April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
I was living in Texas 20 years later and taking a course in Christian spirituality when I came to understand her life and relate to her spirit. We were each assigned a saint to study; I was given Therese. I read her autobiography, "Story of a Soul," and her letters.
I was struck by her passion, humanness and deep desire to love. She is a spiritual warrior, a disciple of mercy and a friend on the journey -- yet, in literature, she's often portrayed in a saccharine, conservative way. This disempowers her and her insights into God and people.
During my studies at seminary, many were drawn to her as one who intercedes for priests and because she was obedient and in love with Jesus. To many, she was seen as a model of perfection.
I couldn't disagree more. To me, St. Therese is a model of imperfection. She knew what it meant to be human and experience weakness, mentally and physically. Her faith and experience taught her these were not barriers to overcome, but conduits of grace.
For St. Therese, these dimensions of her humanity were reasons to seek mercy and healing, rather than holding out for cures and finding the "right" way. She rejoiced in her flaws and littleness, even though the spirituality of her day was dominated by the pursuit of perfection, often in extreme ways.
St. Therese chose to go inward. She embarked on an intense, often dark journey with God. She was dissatisfied with spiritual sources of her day, in literature and in people, trusting instead in the God who came to her mercifully in her perceived nothingness and "transformed that nothingness into fire."
This understanding of her humanness as the meeting place with God, in the simplest of our experiences, made ordinary people like my Granddad follow what she called her "little way." There is nothing little or weak about her way. It is radical. It plunges us into the mystery and reality of the incarnation: God becoming one of us.
Even today, that is countercultural to much of what we see in Church and society, which tries to determine who is in and out, based on how perfect they are.
(Sister Victoria is vice president for mission integration at Maria College, Albany.)[[In-content Ad]]
MORE NEWS STORIES
VIDEOS
SOCIAL MEDIA
OSV NEWS
- Inspired by millennial soon-to-be-saint, Irish teens create animated Lego-Carlo Acutis film
- Anxiety, uncertainty follow Trump travel ban
- Supreme Court rules in favor of Wisconsin Catholic agency over religious exemption
- Analysts: Trump’s action on Harvard, Columbia could have implications for religious groups
- Commission tells pope universal safeguarding guidelines almost ready
- Council of Nicaea anniversary is call to Christian unity, speakers say
- Vatican office must be place of faith, charity, not ambition, pope says
- Pope Leo XIV names Uganda-born priest as bishop of Houma-Thibodaux
- Report: Immigration data ‘much lower’ than Trump administration claims
- Religious freedom in Russia continues to decline, say experts
Comments:
You must login to comment.