that. On the day of her first holy communion, it was not longer Therese and Jesus, but she became one with Jesus. And that happens to us in a deep and profound way every time that we receive first holy communion.
Saint Therese, too, on the day of her first holy communion, she cried tears of joy, great joy, of intense joy from her heart. Now, remember: when she was 4 years-old she lost her mother; and so when people saw her come forward to receive our Lord, and they saw her weeping, crying, they thought, ‘Well, she’s missing her mother. She wishes her mother were here with her at this very moment’. But that’s not the reason for the prayers, the tears. The reason for the tears was that she had such intense joy in her heart because, again: she was one with Jesus, in a very deep and at a profound moment. And we think about that also, what does it do for us? What does it do for us when we come in to celebrate the mass? The mass is a foretaste of the holy banquet; with the mass for us, we get a foretaste of the heavenly banquet; it draws us back up into heaven. So when she received that, not only was she just simply ‘missing her mother’, but she was having an experience of, she would be forever eventually with her mother who is in (forever), in heaven. She would be with her mother too, enjoying the heavenly banquet. So it was drawing her up, was lifting her up. So, many people thought she was missing her mother but she wasn’t. She was rejoicing, and that her mother was forever with God in heaven. So, what a great, great blessing, right? Blessing that was to her into her own life when she was reflecting upon having received holy communion.
So, we come back to that whole notion of who saint Therese is. Saint Therese is that apostle of love. (Apostle: one who is sent). And really sent into the world to give us an insight, a glimpse of what the love of God looks like. She came to know that through the love that she was shown, from her mother at a very young age; and then also through her father throughout her life, she came to understand that, right? Gaining a glimpse into the love that other people show. And so, WE can gain a glimpse by looking into her own life and thinking about that too. As a, we can also express, in showing our love toward others; we can also be an expression of the love that Christ has for us, and hopefully in doing so, what that would do is, that would draw another person, another people into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. So, be an imitator of me, in as much as I am an imitator of Jesus Christ. Saint Therese, we look at her as the one who models that virtue of love. And what is love? Love is willing the good of the other. And then we also gain that great insight, that deep insight into the mercy of the heavenly Father
through the mercy that she came to understand through her father. And the final reminder of that, what
is mercy? Mercy we come to understand by comparing it to justice. Justice is giving something to
someone that is rightfully his; but mercy goes beyond that. Mercy is giving something to someone that is rightfully mine. And every time we gaze upon a crucified Lord, we see mercy personified. Every time we come forward to receive our Lord in the eucharist, we receive Mercy Himself, we receive Jesus. Because Jesus gives of His life, He gives of Himself for the life of the world. And He gives of Himself to us in the eucharist in order to strengthen us; in order to nourish us; in order to us to be the good and faithful disciples that Christ is calling us to be. And we see that modeled, right? that example set before us, in that beautiful example of saint Therese.
Final words: when Therese was reflecting upon all the great things that she wanted to do: she wanted to be a missionary. She wanted to be a warrior. She wanted to be a priest. This whole litany of all these things that she wanted to be. And these are all great things, right? these are all wonderful, wonderful things, but she finally comes down to the last moment; it boils down to one thing for her when she understands her vocation: ‘Ah! I know my vocation, finally!’ And is the same vocation that we all have: ‘My vocation is to love!. That’s my vocation’. And that’s why she’s that apostle of charity for all of us.
So, as we reflect upon her and her vocation discovering to love, we too realize that that IS our vocation. To love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength and being. And to love our neighbor as ourselves. That’s the path that we should all desire for ourselves; that’s the path that we should set our lives on, and we know that that’s the path that would lead us towards where saint Therese is at this moment: and that is eternal life with God in heaven. So may she intercede on behalf of all of us, that we too can be good and faithful servants just as she was; and we too can be apostles of the love of Christ.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Good and gracious Father, we are grateful for the many gifts that You have given us, but also especially today, we are grateful for the gift of the example of the life of saint Therese, who gives us a deep and profound insight into Your love and into Your mercy. As she imitated Your example of mercy, so too, may we be generous in giving of ourselves to others, and may we all act with the charity that is an imitation of Your Son who gave up of His life, for the life of the world. We make this prayer through Christ, our Lord, Amen. Saint Therese of Lisieux, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
