The Context of Holiness: Psychological and Spiritual Reflections on the Life of Saint Therese of Lisieux (Revised Edition)

by Marc Foley

As St. John of the Cross put it, regarding his treatment of the spiritual life: “I will not rely on experience or science . . . [but] I will not neglect whatever possible use I can make of them” (A Prol 2, emphases added).4 In short, we should not fail to employ a tool simply because it has limited value.

Becoming an adult does not mean that the deep emotional wounds of childhood disappear. Rather, being an adult means choosing to make courageous decisions in the face of powerful emotions. We have an example of this when Thérèse was appointed novice mistress. “When I was given the office of entering into the sanctuary of souls, I saw immediately that the task was beyond my strength. I threw myself into the arms of God as a little child and, hiding my face in His hair, I said: ‘Lord, I am too little to nourish Your children; if You wish to give through me what is suitable for each, fill my little hand and without leaving Your arms or turning my head, I shall give Your treasures to the soul who will come and ask for nourishment’” (S 237–38).

It is as if Thérèse is saying to all of us, “There are many situations in life that trigger the deep-seated fears of childhood. I have come to see that this is a normal part of daily life. I have also come to understand that our childhood wounds are not obstacles to our spiritual growth but are in some mysterious manner the path on which we find our way back to God. The deep-seated fears of my life have forced me to abandon my self-sufficiency and to rely upon the grace of God.”

The purpose of beauty is to draw us to God, but it can also draw us away from God if we become attached to the experience of beauty. St. John of the Cross tells us that some people “let themselves be encumbered by the very consolations and favors God bestows on them for the sake of their advancing, and they advance not at all” (A Prol 7).

The Eternal and the Transitoriness of Life. “The beautiful bread and jam you had prepared had changed its appearance: instead of the lively colors it had earlier, I now saw only a light rosy tint and the bread had become old and crumbled. Earth again seemed a sad place and I understood that in heaven alone joy will be without any clouds” (S 37). This passage reveals the precocious consciousness of Thérèse. How many children her age (Thérèse was between five and seven) when looking upon a faded jelly sandwich would begin to reflect upon the transitoriness of life?

As a child, Thérèse was reflective far beyond her years. She possessed a deeply contemplative soul that saw all things in the light of eternity.

Our vocation during our brief sojourn on this earth is to love the people whom God has commended to our care. Seeing time against the backdrop of eternity helped Thérèse to shape a clear vision of life. Her abiding sense of death did not distance her from daily life but helped her to focus on what was truly essential in it.

As I gazed at him, a man many years my senior bathed in the light of the waning day, a poignant sadness came over me at the prospect of his death. “How I will miss him when he is gone,” came to my lips, which I repeated over and over to myself. That morning he and I had a heated argument. But as I looked at him slowly trudging across the field, what we had argued about shrank to its proper insignificance. Because I beheld him bathed in his mortality, I was able to see him in the light of eternity. For the first time in my life, I could perceive a deep goodness in this man, buried beneath a mound of little irritating mannerisms and idiosyncrasies. Learn “to see beneath the surface of circumstances and events,” said Thérèse to Céline, and it will prevent you from making rash judgments upon others.37

Paradoxically, Thérèse needed to be “babied” in order to grow up. For if this traumatized child, who could not bear the company of strangers, had been thrown into this strange world too soon and had to fend for herself, she never would have survived. Thérèse’s anxiety would have been so great that, in order to protect herself, she would have regressed to an earlier stage of development and may have become fixated there for the rest of her life.

Suffering is one of the great crossroads of life. It can transform or deform us. It can make us compassionate or self-centered. There is an old Native American proverb that says that the unwise person takes the manure of his life and out of the bitterness of his heart throws it at others, whereas the wise person gathers it to himself and uses it as fertilizer.

In 1909, because her mental condition had so deteriorated, Sister Marie left Lisieux Carmel at the age of fifty-five, after spending twenty-eight years in religious life. She died in 1936 at the age of seventy-eight after many years of wandering aimlessly about the French countryside. However, she kept in touch with Lisieux Carmel. In 1929, she wrote the following to Pauline (Mother Agnes). “The work of sanctification which my beloved Thérèse began so lovingly in me before she died still continues. And I can say in all sincerity that—my house is at rest. And I live now in complete abandonment. As long as I love Jesus, and He and Thérèse are pleased, nothing else matters to me.”55

“When children are asked to name their favorite fairy tales, hardly any modern tales are among their choices . . . [because they] fail to provide the escape and consolation which the fearsome events in the [traditional] fairy tale make necessary, to strengthen the child for meeting the vagaries of his life. Without such encouraging conclusions, the child, after listening to the story, would feel that there is indeed no hope of extricating himself from the despairs of his life.”

Thérèse never fully mourned her mother’s death because she never fully experienced it. Psychologically, Zélie’s death could not be past tense because it was never present tense.

Was the cure nothing but the result of a psychological process? Or was the psyche rather the instrument through which God operated? Were the memories that were triggered in Thérèse’s mind nothing but an instance of “free association”? Or was there a Presence that was guiding the process? St. Augustine, in pondering the mysterious regions of the mind where God’s providence operates, writes, “God acts upon us . . . where no man has in his own control what shall enter into his thoughts.” 86 Not a bad description of free association! Also, is it only by accident that the instrument of Thérèse’s cure was the smile of a mother?

I have often told people who come to me for spiritual direction to never make it a goal to conquer their faults. Simply ask for the grace to resist the temptation of the moment. Take it for granted that you will always have tendencies toward certain sins and self-destructive behaviors, which will always be opportunities to grow in virtue and rely upon the grace of God.

“I had no need to grow up” (S 208). Thérèse did not make it a goal to get beyond the effects of her childhood but to do the will of God in the midst of them. Thérèse understood that the emotional wounds of her childhood were not obstacles to spiritual growth but the context of growing in holiness.

Andersen’s story can serve as a metaphor for a sensitive conscience or a highly developed spiritual consciousness that is so delicate, sensitive, and finely attuned to the presence of God that it instinctively knows when something is not of God. As Andersen’s story symbolizes, a sensitive conscience is a heightened state of consciousness—a manifestation of the soul’s true nobility.

How are we to interpret the above passage? Was Louis’s proposal a compassionate and sensitive response to his wife’s fears, or was he taking advantage of the situation in order to live out what he held to be an ideal? Biographers have come down on both sides of this question. Also, was Zélie relieved by Louis’s proposal because it allayed her fears of having sex, or was she resentful because he put her in a position where she was forced to choose between calming her anxiety and frustrating her desire to have children? I suspect that all of the above are true. Louis and Zélie were not cardboard figures but real, complex human beings. They lived together as brother and sister for ten months, but Zélie’s desire to have children was greater than her fear. The rest is history.

This was the corporate vision of the group that Thérèse entered at the age of fifteen. They saw themselves as human “lightening rods” that deflected the wrath of God from sinners, the same God that triggered Thérèse’s crisis of scruples at the age of twelve. This is an extremely significant fact in our understanding of Thérèse’s life in Carmel.

It is not hard to imagine Sister Martha punishing Thérèse after Thérèse confronted her about her relationship with Mother Gonzague. Sister Martha often sulked and treated others coldly when she was hurt. She knew that Thérèse was scrupulous and deathly afraid of offending God. What better way could Sister Martha punish Thérèse than to act coldly and make Thérèse feel guilty about what she had said?