To read the powerful letter written by Damaso Zuazua, OCD, general secretary of the Carmelite missions, on the 80th anniversary of the day (December 14, 1927) on which Pope Pius XI named St. Therese of Lisieux co-patron of the missions, the equal of St. Francis Xavier.

"I shall desire in heaven the same thing I do on earth: to love Jesus and to make Him loved."

A hundred and twenty years after St. Therese's audience with Pope Leo XIII, her relics were brought to Rome and were present at the papal audience on November 14, 2007.  Please see the details at  http://www.communicationes.org/news.php?nid=439&lang=eng and at http://www.zenit.org/article-21000?l=english  Her relics were brought to the Pope's private chapel, where he prayed before them for a long time. 

What a contrast between the two visits!  Therese's 1887 audience with Pope Leo XIII appeared at the time like a fiasco.  The same day her sister Celine wrote to their oldest sister Marie, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart:

Dear little Marie,

Today I am crushed; in my head there is an immense void.  Oh! how I would like to be at my dear Carmel to tell all my thoughts.  Therese is going to recount this morning's audience to you.  Each time it comes into my mind, it's like a very sharp sword which is being plunged into my heart.

I'm exhausted, dear little Marie; it's as if this were aimed at me, it's even worse, I believe.  We assisted at the Holy Father's Mass; we were supposed to receive Communion from his hand, but they feared to tire him too much, so this did not take place.  When our turn came to be at the Holy Father's feet, Therese knelt down, but unfortunately, M. Reverony [vicar-general of the Bayeux diocese] was with the Bayeux pilgrims, and it was he who was presenting them to the Sovereign Pontiff.  When Therese made her request, tears in her eyes, the Holy Father bent over and said "I don't understand very well."  You know, he is so old that it brings tears to your eyes just looking at him; he is as pale as death; he could hardly support himself or speak.  He appears to be broken by age but what a kind face!  He is truly a Holy Father.

But to return to Therese's request, M. Reverony answered immediately with a sarcastic tone:  "She is a child who is asking to enter Carmel at fifteen, but the matter is being examined by the superiors."  Then, after Therese's repeated entreaties, the Holy Father answered;  "My dear child, if God wills it, you will enter; leave it up to your superiors."  This lasted hardly two minutes, and I came afterward.  I had tears in my eyes, but would you believe that I had the audacity to say "Most Holy Father, a blessing for the Carmel."  He blessed me, saying "Oh, iti is already blessed!" 

After this request made by me, M. Reverony was careful not to say that I was Therese's sister, but he replied, laughing a little:  "It is already blessed."  The Holy Pontiff, who is so kind, seemed to understand it in another way, and it was then that he said to me:  "Oh, yes, it is already blessed!"  Then he extended his hand for me to kiss.  Papa came afterward with the gentlemen.  M. Reverony introduced him to the Holy Father, saying "This is the father of two Carmelites and a Visitandine," but he did not say that he was Therese's father. 

The Sovereign Pontiff looked intently at Papa, and he extended his hand to Papa, who kissed it and pressed it lovingly.  Papa, when returning, was weeping a little."¹

This audience is often cited as proof of Therese's courage, but at the time many considered it a total failure.  Twenty years afterward, Celine still winced at the memory of the audience:  "I was struck with dismay; it would be quite impossible to have a more definite setback.  We hid it from our father in order not to sadden him, and we hardly ever spoke about it afterward.  It was like a memory you wanted to cast far from you.  I regarded it so much as a shameful humiliation that I used to think interiorly "If later on they write Therese's life, this fiasco will mar its beauty, and when in Carmel Mother Agnes of Jesus gave her the command to write her memories, I said to myself "Poor little thing, she'll haveto recount the audience with the Pope which succeeded so poorly."  (Preparatory Notes for the Ordinary Process, 1910).²

At the 2007 audience, Pope Benedict recalled that Therese would have liked to learn the original languages of Scripture to understand them better, and he urged the faithful to spend time reading Scripture to "better understand Christ and remain in intimate contact with Him."  Therese carried the four gospels over her heart, and she often repeated "We must study the Scriptures in order to learn the personality of Jesus."  As we prepare to celebrate on December 14th the 80th anniversary of Therese's proclamation as patroness of missions, may we know her Jesus better and better.

http://thereseoflisieux.org

¹Letters of Saint Therese: General Correspondence," Volume One, translated by John Clarke, O.C.D.  Copyright 1982 by Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., ICS Publications, pp. 350-351.

²Ibid., p. 350.

Confronting several impasses in my personal life--in accepting the early deaths of persons I love and in my relationship with friends, members of my family, my local church, and other communities to which I have given myself--I experience the pain and powerlessness of being unable to make a difference in areas that matter deeply to me.  Reflecting on the experience of impasse, I realize that Therese confronted impasse very often. 

At fourteen she felt so strongly that Jesus was calling her to be a Carmelite nun that, she said, "had I been forced to pass through fire, I would have done so."  Having exhausted all her church appeals, she returned to Lisieux from Rome without the "yes" she had so desired.  Pauline described her first conversation with Therese after the pilgrimage:  "In spite of her real disapointment, she nevertheless displayed a great peace of soul, founded on her complete surrender to God's will.  That conversation inspired me with such respect for her that I can still remember it quite vividly."

At sixteen she had to suffer her father's being confined to a mental asylum, and for five years she lived out her vocation in the face of his great trial.  "Jesus has sent us the best chosen Cross he was able to find in His immense love.  How can we complain when He Himself was looked upon as a man struck by God and humbled?"

