On the Prayer and Patience of St. Thérèse II

Source: District of Asia

"Patientia opus perfectum babet." "Patience hath perfect work."

These words of St. James are especially true of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Patience was a leading factor in her perfection; her humility, her confidence, her love were brought to perfection mainly through patience. And in this Thérèse enters perfectly into the divine plan and conception, for it is clear that God's design for the world as it is since the Fall is to use the consequences of sin not only to save and restore man, but to raise him to the highest degree of moral perfection. This is beyond doubt. God has chosen this world of ours, the actual order of His providence, to draw holiness from the very wretchedness of man, and the essential means by which He does this is patience. Since suffering as a result of sin is inevitable and, in one form or another, continual in human life, the key to perfection and holiness lies in discovering within suffering itself the means of going beyond oneself in order to unite with God—in other words, a means of loving God. This is the role that patience plays in our sanctification and perfection, and this is what St. Thérèse understood and practiced in a marvelous manner. In her eyes, patience is love in action, love in its most genuine and ordinary form. Therefore, let us reflect on St. Thérèse’s contemplation of patience so that we may better understand the characteristics of her patience.

First, and this is essential if we are to understand Thérèse’s patience, her faith in Divine love enables her to perceive intimately, as it were, her Heavenly Father’s love in every form of suffering. She believes so strongly and simply in God’s love for her that, to her, even suffering appears as an expression of that love. All suffering, for Thérèse, is a testimony of God’s love for her. Acceptance of the will of God, she believes with her whole soul, is always an expression of His love. This is what she perceives above all, and how penetrating, clear-sighted, and profound her perception is!

Thérèse is a theologian by intuition, for she does not reason; she discerns with the eye of faith enlightened by charity: "illuminatos oculos cordis nostri." The following passage reveals the accuracy of her perception. "How," she asks, "can God who so loves us be happy when we suffer?" And without hesitation she replies : Never does our suffering make Him happy, but suffering is necessary for us. Therefore (note this simple, sublime word) He sends it to us, while looking the other way, as it were."" This marks and defines exactly the place and meaning of suffering in the divine conception. God who is love, and love alone (Thérèse sees this as St. John did: Deus caritas est"), does not will and never has willed our suffering for itself. True He wills it, but somehow in spite of Himself. We theologians would say (but how coldly we express it by comparison with the intuitive language of Thérèse) that God wills it with His consequent and hypothetical will. Sin having made suffering necessary, God wills suffering, but even so He only wills it through love as the necessary means of leading man back to love Him and find his happiness in loving Him. As Thérèse aptly puts it, He wills it while looking the other way! He only wills it in view of something better, in view of the happiness of man. A bitter remedy, but given the selfishness with which man is infected, it is a remedy necessary for the health and happiness of the soul.

Let us listen to our little theologian again. " It costs Him dear to make us drink at the fount of tears, but He knows it is the only means of preparing us to know Him as He knows Himself and to become ourselves godlike." Here surely is the perfect explanation, the wherefore of this world of ours, the supreme solution of the problem of evil. God foresaw sin and He permitted it in view of the greater manifestation of His love, so that by suffering, the result of sin (the suffering of His Son first of all, then our suffering), His own love might be more clearly shown and our love for Him might be raised up to the greater glory of His merciful love. Thus suffering appears to us bathed and immersed in love.

Another quotation from St. Thérèse sums up what we have already said. "Time is but a dream. Already God sees us in glory and rejoices in our everlasting bliss. How much good I derive from this thought! I understand now why He lets us suffer."2 Thérèse thinks as God thinks; she thinks supernaturally. And actually is it not for this purpose that the gift of faith is bestowed on us? Because she thinks supernaturally, she acts supernaturally in the face of suffering; she acts as a true child of God. This childlike delicacy, which understands the heart of God so well, brings to the lips of Thérèse exquisite utterances such as this: "God who so loves us has pain enough in being obliged to leave us on earth to fulfil our time of trial, without our constantly telling Him of our discomfort; we must appear not to notice it." Now we see how from this aspect of faith in regard to suffering we are led quite gently and naturally to patience, but patience as it was understood and practised by our Saint, patience through love, patience which is the very exercise of childlike love. 

