Seeking Spiritual Direction From St.Thérèse

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."