During the priorate of her sister she had to sustain the constant conflict between Mother Agnes and the former Prioress, Mother Marie de Gonzague.  After one painful scene between them, Therese is reported to have said "Now I know what Jesus suffered when He saw His mother suffering."

When Mother Marie de Gonzague was prioress, Therese had to live in a community not administered as she herself believed it should be administered, but she never stopped searching for ways "to please Jesus" in that context.

Sister Marie-Madeleine, a young lay sister who was one of the five novices Therese trained, was so afraid of Therese that when she was supposed to confer with her she would run away and hide.  Marie-Madeleine testified "From the time I entered until she died, I never felt any natural affection for her.  I even avoided her . . . . I found her too perfect.  But she . .  . often arranged things so that she could wash up beside me and chat to me.  She showed trust in me, in an effort to enable me to trust her."    On her death-bed Therese sent Marie-Madeleine this message:  "Tell her I will pray for her in heaven and that I will love her just as much as I do the other novices."  Years later Marie-Madeleine said "I was not then in a condition to profit from her advice, but since her death, how she has changed me! It's incredible. I am all peaceful and confident. I don't recognize myself." 

Confronted with an impasse, Therese "saw God in everything" and never gave up being faithful to prayer, faithful to love, and faithful to charity. She lived out the counsel of her father St. John of the Cross:  "Think nothing else but that God ordains all, and, where there is no love, put love, and you will draw out love."  Since her death we have seen many miracles God worked at her intercession.  In her lifetime she herself was the miracle; without ever seeing much fruit from her efforts, she continued to risk everything and to repeat "You have given me delight, O Lord, in all your doing." 

In the month of November, when the Church especially remembers the dead, I am thinking of Therese's relationship with those who went before her.  On August 10, 1897, in her last letter to her spiritual brother, the seminarian Maurice Belliere, she wrote:

"I admit to you, little Brother, that we do not understand heaven in the same way.  It seems to you that, sharing in the justice, in the holiness of God, I would be unable as on earth to excuse your faults.  Are you forgetting, then, that I will be sharing also in the infinite mercy of the Lord?  I believe the Blessed in heaven have a great compassion on our miseries, they remember, being weak and mortal like us, they committed the same faults, sustained the same combats, and their fraternal tenderness becomes greater than it was when they were on earth, and for this reason they never cease protecting and praying for us."¹

How consoling to think that those who loved us on earth understand us better, love us more intimately, and are more powerful to help us than ever before.  How generously Therese must share with those around her in heaven her mission of doing good to souls.   

¹Letters of Saint Therese: General Correspondence, Volume Two, translated by John Clarke, O.C.D.  Copyright 1988 by Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., ICS Publications, p. 1173.

      I'm sorry I did not write last week, but a young friend died suddenly, and I was occupied in supporting his family.  In February 2007 my beautiful niece, Meghan, died suddenly in a car accident at the age of 20.  On October 18 I learned that her dear friend, Jarrod, had died suddenly on October 17 at age 22. 

     Thinking about the sudden and premature deaths of these two sensitive, accepting young people, I turned (as always) to Therese for consolation.  I found her letter to her seminarian-spiritual-brother, Maurice Belliere, of June 9, 1897:  "Dear little Brother, I would like to tell you many things that I understand now that I am at the door of eternity, but I am not dying, I am entering into Life, and all that I cannot say to you here below, I will make you understand from the heights of Heaven."¹   I am happy to think that Meghan and Jarrod, who had no opportunity to say or receive good-byes from their families and friends, are also in communion wth us in heaven and can make us understand everything left unsaid.

     On July 14, 1897 Therese wrote to her priest-brother, Adolphe Roulland:  "I really count on not remaining inactive in heaven.  My desire is to work still for the Church and for souls.  I am asking God for this and I am certain He will answer me.  Are not the angels continually occupied with us without ever ceasing to see the divine Face and to lose themselves in the Ocean of Love without shores?  Why would Jesus not allow me to imitate them?"²   What a consolation to think that these two young people, who had such great desires to be of service, will accomplish much more now than they ever would have on earth.

     And Therese's desire to help souls was not abstract, but tender, intimate, and personal.   On July 18 she wrote to Maurice Belliere, who had expressed his deep sorrow at her impending death:  "Yes, I am certain of it, after my entrance into life, my dear little Brother's sadness will be changed into a peaceful joy that no one will be able to take from him.  I feel it, we must go to heaven by the same way, that of suffering united to love . . . When I shall be in port, I shall teach you, dear little Brother of my soul, how you must sail the stormy sea of the world with the abandonment and the love of a child who knows his Father loves him and would be unable to leave him in the hour of danger.  Ah! how I would like to be able to make you understand the tenderness of the Heart of Jesus, what He expects from you."³ 

     Therese is the patron of those who suffer with AIDs, and she has strengthened and helped many young people who died early and those who mourn them.  Surely part of her mission is to help all who are called to accept and recover from the tragic deaths of young persons, whether from illness or other causes, by allowing us to see that those we love share in her "heaven doing good on earth."   In the face of the stark reaity of their premature deaths, Therese helps us trust that the beloved young who have have lost themselves in "the Ocean of Love without shores" will launch us "full sail upon the waves of confidence and love."  They have returned to the Source only to draw us there.

 ¹Letters of Saint Therese: General Correspondence, Volume Two, translated by John Clarke, O.C.D.  Copyright 1988 by Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., ICS Publications, p. 1128.

²Ibid., p. 1142.

³Ibid., p. 1152.