The Message of Therese of Lisieux
Circular letter of the General Superiors of O.Carm. and OCD
on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the death of Saint Therese of Lisieux
(beginning)
Dear brothers and sisters in Carmel!
1. In a few months, we will begin the celebrations for the hundredth anniversary of the death of our sister Therese of Lisieux. This jubilee reminds us of the young Carmelite from France who, in her writings, managed to express a profound vision of the relationship between God and the human being, a fruit of her personal experience under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
2. Her mission was to remind us of what is essential in the Christian message: that God is love and that He freely gives Himself to those who are evangelically poor; that holiness is not the result of our efforts but of God’s action, which requires from us only a loving surrender to saving grace. Therefore, her teachings have not lost their relevance and have had such an impact that over thirty bishops' conferences and thousands of Christians have requested her to be declared a Doctor of the Church.
Evangelical and Contemplative Woman
3. Therese of Lisieux lived her religious life in the enclosure of Carmel, yet she was declared the patroness of missions because she knew how to combine contemplative spirituality with the apostolic dimension. At the same time, she transmitted her evangelical experience in a simple and vibrant language that believers of all nations and cultures can understand and adopt. By returning to the gospel and to the Word of God, to the historical Jesus and His Paschal mystery of death and resurrection, she anticipated the Second Vatican Council. She emphasized the primacy of love for the Church, the body of Christ, and bore witness to the spirituality of everyday life and the universal call to holiness.
4. The experience and teaching of Therese of Lisieux take on special significance in our time, when new perspectives for women's presence and action in society and in the Church are opening up. A woman is called to be “a sign of God's tenderness towards humanity”1 and to enrich humanity with her “feminine genius.” Both were realized by our sister in her life and in her writings.
Revisiting the Therese of Lisieux Message
5. Reading the works of our sister Therese in the social and ecclesiastical context of our time, starting from our culture will help us focus on the essential: trustful openness to God, the loving Father who loves and understands us; following Jesus, our present and close brother, who is the way, the truth, and the life; receptiveness to the Holy Spirit, who guides the history of our religious families and our small, personal histories. And all of this in acceptance of our poverty and weakness, with the assurance that nothing and no one can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus (cf. Rom 8:37–39).
6. We hope that our reflections will serve to keep the dynamism of these celebrations alive, which should transform into a moment of grace for the entire Carmel: religious, nuns, priests, and laity.
The Church's Relevance of Therese of Lisieux
7. During the synod on consecrated life, the participants cited our sister on various occasions, acknowledging her as a person with a relevant message for the Church on the threshold of the third millennium. Among the speeches mentioning her stands out the contribution of the General Secretary, Cardinal Schott, who concluded his three-year report with these words: “Let me finish this summary report by recalling the woman who is an outstanding witness of consecrated life in the mission of the Church: Saint Therese of the Child Jesus… this Carmelite nun from Lisieux was characterized by her humility, evangelical simplicity, and trust in God… In her autobiographical notes, she recalls among other things: ‘When I intensely longed for martyrdom, I sought an answer in Paul’s letters. The Apostle explains how all the most perfect gifts are nothing without love and that love is the best way that safely leads to God. In this I found peace… in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be love’” (October 3, 1994).
8. When on January 4, 1995, Pope John Paul II spoke during an audience about the commitment to prayer in consecrated life, he pointed to its importance for evangelization, concluding his address with the following words: “Therefore, it is beautiful to close this catechesis by recalling the figure of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, who with her prayer and sacrifice served evangelization as if she were fully dedicated to missionary activity, indeed even more. So much so that she was declared the patroness of missions.”2
9. The post-synodal apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata also mentions our sister, emphasizing her desire to be love in the heart of the Church3 and her ideal to see herself involved in unique cooperation with missionary activity by repeatedly expressing her desire to love Jesus and to make Him loved,4 starting from communion with Him: “To be your bride, O Jesus… in my union with you to be a mother of souls.”5
Invitation to the Essential
10. Therese of Lisieux, with her religious name “of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face,” expressed the entire process of her life that led her to spiritual maturity through the humility of the incarnation (kenosis) and the suffering of Jesus Christ, who liberates us from every slavery with His Paschal mystery. She was able to understand and live Jesus’ life plan, which transforms every area of our relationships and gives a new dimension to our relationships with God, with others, and with things. Against the plan of death that controls and enslaves us in all these areas, we find the plan of evangelical life that liberates and transforms us. The mission of Therese of Lisieux was precisely to remind us of these truths, to renew our focus on the essential.
11. In light of Jesus’ plan, which we will briefly recall, we will deepen in the Therese of Lisieux message an invitation to transition: from God the Judge to God the Father-Mother, from distrust to trust and surrender to Him, from seeking perfection to seeking communion with God, from complexity to simplicity, from laws that enslave to the law of concrete and effective love that liberates, from immaturity to maturity, from external asceticism to evangelical self-denial, from merit to empty hands, from purely spiritual reflections on the Word of God, from complex prayer to simple contemplative gaze, from unreachable Mary to the close Mary of the gospel.
