When Human Love Reaches Perfection: St. Therese, Model of the New Millenium

WHEN HUMAN LOVE REACHES PERFECTION:

Saint Thérèse, Model of the New Millenium

written by Sem. Carl Angelo Pua for the 3rd Visit of the Pilgrim Relics of St. Therese in the Philippines, Diocese of San Pablo

Therese may have lost her mother during childhood
but still found comfort in the arms of the Blessed
Virgin who led her to Her Son.

            Love is repaid by love alone. It is in love that the youngest Doctor of the Church found her vocation in prayer and holiness. Saint Thérèse, at the age of 15, received a papal dispensation to enter the Carmelite Monastery of Lisieux. The ardent love of this nun for Jesus was so pure that her desire to win souls through prayer moved her to the confines of the discalced order. Her departure to the eternal world left many saddened yet inspired millions. She has been a patron of many pontiffs, religious, and lay people. It is interesting that in the canonization process, Benedict XV exempted the cause from the fifty years delay imposed by law and in 1921 promulgated the decree on the heroic quality of the virtues of Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Pius XI, succeeding the Holy See, made her the ‘star of his pontificate.’ It was said that the relics and picture of the Little Flower never left his working office. By May 17, 1925, in the presence of 33 Cardinals and 250 bishops, Thérèse was proclaimed saint. More than 50,000 people attended the ceremony inside the St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome; not mentioning the overwhelming 500,000 more standing outside. Two years later she was declared one of the patrons of foreign missions together with Saint Francis Xavier. The theology of Saint Thérèse, though not explicitly mentioned, was instrumental in the work of the Second Vatican Council: “the return to the word of God, the priority given to the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) in everyday life, the Church seen as the Body of Christ, the universal mission, the call of each baptized person to sanctify, fraternal attention paid to those who have different beliefs or who do not believe.”

            There is nothing new with the words of this young saint. Many theologians would say she devised nothing ingenious. However, her way of serving God through little acts of love inspired and touched many hearts to conversion. This love is the very message of Christ as He commanded to love God and neighbor (cf. Mk. 12:30,31) and the calling of every Christian of which is the end of human existence. But what really sets the love of this Little Flower is how she conceives it in simplicity. Love should not need to be grand for God to notice one – the mere heartfelt prayer is already an expression of deep love. She never forgot to pray. She never ran out of something to pray for. Like what she wrote to her sister Celine, “Let us not stop praying; confidence produces miracles… let us not forget souls, but forget ourselves for them.” This love which Saint Thérèse teaches is the very act that the world needs today; a love that is pure and holy, eternal and perfected in God.

The young Therese, burning with the fire
of love, showed how it meant to be a true
follower of Christ even at an early age.

            Why the need for a millennium saint? During the pontificate of the late Pope John Paul II, he ushered the whole Church in entering the new millennium most significantly with the celebration of the Great Jubilee Year 2000. This called forth for a renewed relationship with one another – mending divisions, healing strife, and breaking the chains and yokes of oppression, hatred, and iniquities. Saint Thérèse’s simple message of love is seen as the solution for all these. This attracted the pontiff’s vision of telling the world about God who is love Himself. Through Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, love reached its climax with a kenosis (a self-emptying). The Little Flower’s devotion to the Child Jesus and the Holy Face expresses both the joy of nativity and the sorrow of Calvary. She teaches that our service and love for the Lord is not limited to moments of success and comfort but in hardships as well. Saint Thérèse knew and felt God’s presence in the most real and authentic manner and her response is that same love. She reciprocated love which emanated from her Master with the same by spending her life doing good on earth: I do not want to rest as long as there are souls to save. But when the angel says: ‘Time is no more’, then I will take my rest. It is a selfless giving of one’s self for the good of others.

            This forms the challenge of devotion to our Millennium Saint: to be transformed by the Divine love, and animated for the service of others. True devotion to a saint entails living-out and imitation of his or her life. Saint Thérèse is our model of simplicity, a way which seems easy yet tough. Saint Thérèse is our model of love, one that emanates from the hearts of the Creator and the created. Saint Thérèse is our millennium saint escorting us to holiness and prepares ourselves to open the door to Christ.