I had
offered myself, for some time now, to the Child Jesus as his little plaything.
I told him not to use me as a valuable toy children are content to look at but
dare not touch, but to use me like a little ball of no value which he could
throw on the ground, push with His foot, pierce, leave in a corner, or press to
His heart if it pleased him; in a word, I wanted to amuse little Jesus, to give
Him pleasure; I wanted to give myself up to His childish whims. He heard my
prayer.
At Rome,
Jesus pierced His little plaything; He wanted to see what there was inside it
and having seen, content with His discovery, He let His little ball fall to the
ground and He went off to sleep. What did He do during His gentle sleep and
what became of the little abandoned ball? Jesus dreamed He was still playing
with His toy, leaving it and taking it up in turns, and then having seen it
roll quite far He pressed it to His heart, no longer allowing it to ever go far
from His little hand.
St.
Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul
Reflection – Just back from retreat, I don’t feel like
jumping back in with more of Humanae
Vitae, so we’ll skip that series for this weekend (cuz it’s my blo-og and
I’ll write what I want to, write what I want to…).
One of my
texts on retreat was Story of a Soul. Therese
is my oldest and dearest friend among the saints—I first read her autobiography
when I was about 20 and we have been buddies ever since. I suspect we might be
related; my maternal great-grandmother was a Martin, that part of France is
where much of the Canadian emigration came from, and there is a distinct family
resemblance between Therese and many of the women in my family.
Be that as it
may, we are spiritual kin, if not physical. And this passage is classic
Theresian spirituality. The context is her disastrous (as it seemed to her)
trip to Rome and her humiliating experience of petitioning the Pope to be
received into Carmel at fifteen and being kindly turned away, and the seeming
vanishing of her last earthly hope for an early entry to her vocation.
It is easy to
look at this event from a position of worldly scorn and dismiss it as
adolescent vapors at best, narcissistic entitlement at worst. It is easy to
roll our eyes and talk about neurosis and immaturity and a hundred other
reasons why it is proper to despise the spoiled little girl from Normandy. Many
do; many have.
It is easy to
point out that, if Therese had been at all versed in the ways of the world, she
would have known that it was not the Pope, but the Vicar General of the Bayeux diocese
who was watching her like a hawk throughout the pilgrimage, who really mattered
here, and that his good opinion of her was more weighty in the long run (which
is quite true, and in fact everything turned around dramatically upon their
return to Lisieux).
But she was
not versed in worldly ways (thank God), nor were her father or elder siblings
seemingly, and fifteen year old girls are not known generally for their long
view of things and sober mature perspective. And (this is the glory of
Therese), none of that matters. The point is her heart was broken, rightly or
wrongly, wisely or foolishly, and she saw in that breaking of her heart Jesus
taking her at her word and piercing her like a little ball of no account that
He could do with as He pleased. And this is how the silly little girl from
Normandy became a very great saint, one of the greatest.
It occurs to
me that the Lord, upon the birth of this little child, rubbed His hands
together in heaven and said ‘Ah, now here’s a challenge! Here is a life made up
of a succession of nothings, trivialities, ordinary events, joys, sorrows—not
even terribly long by any human reckoning… and a heart aflame with love. Let’s
show these foolish human creatures of mine just what it takes to make a great
saint: nothing… and love.’
And this is
the great glory and beauty of Therese. It is not that her life is
extraordinary. It really isn’t. Heck, I’ve been to Rome, as have millions upon
millions of people. It is not an extraordinary life; it is that she saw in
every movement of her life a movement of Jesus. In joy, Jesus was embracing her
to his heart; in sorrow and desolation, he was piercing her, throwing her into
a corner; in dryness and aridity, he was asleep, having completely forgotten
about his little ball.
And she loved
Him enough, had a nobility and greatness of spirit enough, that this pleased
her, even through her adolescent tears and (perhaps) overdone emotions. She was
generous enough and humble enough to offer herself as a ball to child Jesus,
and to see in the ordinary trials of life his acceptance of that offer. And
that’s what it takes to make a saint in this world—not great deeds or epic
sufferings, but great love and generosity that makes every deed, however small,
an act of love, every sorrow, however small, an act of abandonment.
