I am counting down the days to our pilgrimage through France, Pathways of Grace, which begins June 17! We’ll be visiting some of the sacred places in France, including Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Lourdes, Lisieux and Omaha Beach. And while we are on this pilgrimage, we and our two dozen companions will be reflecting on our own living faith and how that faith is manifested in our lives by the witness of those who have gone before us.
I’m especially looking forward to visiting Lisieux, the home of St. Thérèse, a discalced Carmelite who lived from 1873–1897. My grandmother’s first name was Rose, and she had a particular devotion to St. Thérèse, who often used roses as metaphors in her writing.
My grandmother would tell me that St. Thérèse promised she would “let fall a shower of roses” from heaven, and that we should always see roses as a reminder of God’s promise to answer our prayers. I still remember her very pointed look at me when she would tell me this: My middle name is Rose!
In preparation for the pilgrimage, I’m reading a brief retreat, The Way of Trust and Love, by Jacques Philippe. Throughout the retreat, Fr. Philippe reminds us how St. Thérèse’s spirituality and theology is deeply rooted in Scripture.
Her “little way,” sometimes described as “doing ordinary work in extraordinary ways,” has made her one of the most popular saints during the twentieth century, most likely because of the remarkable simplicity and practicality of her approach. Recognizing her profound impact on Christians, she is one of only four women who have been given the title of Doctor of the Church by a pope (There are 33 men with this recognition).
Fr. Philippe’s retreat also shows how her understanding of God’s desire to draw us closer to him predicted the teachings of the Second Vatican Council in several ways, including the fundamental teaching of the Council that the path to holiness is accessible to everyone, from which no one can be excluded, and that each baptized Catholic should pick up the Scriptures to discover that path.
In 1897, St. Thérèse wrote to Fr. Adolphe Roulland the following:
Sometimes when I read certain spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown through a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a host of illusions, my poor mind gets tired very quickly, I close the learned book which breaks my head and dries up my heart and I take the Holy Scripture. So everything seems luminous to me, a single word reveals infinite horizons to my soul, perfection seems easy to me, I see that it suffices to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself like a child in the arms of the Good Lord. Leaving to great souls, to great minds the beautiful books that I cannot understand, let alone put into practice, I rejoice in being little since only children and those who look like them will be admitted to the celestial banquet.
As each of us discover our own path to holiness, I hope you are encouraged by the work of the Living Faith Foundation in providing the Scriptures to those who might not otherwise be able to discover God’s message of love and mercy.
Please pray for our little pilgrimage, too, as we visit these holy places where such humble women as St. Thérèse, Bernadette and even our Blessed Mother show us “the little way” of being a child of God. I will be carrying our Living Faith Foundation’s work in my prayers during the pilgrimage and will pray for all of you, especially in those days.
In gratitude,
