Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, Part I<\/strong><\/a>\nTuesday, October 3, 2017<\/strong>\n<\/iframe><br \/>\nTh\u00e9r\u00e8se 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 Th\u00e9r\u00e8se humbly trusted her own experience, as mystics must always do, and taught the spirituality of imperfection instead. She called it her \u201cLittle Way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Th\u00e9r\u00e8se is one of my favorite mystics, perhaps because\u00a0I 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\u00a0well-trained\u00a0and practiced,\u00a0and 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.<\/p>\n<p>Th\u00e9r\u00e8se has often helped me in this inner work. As Brother Joseph Schmidt writes:<\/p>\n<p>Th\u00e9r\u00e8se 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\u2019s mercy\u00a0<em>be\u00a0<\/em>her perfection, her holiness. \u201cI desire, in a word, to be a saint,\u201d she prayed, \u201cbut I feel my helplessness and I beg you\u2014Oh my God!\u2014to be Yourself my Sanctity!\u201d [All true holiness is mirrored and reflected, and Th\u00e9r\u00e8se allowed herself to enjoy that.]<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJesus, draw me into the flames of your love,\u201d she wrote. \u201cUnite me so closely with you that you live and act in me.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n<p>These prayerful sentiments expressed her solution to the problem of perfection. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se 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 \u201cDoctor of the Church\u201d (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\u2019s free gift of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness.\u00a0<em>We know God by participation in God<\/em>, not by trying to please God from afar. Please think long and happily about that! \u201cLet the one who would boast, boast in God,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gateway to Silence:<br \/>\n<\/strong>We are all one with You.<\/p>\n<p>____________________________________________<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Place of Ministry\u00a0<\/strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/utmost.org\/oswald-chambers-bio\">Oswald Chambers<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/.col-12 --> <!-- \/.row --><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><strong>\u00a0He said to them, “This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.” \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&search=Mark+9%3A29\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mark 9:29<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"top-rule\">\u00a0\u201cHis disciples asked Him privately, \u2018Why could we not cast it out?\u2019 \u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Mark+9:28\">Mark 9:28<\/a>). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. \u201cThis kind can come out by nothing but\u201d concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God\u2019s work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him.<\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>We must be able to \u201cmount up with wings like eagles\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Isaiah+40:31\">Isaiah 40:31<\/a>), 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, \u201cI can do all things through Christ who strengthens me\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Philippians+4:13\">Philippians 4:13<\/a>) 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, \u201cNo, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God.\u201d 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?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><!-- .entry-content --><\/p>\n<div class=\"bottom-rule\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"row\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Rohr Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, Part I Tuesday, October 3, 2017 Th\u00e9r\u00e8se 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 Th\u00e9r\u00e8se humbly trusted her own experience, as mystics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16056,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16053\/revisions\/16056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}