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Teresa and
Thérèse:
Feminine Perspectives of the Path to Holiness
by
Gina Gianmbrone
Whenever their parish priest spoke about St. Teresa,
Louis Martin would gently nudge his youngest
daughter, Thérèse. "He’s talking about your
patroness," Louis would whisper to his little girl.
Thanks to her father’s influence, St. Thérèse of
Lisieux grew up with a special affection for her
namesake, St. Teresa of Avila. She looked to Teresa
as her model throughout her life, once telling a
priest, "Father, I want to love God as much as St.
Teresa did."
Until a couple of years ago, I would have dismissed
Thérèse’s pious wish as the sort of thing a
saint-to-be would say, not the sort of thing I would
say. Of course Thérèse wanted to love God as much as
St. Teresa. Thérèse was holy. Holy people want to
imitate the saints. Holy people want to love Jesus
even more than they already do. But as for me, I was
satisfied with loving Jesus exactly as much as I
already did. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Him. It
was just that I wasn’t inclined to empty any of the
occupied space in my heart to make more room for
Him.
But then I met St. Teresa of Avila. I had known who
she was before. I even took her name at Confirmation
back in eighth grade. But I didn’t really know her
until I began to read her writings, study her life,
and pray for her intercession. That’s all it took
for an unrecognized feeling to begin welling up
inside of me. For the first time in my very Catholic
life, the concept of becoming holy intrigued me. I
began to actually desire to fall in love with Jesus.
Perhaps there should be advisory stickers on St.
Teresa’s writings, especially The Way of
Perfection: "WARNING: This book may cause
contrition and conversion. Side effects include
increased love for Jesus and hatred of sin. Studies
indicate that readers are more prone to engage in
extended periods of prayer and voluntary acts of
penance. Open at your own risk."
While St. Teresa’s impact will not be the same on
everyone, the Church nonetheless believes that an
encounter with her is of universal value. That
explains why she bears the distinction of being a
Doctor of the Church. Regardless of the emotional
impact of her writings, her exalted ecclesiastical
status should be enough to merit a space for at
least one of her books on any Catholic’s reading
list, right next to St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s
Story of a Soul.
Sisterly Similarity
When he whispered to his daughter at church, Louis
Martin didn’t know that she would later record the
memory in her now-famous autobiography. Neither did
he know that his little Thérèse would share much
more than a name with St. Teresa of Avila. Thérèse
not only joined the Discalced Carmelite Order, which
Teresa founded, but she also went on to become a
saint and a Doctor of the Church as well.
The presence of Sts. Teresa and Thérèse (along with
St. Catherine of Siena) among the esteemed ranks of
the Doctors of the Church serves to remind women in
particular that they have an "equal opportunity" to
ascend to the peak of the Church’s spiritual
hierarchy. Not that this was ever the goal. Neither
Teresa nor Thérèse aimed for public admiration or
ecclesiastical prestige. Rather, they emphasized the
importance of humility and exemplified it in their
lives. The virtue of humility is a common topic in
St. Teresa’s writings, and St. Thérèse follows suit
in her book as well. In fact, many themes overlap in
the teachings of the two saints.
We
can only speculate about how much direct influence
Sr. Teresa of Jesus, the sixteenth-century Spanish
mystic, spiritual leader, and religious reformer,
actually had on Sr. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and
the Holy Face, the nineteenth-century French girl
who died before she was twenty-five. We do know that
as a member of the Discalced Carmelites, Thérèse
would have been familiar with Holy Mother Teresa’s
writings. We also know that Thérèse adorned the wall
of her cell with Teresa’s picture and one of
Teresa’s favorite verses: "Forever will I sing the
mercies of the Lord." Thérèse employed these words
at the beginning of her Story of a Soul, in
which she occasionally makes direct reference to St.
Teresa.
Little Works of Love
In her spiritual testimony, marked at least in part
by St. Teresa’s influence, the Little Flower
presented her Little Way. This simple program of
sanctification has earned for Thérèse the love and
devotion of countless Catholics, myself included. We
could broadly summarize Thérèse’s Little Way in her
advice to do little things with great love. She
believed that even tiny gifts from a loving heart
were pleasing to Jesus.
Thérèse spent her nine years as a Carmelite nun
carrying out ordinary tasks with extraordinary love.
As Bl. Teresa of Calcutta put it, Thérèse’s
canonization shows that we can be canonized too; we
only have to do the little, ordinary things of life.
While St. Teresa inspired me to want to love Jesus
more, St. Thérèse’s example helped me learn how I
could begin to do that in regular life.
Thérèse smiled at a difficult nun instead of
scowling at her. She quietly went thirsty so another
sister could finish the cider. She chose the worst
spot in the laundry room to spare the others from
getting drenched. Thérèse took the real, if
miniscule, struggles of daily life and turned them
into opportunities to show love to Christ. But this
approach was not entirely new; Teresa of Avila had
presented the same idea centuries before. In the
book which many consider her masterpiece, The
Interior Castle, St. Teresa writes: "The Lord
does not look so much at the magnitude of anything
we do as at the love with which we do it." Teresa of
Avila had articulated a fundamental principle of St.
Thérèse’s spiritual doctrine. Years later, Thérèse
gave us a prime example of how to put the principle
into practice. Both of these women understood that
Jesus does not require great works from us. All He
asks is that we love Him with our whole heart, mind,
and soul.
The Secret to Sanctity
St. Thérèse lived a life of selfless sacrifice. St.
Teresa had mystical experiences, produced numerous
written works, and reformed an ancient religious
order. The Church has declared that both women
exemplify holiness of life, but these activities
were not at the root of their sanctity-fervent love
for Christ made these women holy.
Both Teresa and Thérèse knew that this same love
could sanctify others as well. They taught that
anyone could become a saint, because love for Jesus
is the source of holiness. As St. Thérèse wrote, no
one should despair of reaching "the summit of the
mount of love." St. Teresa believed any person was
capable of experiencing the perfect union with Jesus
that she called "the Spiritual Marriage." Both women
chose beautiful images and poetic phrases when they
reflected on the glories of loving Jesus.
As
such, Sts. Teresa and Thérèse offer a special
perspective on the nature of holiness. They reveal
that sanctity is a divine romance, that holiness is
an invitation to fall in love with Jesus. Through
their uniquely feminine sensitivities, these holy
women communicate the passionate and emotional joy
of loving the Lord.
These two heavenly Doctors help cure spiritual
stagnation by assuring us that making more room in
our hearts for Christ is nothing to fear or avoid.
On the contrary, the love of Jesus promises to
fulfill the deepest longings of the human heart.
Like Thérèse, we should want to love Jesus as much
as St. Teresa did. It’s not just a pious wish.
Loving Jesus is the path to true happiness in this
life, and in the life to come.
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