Abide – Therese of Lisieux
Welcome everyone, and welcome to Abide.
I'm grateful to be here together, to find our spaces to pray and step away from the daily tasks and things that we can often become consumed with. Many of us are still trying to get our ducks in a row, or things around the house or work tidied up. We have projects that seem to never fully finish or don't finish in the way that we hope or plan. The future is still not perfectly secure. And so, this is, this is a great time to pray because you know the ducks, they'll never be in a row, and the house is meant to be cluttered, and the projects always move into another project. And there's just something beautiful about allowing life to be what it is, and to practice being still and knowing that God is Lord over our lives and over all of our concerns. And so, we come to pause, to be still, and to root ourselves in the eternal things, the things of God that never pass away.
So, we're getting settled in our spaces, whether we're sitting upright in a chair, lying down, in the car, on the trail, just begin to notice your environment that you're in. The sights, the sounds, the smells. Just receiving it all as the presence of God, the action of God around you, the love of God.
We're going to begin to just relax through the body, through the face, through the shoulders, down into the hips, the legs, and the feet. Just becoming aware of our bodies. We're going to take some gentle breaths in and out together, and we're going to recite this little sweet poem that I've done before by Thich Nhat Hanh.
So, let's take a nice deep breath in together.
“I calm my body. And breathe out. I smile. Breathe in. Dwelling in the present moment. Breathe out. I know this is a wonderful moment.”
Let's try that again.
“Breathe in. I calm my body. Breathe out. I smile. Breathing in. Dwelling in this present moment. Breathe out. I know this is a wonderful moment.”
This indeed is a wonderful moment.
Today, we get to go on a special adventure with Jesus and Therese of Lisieux. Now, this Therese is French, so her name is spelt a bit differently and pronounced differently, but I will call her Teresa, more of the English pronunciation. But Teresa of Lisieux is such a gem. It's hard to know how to put her into words. But her simplicity, her passion, her humility, is going to draw near to us now.
And so, let's begin with our little story, “Stories of the Saints,” by Kerry Wallace. “When Teresa was a little girl, she cried all the time. Her mother had died when she was only four, leaving her father alone with nine children. Teresa was the youngest, and if someone ever looked at her the wrong way, she cried and cried. She even cried over the fact that she was crying. But the Christmas she turned fourteen, something changed. Every year at Christmas, French families with younger children put their shoes by the fire because they believed Jesus flew through the air on Christmas Eve, filling the shoes with toys and sweets. Now that she was fourteen, Teresa was told she was too old for this tradition, but because she was the youngest, her family couldn't bear to give it up. And the fact was, Teresa still acted like a child a lot of the time. That night, when the family came back from church, everyone was feeling sad because they missed Teresa's mother. As Teresa's father looked at the gifts in her shoes, she overheard him saying, ‘Well, at least this is the last year we'll have to do this.’ Next year, everyone knew that Teresa would be much too old for the childish tradition. Normally, this would have made Teresa burst into tears. But when she thought about her father’s sorrow instead of her own, she felt a new strength. ‘I'm not going to cry,’ she thought to herself. ‘I want to make my father feel better.’ So, she ran downstairs and opened her presents with joy, to show her father how grateful she was for them and for him.
After that, she started to feel more peace. She began to read all kinds of books that people had written about how to know God and follow Him. And her sister Pauline, a nun, sent her a notebook covered with beautiful flowers and told Teresa that she should start to write her thoughts down. That summer, Teresa went to her father while he was sitting in his garden. ‘I want to become a nun,’ she told him. Her father picked up a beautiful white flower from the ground, roots and all, and gave it to her. ‘Think of all the care that God took bringing this flower to life,’ he told her, ‘And taking care of it until today.’ ‘The flower is like me,’ Teresa thought. ‘It's ready to be transplanted to another garden.’ But when she tried to join an abbey, the nuns wouldn't accept her because of her youth. That year, her father took Teresa and her sister to Rome. They were granted an audience with the Pope, and Teresa ran forward, to everyone's shock. ‘Please,’ she begged him, ‘let me become a nun.’ ‘My child,’ the Pope told her, ‘Do what your elders say. If it is God's will, you will become a nun.’ Teresa refused to leave his feet until two Swiss guards were called to carry her away. But a bishop heard of her faith, and within the year, she was allowed to join an abbey. Not all nuns there were kind to her. Teresa wasn't good at embroidery or handwork, and one of the other sisters started calling her the big nanny goat. When Teresa prayed, she felt as if Jesus didn't do much to keep up His end of the conversation. Sometimes, she even fell asleep while she was trying to pray. ‘Mothers love their children when they lie asleep in their arms,’ she told herself. ‘So, God must love me, even when I fall asleep.’
