St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Peasant Times-Dispatch Issue 17

Happy New Year!

Dear Readers,

Christmas has come and gone¹, and we find ourselves once more in the brief interlude of Ordinary Time until we return to Lent. I hope the new year, the Christmas season, and the ascending sunlight of January find you all well!

Since the last post, I posted Episode 4 of the Podcast! By now, Episode 1 has gone behind a paywall. If you’d like to listen to the old stuff, kindly consider a paid subscription? Otherwise don’t forget to check back on the 10th of each month for the latest podcast!

I also posted a PSA about Community Curation. It pairs rather nicely with Episode 4 of the Podcast, consider checking them both out after this article?

I hope you enjoy those, and enjoy the essay to follow! Thank you as always for reading!

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Much is known and documented about St Therese of Lisieux and all I know about her I learned from reading the book Story of a Soul, at the recommendation of

James Dietz

. I am not here going to recapitulate a biography of her life, nor am I going to summarize her book. I will share some reflections on my reaction to it, and elaborate on the serendipitous confluence of her Little Way and the Peasant’s Life.

Story of a Soul

My initial reaction was that I did not enjoy this book. I wrote a note about it, and complained loudly that I don’t see myself in this Saint. I saw someone who seemed Saintly from the beginning. She had a better memory—described events at the age of 4 as the end of an epoch; She had a better faith—her love for Christ made me feel quite inadequate.

And yet, I read on. And the more I read, I felt the presence of St Therese, as if she was sitting across from me in my living room where I did most of my reading. As if she wasn’t writing to her reverend mother, but to me. The gates of my cold heart could not prevail against the loving Way of St. Therese. The anatomy of my collapse went something like this:

First, I realized how she was praying was different than I had ever prayed. She was imagining Heaven, confident in her place there. She would take some setback or obstacle, and then imagine it’s perfection, or her consolation, in the loving embrace of Jesus.

Friends, let me tell you as much as I can possibly say. I’ve made oblique references to some trial I am enduring behind the scenes, and I want very much to spill my guts to the world. I wear my heart on my sleeve—Hambone can tell you over our 15 years of friendship, how very transparent I am², for better or worse. I can’t, in prudence, talk about it publicly yet. And since you are all my friends, I feel sometimes like a liar to hide this trial from you—Substack has been my escape from a reality that has been exhausting and awful. But St. Therese taught me to imagine my suffering fulfilled in heaven—to imagine the loving embrace of Jesus, my wounds glorified, my vices abolished, my weaknesses crowned, my pride felled, and the holes in my heart overflowing with Christ’s love. I am not ashamed to admit that this thought brought me to tears. Because of who I am, my nature, my emotional dispositions—so much of my prayer has been focused on trying to convince God that I am really trying very hard to be worthy of Heaven, that I hope I am trying hard enough. So for St Therese to come in and turn our weaknesses into strengths—to imagine the race already won— just broke me quite completely.

The next step in the collapse of my opposition to St. Therese was in realizing that her story perhaps rhymes with the hidden story of Our Blessed Mother. Long time readers will know that I am devoted to Our Lady³, so connecting St. Therese’s life to hers was remarkable for me. Mary consecrated herself to God at a young age also—she took a vow of perpetual virginity, as I understand it—her betrothal to Joseph allowed him to care for her and protect her and enable her to live out her vows, as there were no cloistered orders back then. I don’t know much about this life. But St. Therese’s obvious holiness from a young age reminded me of Mary; St. Therese’s overflowing love for God, and surrender to His will, reminded me of Mary. Mary’s only pause at the Annunciation was to ensure she could comply with both God’s will and remain true to her vows. God assured her that her perpetual virginity would be protected, and then Mary assented. Anyway, this made me read Story of a Soul as if I was reading an autobiography of Our Lady.

Finally, in prayer, I meditated on the image of St. Therese on the cover of the book, and I felt like she was looking at me. It was a really unnerving feeling, in the best of ways. This is when I resolved to take her as a Spiritual Sister—I started referring to reading the book as “spending time with my sister”. I can now say with confidence that St Therese is praying for me from heaven, and I am quite convinced that she chose me. If she’s the little flower, then I felt like so much dirt. Quite unworthy of the graces which St Therese’s prayer was winning for me.

The Little Flower and Dirt Christianity

I wish I could say the thing that struck me so hard about Story of a Soul was her Little Way. I complain far too much for her Little Way to be worthily proclaimed for now. I have a lot of prayer and spiritual work to do on this point. I do not, however, think it is a coincidence that the whole ethos of this newsletter has been oriented around “Dirt Christianity” and the counter-cultural image of a peasant; while St. Therese’s ethos is embodied in the image of the Little Flower. From whence do flowers grow? From the dirt!

So this is a helpful addendum to what I have written previously about Dirt Christianity⁴. If you want to do little things with great love, you must first prepare the soil for the little flower to grow. Till the earth, remove distractions, weeds, thorns; fertilize the soil with the sacraments; receive the seed of the Eucharist. Only then can little flowers of love spring forth from your soul. Only when the earth is prepared, and the world can not disturb your conscience, does your soul belong entirely to God, and God’s love can spring forth through you. How can we love as God loves us, if we are tormented by politics, the economy, celebrity gossip, the newest stuff, the newest family drama—to say nothing of the obstructing violence of sin.

I still complain a lot. I don’t endure little daily sufferings very well. I can barely follow through on the rules and obligations I set for myself, how much less could I follow a monastic Rule of Life⁵? But I think I am working very hard to make my soil ready. I am permitted to hope, in the way that St. Therese taught me, that when the time comes, Christ will send love radiating out from me, and my soil will yield fruit a hundred fold.

But only in God’s good timing. For now—I’m still dirt, planting seeds, and waiting for the springtime of my soul. Good soil can weather any winter, but little flowers need the Sun of God’s Love.

St. Therese of Lisieux, my spiritual sister, God’s Little Flower: Pray for us.

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Thank you for reading! God bless you all! A blessed Advent to you!

Ad Jesum per Mariam

1. On some calendars

2. If you follow me on notes you’ve probably seen all the “Deep Scoot Lore” I post. Part of the same phenomenon.

3. Who isn’t???

4. See the article More About Dirt Christianity, Issue #11, July 2023

5. There wasn’t a good place for me to insert this idea in the essay above, so I’m going to think about it in a footnote. It was really interesting to me, the meditations on the diversity of souls in heaven. There is not One Monolithic Holiness. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi are equally saints, yet their character is very different. This is a spiritual way of saying “different strokes for different folks”—but as long as the roads are guided by God’s love, all these roads lead to Heaven. I am not called to a monastery, but I am called to Holiness—that will look different for everyone.