Richard Rohr
Thérèse of Lisieux, Part I
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897) has long been an important teacher for me. The French Catholic Church of her time emphasized an ideal of human perfection, which took the forms of legalism, perfectionism, and immense self-preoccupation. Yet Thérèse humbly trusted her own experience, as mystics must always do, and taught the spirituality of imperfection instead. She called it her “Little Way.”
Thérèse is one of my favorite mystics, perhaps because I am an Enneagram Type One. The trap for the One is a self-created perfectionism, which makes us always dissatisfied and disappointed in just about everything, starting with ourselves. Our inner critic is quite well-trained and practiced, and it takes years of inner work to recognize how completely this critical worldview impairs our perception and keeps us from our natural compassion. We eventually see that we are not really loving God or others, but merely our own self-image.
Thérèse has often helped me in this inner work. As Brother Joseph Schmidt writes:
Thérèse shifted her focus more and more from attaining perfection or acquiring holiness to the attitude of the publican (see Luke 18:9-14): She let God’s mercy be her perfection, her holiness. “I desire, in a word, to be a saint,” she prayed, “but I feel my helplessness and I beg you—Oh my God!—to be Yourself my Sanctity!” [All true holiness is mirrored and reflected, and Thérèse allowed herself to enjoy that.]
“Jesus, draw me into the flames of your love,” she wrote. “Unite me so closely with you that you live and act in me.” [1]
These prayerful sentiments expressed her solution to the problem of perfection. Thérèse came to a complete reversal of her original idea of what it means to be on the path of holiness and undid centuries of Catholic legalism. And against all odds, this 24-year-old, formally uneducated French woman, has now been declared a “Doctor of the Church” (meaning her teaching is entirely trustworthy). She showed many of us that Gospel holiness has little to do with moral achievements or the elimination of defects (those are ego needs). It is almost entirely about receiving God’s free gift of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. We know God by participation in God, not by trying to please God from afar. Please think long and happily about that! “Let the one who would boast, boast in God,” as Paul says (1 Corinthians 1:31). It is our faults and our weakness that bring us to God, not our perfection and our strength. What a surprise for most people! I believe this is the heart of the Gospel.
Gateway to Silence:
We are all one with You.
____________________________________________
The Place of Ministry By Oswald Chambers
When you are brought face to face with a difficult situation and nothing happens externally, you can still know that freedom and release will be given because of your continued concentration on Jesus Christ. Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there anything between you and Jesus even now? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it as an irritation, or by going up and over it, but by facing it and getting through it into the presence of Jesus Christ. Then that very problem itself, and all that you have been through in connection with it, will glorify Jesus Christ in a way that you will never know until you see Him face to face.
We must be able to “mount up with wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31), but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and in the living that is done in the valley. Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) and what he was referring to were mostly humiliating things. And yet it is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say, “No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God.” Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?
Click Image for John White's Original Vision For CO2's