Teresa longed to do great things for God, like the saints. 'But if she couldn't even stay awake when she prayed,' she wondered, 'how could she ever do the great deeds of a saint? I'll have to find a different way,’ she decided. ‘Instead of doing big deeds, I'll do little ones.’ So, whenever she had a chance to do something good, she did. She made a special point to talk with the nuns she didn't like. She ate whatever she was given without complaining. She did the work that no one else wanted to do. And because these weren't great deeds, nobody told her how wonderful she was for doing them. Nobody even noticed. But God used them to change her, little by little. With each small thing she did, she took a small step toward God and became more loving and humble, like Him.
Then her older sister, Pauline, became the abbess of the convent. She put Teresa in charge of teaching the new nuns. Teresa used everything she could think of to teach them, even a kaleidoscope. ‘It’s three mirrors, she said. ‘We’re like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the scraps of wood and paper inside were like our actions. On their own, they might not amount to much. But when God looks at them, with His loving gaze, a beautiful pattern emerges. But without the gaze of God's love,’ Teresa asked, ‘What would we see? Only worthless bits of straw.’ She also told her students stories from her own youth. When she was tiny, she remembered being given a basket of candies topped with two sugar rings, ‘One for me and one for my sister,’ she thought. ‘But when the candies spilt in the street, and one ring was lost,’ she said, ‘Now I don't have one for my sister. But why was the only ring for me?’ She asked her class. ‘Why was it my sister's sugar ring and not mine that was lost?’ When her students asked her about prayer, Teresa didn't teach them complicated rituals because she knew what it was like to have trouble praying herself. ‘Prayer is a tug of the heart,’ she said. ‘It is a simple look up to heaven. A cry of love and thanks, in the midst of both trials and joy. It expands my soul and joins me to Jesus.’
Many people in her day read books full of ideas and advice about God. But Teresa loved to read the stories of Jesus. ‘Learned books break my head and dry my heart up,’ she said. ‘But Scripture is full of light. A single word reveals infinite horizons, and I know that it is enough to lose yourself in God's arms, like a child.’ This was the way Teresa finally discovered to reach heaven, not by doing big things, but little ones. ‘I want to find an elevator that will lift me to heaven,’ she said. ‘I'm too tiny to climb the steep steps of perfection, so Jesus' arms will be the elevator that lifts me up. I don't need to get bigger. I must get smaller, like a grain of sand, to be carried easily by the wind of love.’ Teresa's sister, Pauline, had encouraged Teresa to write when she was a little girl, and now that Pauline was the abbess, she commanded her to. Teresa died when she was still young, only twenty-four years old. But because she obeyed her sister's command to write, the words Teresa spoke on her deathbed weren't her last. Her sister collected Teresa's writing and published it, and today her words are still read all over the world.”
Take a moment just to enjoy the presence of Teresa, her story. Jesus with us, teaching us through this beautiful saint.
Teresa wrote one book, called “The Story of a Soul,” and that's how we know about her life. The first part of the book is about her childhood, and then it continues on with her relationship with God and prayer, and her relationship with the other sisters in the convent. I think what I love about Teresa of Lisieux, it's that she never did anything really extraordinary. Her victories are all about daily life. And it's extremely simple. It reminds me a lot of the gospel, and of Jesus just teaching us to love Him and love others. She chooses to do menial tasks. She befriends the people that no one likes. She bears pain and suffering. She teaches us that spiritual dryness is a part of the journey.
She wrote, “Prayer is not to satisfy ourselves, but to please God. In all my relations with Jesus, I feel nothing, and I keep right on praying.”
She tells us that she felt few consolations in prayer, and that she would often fall asleep. She's often called the little flower. And you'll often see her picture, where she's holding a dozen roses, because she speaks about when she prays, she allows the rose petals to fall at the feet of Jesus. To share her concerns, her victories, her thoughts, everything pouring out like petals of flowers at the feet of Jesus.
So, let's just touch on a few parts of the story, shall we? And see how Teresa's heart, and her way, might influence our way.
Our story starts out with a scene of Christmas. And where her father makes a comment about her, and she would normally get hurt, but she chooses to respond differently. It says, in our story, “Normally this would have made Teresa burst into tears, but when she thought about her father's sorrow instead of her own, she felt a new strength. ‘I'm not going to cry,’ she thought to herself. ‘I want to make my father feel better.’ And so, she ran downstairs, opened her presents with joy to show her father how grateful she was. And after that, she started to feel more peace.”
