October 1 is the Feast Day of Saint Thérèse of the
Child Jesus and the Holy Face.
Since her death over 100 years ago many millions of souls
have sought the spiritual wisdom of St. Thérèse. In her life of suffering in,
through and with the Love of Christ Jesus, we discover depths of spiritual
direction which guide us when we are lost in the fog of our sin. Often, when we willingly re-engage in situations which have brought about
spiritual darkness in our past and which we know may cause risk to our souls
once again, we may find our thoughts caught in a fleeting pause for just a
moment to ask: “Why does God decline to prevent my headlong descent into my
repeating sin?"
Multiple responses flood the mind in answer to that
challenge.
Perhaps we might immediately remember that we are made in
God's Image, that we are empowered with free will which allows us the dignity
to reason and control and shape and take responsibility for our lives in the
choices we make (CCC 1731).
In His Self-emptying and Self-Sacrificial Love for us, God
will never violate His gift to us of free will. However, knowing our
inclination to sin, but never compromising our free will, God gifts us in
advance with a grace which gives us strength to reinforce the spiritual
fortress around our soul. With this gift, God then patiently and gently
and with deep respect invites and encourages and enables us to choose to do
good.
Yet, still we fall.
And after our fall, and despite our acknowledgement of God's
gift of free will, our question may hold a little change in our verb tense ...
"Why DID God decline to prevent my headlong descent
into my repeated sin?"
As we reflect, we may recognize that when we choose to sin,
we endure the consequences of our decision. And they usually always bring
sorrow, or pain, or isolation or spiritual darkness or all four. Knowing
that we may continue to subject ourselves to such consequences, we find
ourselves asking again:
"Why does God decline to prevent my headlong descent
into my repeating sin?"
When we have indeed given way to commit sin, we may finally,
on bended knee, beseech God's response to our question but now we ask it in the
humility of prayer. And now, God immediately responds because He cannot
resist a humble soul.
Spirit Lord will rush to that humble heart and He may
direct us to the words of St. Paul:
"God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may
share in his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).
St. Paul is revealing God's astonishing desire, His
invitation to a sinner. His invitation to us.
Our Saint is telling us that, even after a moment, a day, a
year, a lifetime of endlessly falling into willing sin, God, Who never abandons
us especially when we sin, is disciplining us in the painful consequences of
those sins, not because He is punishing us, but because He yearns to share His
very Holiness with us.
GOD WANTS TO MAKE US, SINNERS, DIVINE LIKE HIMSELF.
St. Peter reinforces this almost unbelievable Desire of God
when he teaches us that we may become "partakers of the Divine Nature"
(2 Peter 1:14).
We may sit in awe, wondering if what these two great figures
of the Apostolic Era are saying to sinners, us, is true.
St. John of the Cross replies:
"A total transformation in the Beloved, in which each
surrenders the entire possession of self to the other with a certain
consummation of the union of love. The soul thereby becomes divine,
becomes God through participation, insofar as is possible in this life"
(Spiritual Canticle).
With every fall into sin, no matter the grievousness of our
sin, the Lord God waits for us to turn back to Him. And when we seek Him, even
if we are still a far way off, Our Father sees us, has deep compassion and love
for us, runs to us with arms wide, catches us in a huge embrace and kisses us,
and then gives us everything He owns (Luke 15:11-32).
He gives us Himself.
He makes us a sharer in His Divinity.
He makes us Divine, like Himself.
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face understood
the pain of falling into sin, how it offends Love and wounds Him, how it brings
suffering upon and into ourselves. She offers us a "little way" to
subject our sin to God and so give Him glory, even when we have sinned and
wounded the One Who loves us, even when we are unable to attend the Sacrament
of Reconciliation.
Our giant of a Saint gives us the profound Spiritual
Direction of THE ART OF FAILURE.
Thérèse was most aware of the pain of suffering, spiritual
suffering, emotional, and the heights of physical suffering and these were
gifted to her from God, not always consecutively, but often simultaneously. She
recognized these as His "favours", lovingly sent to her.
When she was asked if her Good God is happy when we suffer,
she replied with a touching tenderness:
"Never does our suffering make Him happy, but it is
necessary for us; and so He sends it to us, while, as it were, turning away His
Face ... I assure you, it costs Him dearly to see us suffer…"
St. Thérèse is reminding us that when we have chosen to sin,
our Saviour suffers to witness what suffering our own actions have caused us
but He also knows that "suffering is the only means of preparing us to
know Him as He knows Himself, and to become ourselves Divine" (Thérèse).
And so it is that in her life-events of every suffering she
endured, she was inspired by Spirit Lord to seek and to find how she could use
these, especially how she could use even her sinfulness and her failings to
give God glory.
She teaches us
the Art of Failure.
When we have sinned or when we have failed God in some way
that offends His Love, perhaps we may sit in a self-sorrowful way and ask
ourselves, What good am I to God? I've sinned again: I've failed again.
St. Thérèse directs us to reflect on the poverty within our
failures in a quite different way, the way of holy listening, when in prayer we silence our minds and our mouths to hear God speak to our depths:
"How fortunate you are to be poor. That is why you will
receive much."
Blessed Marie Eugene of the Child Jesus reminds us that when
Thérèse failed or sinned, she saw poverty as a treasure because it
produced an aptitude for receiving God. When she sinned, she "hastened to
say to the Good God: my God, I know that I have deserved this feeling of
sadness (for my failing), yet allow me to look upon it as a trial which Thy
love sends me. I regret my sin, but I am glad to have this little suffering to
offer Thee. If Thou dost remain veiled-- well then -- I consent to be
benumbed with cold, and I rejoice in the suffering, howsoever merited."
And again, "If I had been faithful, I would have
received the reward of merit. I was unfaithful, I am humiliated, I am going to
receive the reward of my poverty and humiliation."
Thérèse rejoiced in every experience of impoverishment which
showed her her own littleness (Pere Marie Eugene of the Child Jesus).
"Why does God decline to prevent my headlong descent
into my repeating sin?"
In St. Thérèse's humble and trusting response to sin and
failure, we see the Light of God's Love and the light of her, and our own,
poverty. We begin to understand that with His Love and Mercy, we, like Thérèse,
can give great glory to God. This may be our prayer of gratitude to Him after
we have sinned against Him and He rewards us by disciplining us. If we
have served Him with humility and purity of heart, He rewards us in ways
uniquely for our souls.
God's Love may be a time of disciplining for our souls.
God's Love may be a time of sweet consolations for our love.
Both are rewards from His Loving Heart.
We have been graced by Spiritual Direction from St. Thérèse
of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.
She has led us toward a spiritual understanding of The Art
of Failure.
She has given us insight into how we may humbly give God
Great Glory in the aftermath of our sin or in the holy joys of serving Him.
Through her direction, Spirit Lord offers us an
enlightenment as we continue to live in, through and with the One Who is Love,
God, Goodness longing to pour Himself lavishly into us ... that we may
become "partakers of the Divine Nature."