Female saints sometimes
don’t seem human. You see them depicted on holy cards
with demure, pious expressions and rosary beads laced in
their fingers.
It would be easy to believe they spent their entire day
murmuring prayers. It is hard to imagine them grumbling
during rush-hour traffic or fuming about a co-worker’s
vexing habits.
And not to get too personal, but one might wonder: Did any
of them ever go out on a date?
St. Thérèse of Lisieux readily comes to mind
as an example. The portraits show her with a sugary smile,
and nearly always surrounded by flowers.
Some biographers create a picture of someone who never spoke
a harsh word or wrestled with a single temptation.
Most Catholics know the story of the saint known as The
Little Flower. She was born in 1873, entered the Carmelite
cloister at the tender age of 15 and died nine years later
of tuberculosis.
She spent nearly all her days behind convent walls, so it
is easy to conclude she knew little about life in the real
world. Did she ever crack a joke? Harbor a doubt? Or love
a man?
I recently discovered that the answer to all these questions
is a surprising yes.
In “The Little Way: The Spirituality of Thérèse
of Lisieux,” Bernard Bro gives us a glimpse of Thérèse
without the sugar coating. He reveals that her down-home
humor often lit up the convent.
In fact, she was known for entertaining the other nuns behind
cloister walls with her hilarious impersonations. One nun
recalled that she could “make you weep with devotion
and just as easily make you faint with laughter during recreation.”
Bro also points out that Thérèse did indeed
struggle with temptations, but even then her humor didn’t
fail her.
For example, there was an elderly nun who unknowingly ruptured
the silence during meditation by scraping her false teeth
with her fingernails, driving Thérèse nearly
to distraction.
As soon as this nun came in,” Thérèse
wrote, “she used to begin making a funny little noise
which sounded like two shells being rubbed together.”
Poor Thérèse actually broke into a sweat trying
to control herself, but here is where her holiness really
shone through. Instead of laughing or screaming, as she
wanted to, she kept still.
She also did something that might inspire people who suffer
through insipid music or snooze-inducing sermons during
Mass: “I concentrated on listening to it as if it
were a magnificent concert, and my entire meditation was
spent in offering this concert to Jesus.”
It seems Thérèse also grappled with agonizing
doubts, especially toward the end of her life, when her
physical suffering was terrible.
Bro reveals that she spent 18 months in a tunnel of darkness,
where the devil preyed on her relentlessly. At one point,
she struggled with believing in life after death.
Still, she never gave up trusting in God’s love. Her
last words were “My God, I love you!”
She was clearly someone who faced many situations women
confront today. But one might still wonder: Wasn’t
there something missing in the life of this simple nun,
tucked chastely away behind convent walls?
In truth, chastity has never excluded love. And the tender
story about Thérèse and the man she cherished
is recounted in a wonderful book “Maurice & Thérèse:
The Story of a Love.”
In 1895, a young seminarian, Maurice Bellière, wrote
to the Mother Superior asking that a nun pray for him as
he was struggling to endure the rigors of the seminary.
She chose Thérèse, and the twosome began corresponding.
In his letters, Maurice called Thérèse his
“good angel,” while she spoke fondly of the
“union which has formed between our souls.”
Always humble, she warned him at one point against idealizing
her: “The good God has given you as your sister not
a great soul but one who is very little and very imperfect.”
Maurice went on to become a missionary in Africa, strongly
crediting Thérèse’s prayers and her
encouragement for this event. She sent him poetry, they
exchanged photos and she kept his near.
As she faced death, she promised he would inherit her most
cherished possessions: a relic, a painting and a well-worn
crucifix.
Toward the end, the man she called “my dear little
brother” paid her a great compliment by writing “Jesus
is the Treasure but I found Him in you.”
Despite overly frilly portrayals, St. Thérèse
was a very real lady who doubted, laughed, cried and faced
temptations, just like everyday women still do today.
Granted, maybe she never did have a real date. But that
certainly didn’t prevent her from knowing love’s
deepest meaning.
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