And so, this takes us to where Teresa's learning about living not for herself, and the way she feels, and learning to live for others, this self-forgetfulness that she talks about. In the book, “Praying with Teresa” by Joseph F. Schmidt, it's written there, these words, “That Christmas that Teresa received the grace of being aware of her compelling need for the affirmation of others, her father's chance remark became the means to her enlightenment. Teresa recognised that her conversion to inner freedom was a pure gift. It was a breakthrough into a new capacity to forget the need for approving responses and to love others. She said of herself, ‘Charity had found its way into my heart.’”
And so, let's just take this moment to think about how often we need others' approval. Words from others to make us feel like we did a good job or that we're important. And may we take those situations, and those relationships, and maybe have a conversion, like Teresa did with her father. Forgetting herself and how she feels and what she needs, and moving into what might please her father. A giving of love. A self-forgetting and going beyond.
Our story goes on to read, “Teresa longed to do great things for God, like the saints. ‘But if she couldn't even stay awake when she prayed,’ she wondered, ‘how could she ever do the great deeds of a saint?’”
I love this. I love this quote. You know, we've been reading so many beautiful saints. And I think she was very aware of these saints, as well, and read their works, and just felt like, there's no way I can do any of this. And so, she offers us a little way. A little way to be very connected with God throughout our days.
I want to read you this part from her book, “The Story of a Soul,” that talks about this little way, and how she saw God loving her, and how she was able to love God in return. "Jesus deigned to teach me this mystery. He set before me the book of nature. I understood how all the flowers He has created are beautiful. How the splendour of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflowers. And so, it is in the world of souls, Jesus' garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses. But He's created smaller ones, and these must be content to be daisies or violets, destined to give joy to God's glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be. Just as the sun shines simultaneously on the tall cedars and on each little flower, as though it were alone on the earth, so our Lord is occupied particularly with each soul, as though there were no others like it. And just as in nature, all the seasons are arranged in such a way as to make the humblest daisy bloom on a set day. In the same way, everything works out for the good of each soul.”
Such a beautiful image that Teresa gives us, here, of God's garden. And she identifies with the little flowers at the feet of Jesus and takes delight in being that.
Let us take this image of these different flowers, of different seasons, big and small, bright and more camouflaged, and may we allow that to mingle into our own beings. Maybe we could receive the flower that we are? Maybe we can appreciate our colour, our size, our way? Knowing that one flower's beauty doesn't take away from another flower's beauty. “God, we ask for eyes to see the beauty of who we are. To receive our simple way, knowing You delight in it. You made it. You love it.”
Our story continues to read, “She did the work that no one else wanted to do, because these weren't great deeds. Nobody told her how wonderful she was for doing them, nobody even noticed. But God used them to change her, little by little. With each small thing she did, she took a small step toward God, and became more loving and humble, like Him.”
I often feel plagued in my life, that I'm not doing enough, or I should be doing more, or I could be doing this better. And Teresa really teaches me that you've got it all wrong, Lizzie. How about a little way? How about the hidden things? How about the small tasks? So let us allow her little way of doing unseen things with great love to move into our daily life, and to imagine what it would look like to really extend that cup of water, or that helping hand, or that smile, or picking up that trash, or offering an extra tip. Think of the little way, the little way that you can love God.
I think when I imagine this, and even practice living in it this past week, I really feel like, more like, the gospels with Jesus. That He's walking, and He sees this person, and they need help, and this person needs to be heard, and this person needs to be comforted. And Teresa encourages us to be very grounded in our everyday life, knowing there is much to do, much to love, and it can be simple, and beautiful, and holy.
Lastly, I'd love to end on this beautiful image she gives us. The story reads, “This was the way Teresa finally discovered to reach heaven, not by doing big things, but little ones. ‘I want to find an elevator that will lift me to heaven,’ she said. ‘I'm too tiny to climb the steep stairs of perfection, so Jesus's arms will be the elevator that will lift me up. I don't need to get bigger. I must get smaller, like a grain of sand, to be carried easily by the wind of love.’”
Brothers and sisters, we can be small. We can have a little way. We can honour God in the unseen things. And so, as we close this time of prayer, let's just put our hands to our hearts. Be reminded of the indwelling Christ that lives with us.
“And Lord, our prayer is that we would each find our little way. So that we can love and serve You. So that we can have eyes to see where we can help and lend a hand. Lend an ear and an eye, to be Your loving, loving presence in this world. Thank you for Teresa and her beautiful little way.”
Go in peace, my friends.
