The Way of Trust and Love - A Retreat Guided By St. Therese o... by Jacques Philippe

Humility helped Thérèse find a spiritual practice that protected her from despondency when she fell. She did it by prayerfully developing the faith of a child. Thérèse was a spiritual heir of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross (some of the greatest saints of the Catholic response to 16th century corruption), and she worked out her interior issues while remaining a faithful Catholic. Yet she approached her interior life by developing a spirituality emphasizing the mercy and grace of Christ while doing each small thing for love of Him. Thérèse entered the religious life in a Carmelite convent that had been influenced by the intense moralism of 19th century Jansenism.

The tension between our fallen nature and our desires for the beauty of holiness is a reality of the Christian life for both Catholics and Protestants and each has its rigorist strands that do not represent the whole. If Luther’s scrupulous soul represented a correct picture of Catholic spirituality, Thérèse could not be proclaimed a Doctor of the Church. Martin Luther’s famous tortured conscience and severe monastic penances are sometimes unfairly projected onto the entire Catholic understanding of sin and salvation, which is one of the reasons St. Yet the way she resolved her struggles with her fallen nature made all the difference in the world. In her own way the young nun was confronted with presentations of an inauthentic rigorous moralism. Thérèse’s story has fascinated me ever since I learned of it. Thérèse’s photo even graces the liner notes of Rich Mullins’ album, Songs. The Story of a Soul has influenced the stories thousands of other souls including Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Day, Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It contains profound spiritual insights God gradually revealed to a heart persevering in faith. Her autobiography, published after her death from tuberculosis at age 24 as The Story of a Soul, reveals a serious Christian’s struggle with her fallen nature.

One of those gradual gifts has been discovering the Little Way of a little saint who lived some 250 years after Luther, Thérèse of Lisieux.

The Way of Trust and Love - A Retreat Guided By St. Therese o... by Jacques Philippe