Part 2 - Walking with Ste. Thérèse

We have not traveled far with St. Thérèse before she slows us again to offer more of her graceful contemplative insights. It’s as if preparation were everything. She wants us to travel the trail with her in such a way that we will be most edified. This is something we must get used to with Thérèse. We must prepare ourselves to be led by her at different tempos and along beautiful, narrow winding pathways rather than in a dead rush along a straight and wide highway.

Of course, we want to travel quickly to the Kingdom! However, Thérèse will teach us by her own example how that wide highway is a detraction on our journey. Actually, we will not arrive to the Kingdom that way. Spiritual understanding and the strengthening of our will take time and preparation. In order for Our Lord to prepare us to be fit subjects of the Kingdom, we must make the journey itself as important as the final destination. We are formed along the journey. Walking the trail with St. Thérèse is not something we do to merely bide time. It is by walking the trail with her that we grow in understanding and strength. When we arrive to any exciting destination, we inevitably come to understand that our experiences along the way only add to the glory and triumph of our arrival. So it is on our journey with Thérèse. She will slow down or stop us to point, speak, instruct, and guide. We will walk one way to look out over canyons and another way to admire distant meadows. She warns us about this characteristic very early on in her manuscript:

“Doubtless, dear Mother, you were wondering with surprise where I’m going with all this, because until now I haven’t said anything that looks like the story of my life. Yet you’ve asked me to write without holding back anything that might come to my thoughts. But it isn’t about my life, properly speaking, that I’m going to write, it’s about my thoughts concerning the graces that God has consented to grant me... so I’m going to talk without restraint, without worrying about the style or the many digressions that I’m going to make.” (The Story of a Soul, 2006, p. 4)

Already our young saint raises her hand to stop us. She is peering out over a beautiful panorama of meadows, lakes, rivers, and distant mountains. We look to see what she sees and are deeply moved. She has not told us her story; yet, by simply showing us the surrounding landscape on the trail, we sense she has, quite conversely, told us almost everything. She has said nothing. However, she has said everything. The story of her life has not begun, but the story of her life has unfolded before us. This is the adventure that is Walking the Trail with St. Thérèse.

“I find myself at a point in my life when I can take a look back at the past. My soul has matured in the crucible of outward and inward trials. Now, like a flower strengthened by the storm, I lift my head, and I see that the words of the 23rd Psalm are coming true in me. (‘The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He refreshes my soul… Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.’)” (The Story of a Soul, 2006, p. 4)

Our sister Thérèse shows us here why our walk with her must be slow, purposeful, and meditative. We must take our time winding through the valleys and over the hills. We must stop from time to time with her to ponder as we look out over the horizon. By doing this we are able to “look back at the past” to see and appreciate what Our Lord has done for us. We are able to put the pieces together to see who it is that we are becoming. We even understand how it is that God is doing such marvelous work in our lives in the midst of darkness and evil, for He is truly our “Good Shepherd” who leads us to green pastures and still waters no matter what evil threatens us.

In other words, we must contemplate. We must devote ourselves to contemplating the goodness of the Lord in the whole of our lives. Where did we come from? Who have we become? Where are we going? This is one of the first lessons Thérèse teaches us through her saintly example.

Thérèse also continues to teach us the absolute necessity of humility, which we might define through her example as, “being that which God wills,” no more and no less. Again, she shows us the way by describing herself with a metaphoric descriptor that will echo through the ages as a delightful nickname reserved for and inseparable from her:

“So, Mother, it is with happiness that I come to sing near you of the mercies of the Lord… It is for you alone that I’m going to write the story of the little flower picked by Jesus.” (The Story of a Soul, 2006, p. 4)

Thérèse knows who she is becoming. She is not only content with being a little flower, she delights in it and recognizes that this is precisely what pleases Jesus about her.

She presses on by pointing out toward the horizon again. We are contemplating. We are not moving, as she has yet to begin her story! But we are, in fact, moving through eternity, or so it seems. Not moving, but walking into eternity. Not knowing, but knowing everything. That is Walking the Trail with St. Thérèse!

What does she see out there? We look. The sun has been rising and now the shadows are removed from the meadows below. We see what she sees. We understand. It is Joy. It is Thanksgiving. We are no more than Our Lord has made us, but we are also no less! Thérèse is free to be enraptured with joy and a sense of thanksgiving. She is free because she understands. We have no need to hold back our own beautiful petals. We are free to open up to the sunlight such that our essence shouts the greatness of our being as we are in Jesus, not with words, but through our very substance – who we truly are in Christ. We are not afraid to show the world what the Lord has done for us, the beautiful colors He has painted across our souls, the beautiful flowers that He has created us to be.

Why? Because they are His gifts; they do not derive from ourselves. If we create something grand ourselves, we often try not to show it off for fear of appearing immodest or conceited. However, if a very important person gives us a gift, we delight in showing it to others. The gift points to the grandeur of the giver not the receiver; therefore, we are not hesitant to show it. Thérèse understood that her graces and spiritual gifts were from Our Lord and that showing the world the “little flower” of her soul would serve only to bring Him glory.

“It seems to me that if a little flower could talk, it would tell simply what God has done for it, without trying to hide its blessings. Under the pretext of a false humility it wouldn’t say that it is unsightly and lacking in perfume, that the sun has taken away its beauty and its stem has been broken, while it recognizes just the opposite in itself… The flower that is going to tell its story rejoices in having to publish abroad the completely undeserved kindness of Jesus. It recognizes that nothing in itself was capable of attracting His divine glance, and that His mercy alone has made everything that there is of good in it…” (The Story of a Soul, 2006, p. 5)

Ah, “the flower that is going to tell its story”! We are reminded that she still has not begun! Well, Thérèse IS going to tell us her story. But has she not already told it? She has not begun, but she has told us everything. We do not know her story, but we DO, in fact, know her!

Prepare to be amazed everyone. You are not simply walking a trail. You are Walking the Trail with St. Thérèse!