|
The Christmas Conversion of St. Thérèse
BY FATHER DWIGHT LONGENECKER December 16-22, 2007 Issue |
Posted 12/11/07 at 1:25 PM
I was an Anglican priest the summer I met St. Thérèse of
Lisieux.I was living in England and had three months free between jobs, so I
decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I was going to hitchhike and stay in
monasteries and religious houses on the way.
The first leg of my journey took me across the English
Channel to Normandy. After staying with the Benedictines at the monastery of
Bec Hellouin, I headed for the town of Lisieux.
As a convert from evangelical American religion, I didn’t
know much about the little saint of Lisieux, and what I did know I didn’t like.
I thought her spirituality must be syrupy sweet. It didn’t seem very manly to
me. I wasn’t sure what “little flowers” had to do with anything and I thought
all the little girl talk about “dear papa in heaven” and “being God’s good
little girl” was a bit much.
When I got to Lisieux, things didn’t improve. I made my way
up to the imposing basilica dedicated to the saint on the hill outside the
town. It looked big and ugly from the outside, and the road leading up to the
basilica was crowded with souvenir shops with rosaries hanging from the
awnings, postcards and images of the saint, pictures of Mary and Jesus with
wide eyes, and holy water bottles shaped like Mary.
To a tasteful young Anglican priest it was all pretty tacky,
and I thought the French ought to know better.
I enquired at the guest house called The Hermitage, next to
Thérèse’s Carmelite convent. A neat little nun showed me up to my room, and
after a simple French supper I wandered around the town for a short time. It
was a balmy June evening, and the sun was setting as I went back to The
Hermitage and settled down for the night. I opened the window and before long I
was fast asleep.
At 3 in the morning I woke up and was immediately aware of
something happening.
The moon was shining through the window and a light breeze
wafted the curtains. I sat up in bed, not alarmed, but alert — more alert and
awake than one should be when awakened in the small hours of the morning. There
seemed to be a presence in the room, and it felt like a feminine presence — a
very benign and loving and powerful feminine presence.
I sensed that it was somehow Thérèse.
I sat there for at least 30 minutes in silence experiencing
a dynamic inner calm I can only describe as a quiet bliss. Then the experience
passed and I went back to sleep — but not before I decided that I would get
over my prejudice and have a more serious meeting with the young lady called
Thérèse of Lisieux.
The next day I went to her childhood home and bought an
English translation of her Story of a Soul. I discovered that her “sentimental”
spirituality had a purpose. It was a reminder of the Gospel lesson that all of
us, if we were to enter the Kingdom, had to become as little children. I also
learned that this little flower was no shrinking violet. She was tough, tougher
than I had ever thought it necessary to be in my own feeble attempts at being a
Christian.
Then I learned that she had a vocation to pray for priests,
and I said, “Thérèse, I know you pray for priests. I am only an Anglican
priest, and not a full member of your family, but I hope you will pray for me,
too, as I embark on this pilgrimage.”
After the pilgrimage was over I continued to study the life
and teachings of this remarkable saint. As I eventually came into full
communion with the Catholic Church I was sure it was not only her life, example
and teachings, but also her prayers, which assisted my own journey into the
Catholic faith.
One of the convincing stories about Thérèse’s life was her
childhood “conversion” (as she calls it) at the age of 14. As an evangelical, I
was brought up with the idea of the importance of personal conversion, and I
myself first “accepted Jesus into my heart” at the age of 5. Thérèse’s
childhood conversion was therefore fascinating, and I wanted to know more.
It happened at Christmastime in 1886.
In France, young children left their shoes by the hearth at
Christmas, for their parents to fill them with gifts. Thérèse should have
outgrown this tradition by the age of 14, but she was the spoiled baby of a
family who had lost their mother to cancer. Her elder sisters continued to
leave presents in Thérèse’s shoes at Christmas, and she was still looking
forward to the Christmas event.
As she climbed the stairs with her older sister Celine,
Thérèse heard her beloved father say about the ceremony of shoes and gifts,
“Thank goodness that’s the last time we shall have this kind of thing!”
Thérèse was hypersensitive, and had suffered from a terrible
nervous illness only a few years before. She froze, for a moment, with
horrified hurt feelings. Celine looked at her helplessly, and knew that Thérèse
would probably be heartbroken over her father’s comments.
Thérèse remained calm. Something had happened. She said
Jesus had come into her heart and converted her, taking her selfish immaturity
and banishing it forever. She forgot the crying, walked downstairs, and
exclaimed over the gifts in the shoes, as if she had never heard a word her
father said.
Despite great opposition, Thérèse entered the convent the
next year, and began the rapid spiritual growth for which she is famous.
Thérèse always referred to this as her “Christmas
Conversion.” To one unfamiliar with Thérèse, it may seem an insignificant
event. “So, a 14-year-old girl finally realized she was being a baby and ‘got
over it.’ What’s the big deal?”
Thérèse would probably have agreed that the whole incident
seemed small. For her that was the big deal. All the events recounted in her
life were small. They were middle class, and seemingly insignificant. They were
a “big deal” because Thérèse realized God himself was working his miracle of
grace through the little everyday events of a very ordinary life. Thérèse
recognized that in the midst of a 14-year-old girl making a step toward
maturity, God’s grace was thundering through.
This enlightenment, and the spiritual theology that flowed
from it, transformed the Catholic Church and brought Thérèse the status not
only of being the greatest saint of her time, but eventually being named a
Doctor of the Church.
If God was working out his purpose in the midst of an
ordinary girl’s family life and growth, then God’s work was just as constant
and ubiquitous in the lives of all those who simply trusted him and obeyed the
promptings of his love.
That Thérèse’s conversion was a “Christmas conversion” is
not simply a sentimental touch weaving in Christmas and presents and children.
That it was a “Christmas conversion” has a deeper meaning, for Thérèse’s lesson
that the grace of God is constantly at work within the nitty gritty of everyday
life is the lesson at the heart of Christmas itself.
The poet Henry Vaughn wrote, “Here in dust and dirt, O here,
the lilies of his Love appear.”
The realization that God is working his purpose out within
the dust and dirt of ordinary life is the message of Thérèse.
It is also the message at the heart of the Christmas story,
for there in the ordinary, warm earthiness of a stable God is born. There
within the most ordinary event — a mother and a birth — new life comes to
earth.
Father Dwight Longenecker is the author of St. Benedict and St. Thérèse
— The Little Way and the Little Rule. He is leading a pilgrimage to Lisieux and
Northern France in April. DwightLongenecker.com
Make a Donation now!
Insightful. Informative. Uncompromisingly faithful. The National Catholic Register is more than a newspaper. It’s a cause. Your support for the Register funds important journalism that helps to build a Culture of Life in our nation, and throughout the world. Help us promote the Church’s New Evangelization by donating to the National Catholic Register right now.
Click here to donate
| 
.
