BEATIFICATION OF
SAINT THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS - 29 April 1923
Centenary Celebration (1923-2023)
Photo courtesy of the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux
Celina tells us:
When during the process the promoter of the faith asked me why I wanted the beatification of Sister Therese of the Child Jesus, I answered that it was only to make known the "little way". That was what she called her spirituality, her system of going to God.
He replied: "If you speak of a "way", the cause will inevitably fall, as has happened in several similar circumstances".
"Worse," I said, "the fear of losing the cause of Sister Therese will not prevent me from making the only point that interests me: to have her "little way" canonised".
I stood firm and the cause was not shipwrecked. That is why I felt more joy when Benedict XV exalted "spiritual childhood" in his speech than when our saint was beatified and canonised. On that day, 14 August 1921, I had achieved my goal.
In the Summarium, moreover, there is this answer I gave on the "supernatural gifts".
"They were very rare in the life of the servant of God. For my part, I would prefer that she should not be beatified rather than present her portrait differently from how I believe it to be in true conscience... Her life was to be simple in order to serve as a model for the "little souls"".
Our dear teacher taught us at all times her "little way".
"To walk the little way", she declared, "one must be humble, poor in spirit and simple".
How she would have loved, had she known it, this prayer of Bossuet:
"Great God! ..., do not allow that certain spirits, of whom some are classed among the wise and others among the spiritual, may ever be accused before your unappealable tribunal of having contributed in some way to shut the door of I know not how many hearts to you, for the mere fact that you wanted to enter them in a way whose very simplicity was strange to them, and through a door which, although it is wide open by the saints since the first centuries of the Church, they, perhaps, did not yet know sufficiently well. But make us all become as little as children, as Jesus Christ commanded, so that we may once enter through this little door, that we may then be able to teach it to others more safely and more effectively. So be it."
No wonder that in his last hour this great woman uttered these moving words:
"If I could begin to live again, I would like to be only a child who always gives his hand to the Child Jesus".
St. Therese knew marvellously, by the light revealed to the little ones, how to discover this door of health and to teach it to others. Did not both Divine Wisdom and human wisdom fix in this spirit of childhood "the true greatness of the soul"?
These great Chinese philosophers had established it in powerful definitions:
"Mature virtue tends to the state of childhood". (Lao Tse, 7th century B.C.)
"Great is the man who has not lost his childlike heart". (Meng-Tse, 4th century BC).
And also: "To know virile virtue means to progress always on the path of good and to return to childhood" (Tao Ta-Ching).
For our Saint, this "little way" consisted practically of humility, as I have already said. But it also meant a very marked spirit of childhood. That is why she loved to talk to me about these sentences she took from the Gospel: "Let the little children come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven... Their angels continually behold the face of my Heavenly Father... Whoever becomes little as a child will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus embraced the children after having blessed them".
She had copied these words, as we reproduce them, on the back of a prayer card on which were pasted the photographs of our four little brothers, who had flown to heaven at a tender age. She gave it to me, keeping a similar one in her breviary. The photos are now partly erased by time.
To that Gospel text, she had added other two, taken from Sacred Scripture, which he loved, and always in connection with the spirit of childhood:
"Blessed are those whom God justifies without works, for to him who works, wages are not counted as a grace, but as a debt... They, therefore, receive a free gift who, without works, is justified by grace through redemption, whose author is Jesus Christ". (Romans 4:4-5)
"The Lord will lead his flock to pasture. He will gather the lambs and take them into his fold". (Is 40:11)
On the reverse of another large prayer card, she had collected other scriptural quotations, some of which repeated the preceding ones. But it is interesting to see to what extent they shed light on his path.
She was also particularly fond of another prayer card which depicted a child sitting on the knees of Our Lord and striving to reach out and kiss His divine face. I showed her a reminder with a photograph of a little girl, dead at a tender age; she pointed with her finger to the face of the child, saying with tenderness and pride: "They are all under my dominion!" as if she already foresaw her title of "Queen of the little ones".
St. Therese of the Child Jesus was tall, about six feet two inches tall, while Mother Agnes of Jesus was much shorter. One day I said to her: "If you had been given the choice, which would you have preferred: to be tall or short? And she answered me without hesitation: "I would have chosen to be short in order to be small in everything".
The Church has always seen St. Therese of the Child Jesus the saint of spiritual childhood. There are numerous testimonies of the Popes in this regard.
I limit myself to citing two from His Holiness Pius XII; the first when he legate a letter of Pius XI, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Basilica of Lisieux, on 11 July 1937; and the other seventeen years later:
"Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus has a mission, she has a doctrine. But her doctrine, like her whole person, is humble and simple; it boils down to these two words: spiritual childhood, or this other equivalent: little way".
"It is the Gospel itself, it is the heart of the Gospel that she penetrated; but with what grace and freshness! "Unless you become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Mt 18:3)"
We are motivated by St. Therese to be authentic-true to who we are and to who God created us to be. She doesn't advise us to push ourselves or put forth excessive effort. She advises us to communicate with God, examine our hearts, and concentrate on becoming our best selves.
Photo courtesy of the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux
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