The atomic habits of St. Therese of Lisieux
I used to be one of those people that were like “oh I love St. Joan of Arc, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Paul, St. Teresa of Avila” because I thought they were Cool and Heroic and they did Big Things
And whenever someone would talk about “The Little Flower of Lisieux” I was like “mehhhhh… okay”
Not in a way that was totally disrespectful, but not totally aware of the enormity of her interior life
You’d have to read The Story of the Soul to really appreciate just WHY she is a doctor of the Church
(She’s the Doctor of Divine Love, btw)
Because St. Therese? She was in the details
They like to say the devil is in the details, but let’s face it— God is in the details, and in his mercy and wisdom, he placed St. Therese there for us to learn from and imitate in our own ways
She had to reconcile her great desire to be a saint with the enormous legacies of the saints that came before her, especially Joan of Arc and St. Teresa of Avila
(She, along with St. Joan, are the patron saints of France. I’m sure that’s something St. Therese never dreamed of)
And she had the realization that God would not have given her a desire that she was incapable of, and that there must be a way for someone “as small as her” to become a great saint
Which lead her to meditate on Mathew 18:4 (Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven)
And she was like “oh, okay. This desire planted into my heart is an invitation to become a little child, because the Lord wants to be the one to carry me to Heaven”
(I am heavily paraphrasing so that you guys won’t be spoiled for Story of a Soul. Go read it!!!)
All of this is to say that her writings and her life reflect a simple but profound theology
The Little Way is one of total dependence on the providence of God, of total surrender and self-mortification— the emptying of the cup of one’s self little by little, so that the Lord can fill it with his graces and abundance, and ultimately, with His own divine self
The Little Way is one of the smallest acts of radical love, because the only person who needs to see it is God
The Little Way is St. Therese going out of her way to nurse the nuns that she didn’t get along well with
The Little Way is St. Therese is doing her best to hold cheerful conversations with a particularly surly nun
The Little Way is St. Therese relishing being splashed with dirty laundry water as a sign of the smallest of suffering that only God would see
I called this particular post her “atomic habits,” because she believed that small acts can lead to holiness when done with great love for our Lord
Small acts of love and self mortification were the things that she sought for while in the Carmel
St. Therese elucidated in her signature sincere and effervescent style the enduring idea that there is no suffering too small, no act of love too small, to offer the Lord— because what he wants is souls, what he wants is us
That’s not to say that her interior life was always rich
She suffered so much from months of aridity that she grew an affection for atheists, even going so far to say, and I quote:
[God] allowed my soul to be overwhelmed with darkness, and the thought of Heaven, which had consoled me from my earliest childhood, now became a subject of conflict and torture. This trial did not last merely for days or weeks; I have been suffering for months, and I still await deliverance. I wish I could express what I feel, but it is beyond me. One must have passed through this dark tunnel to understand its blackness ... When I sing of the happiness of Heaven and the eternal possession of God, I do not feel any joy therein, for I sing only of what I wish to believe. Sometimes, I confess, a little ray of sunshine illumines my dark night, and I enjoy peace for an instant, but later, the remembrance of this ray of light, instead of consoling me, makes the blackness thicker still.
It’s thought that St. Therese experienced this interior anguish up until the end of her battle with tuberculosis, with her final words being: “My God, I love you!”
To summarize everything, reading St. Therese is a study not only of radical love, but also radical humility
From a spoiled child to a martyr of the Carmel, St. Therese lived an inner life that very few of her own sisters in the convent were aware of
Her life is also a testimony to God's perfect timing; St. Therese wanted to be a missionary in Hanoi, but was prevented from doing so when she contracted tuberculosis. She was later named a patron saint to missionaries.
St. Therese's Little Way informed the spirituality of many of the saints and intellectuals that came after her: St. Josemaria, St. John Paul II, Mother Teresa, St. Teresa of the Andes, Blessed Cecilia Eusepi, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Dorothy Day
On her feast day, let’s take the time to reflect on what small things we can do today for the Lord; what small sufferings we can offer him with great love and humility
God would never inspire me with desires which cannot be realized; so in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a saint.
— St. Thérèse of Lisieux
St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.
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