Moreover, given this fundamental desire of her soul, the desire to do everything for the pleasure of God, and the resolution to miss no opportunity for little sacrifices, what must be the reaction of such a simple, upright heart when confronted by suffering? It could co only be a spontaneous acceptance, an acceptance first of all of submission, and then of joy. Submission and joy; we must now consider these two stages of St. Thérèse's patience.

One day during Thérèse's last illness she pointed to a glass in which there was some medicine of a bright red colour. "Do you see this little glass?" she said. "One would suppose it contained a most delicious draught, whereas in reality it is more bitter than anything I take. Well, it is the image of my life. To others it has been all rose colour; they imagine that I have drunk of a most delicious wine, but to me it has been full of bitterness."2 What is the point of this illustration? The point, which concerns us very closely, is that the patience of Thérèse was nearly always exercised over the kind of trial that we all experience every day and at every step of our way. Small hidden trials which her sensitive nature felt keenly, the sort which wound and hurt us too, but which for lack of a fervent and loving faith dishearten us and steep us in depression, making us almost unconsciously gloomy and morose, a burden to ourselves and to others. Opportunities for the exercise of patience constantly present themselves to us, as they did to Thérèse, but we neglect them. Why? Because of our lack of faith in God's love and our lack of fervour in desiring to love Him in return. The blows of suffering-and they are frequent-nearly always have the effect of throwing us in on ourselves instead of making us look up to God, as His loving providence would have us do, to unite ourselves to Him by the immediate, spontaneous sacrifice of our will, that is to say of our egoism to God's will, or, in other words, to His love. How sad this is and what an incalculable loss St. Gregory says that patience is the root and guardian of all the virtues: "radix et custos omnium virtutum," and the life of St. Thérèse by its sanctity and its virtues is the proof of this maxim. We recall for our encouragement some of the little trials which were the matter of Thérèse's patience. Discomfort from the temperature: she suffered so intensely from the cold that she "almost died of it." She only revealed this on her deathbed, for so patiently had she borne her suffering that no one had ever suspected it. Then there were the hurts and rubs from those around her; Thérèse suffered in this way through her Prioress and her Sisters. Her never-failing charity can only be explained by her patience, radix et custos. And similarly with our own imperfections, our failings and our faults, everything which alas, has the effect of discouraging and depressing us, for we are in ourselves an abundant source of small trials, the remedy is above all patience. "How happy I am," said Thérèse, ". to feel myself imperfect and to have so much need of the mercy of God." Here patience is the root and guardian of St. Thérèse's humility.

The little Carmelite was acquainted, as we are, with interior trials and sufferings of the soul: dryness, darkness, temptations. It even appears that aridity and darkness were the practically permanent conditions under which her spiritual life was spent from the time of her noviciate until her last days on earth. Her faith in God's love enabled her to accept and endure it all. Added to which family sorrows, her father's illness, her own physical suffering, all these trials, small or great, found Thérèse ever surrendered, calm and even smiling. And this brings us to the joyful acceptance of suffering. 

Joy in suffering was a common characteristic of St. Thérèse's patience. Here it would seem that the Saint wished to dispel the doubts which usually prevent us from realising that there can be joy in suffering. At first sight the following lines appear somewhat disconcerting. "Let us suffer, if needs be, without courage. Jesus suffered with sorrow, so would we have the soul suffer without sorrow? Yet we would like to suffer generously, grandly what an illusion!" Usually when people speak to us of patience, they tell us we must suffer with courage and generosity. "What an illusion!" says Thérèse; we must learn to suffer without courage or strength, and with sorrow. Here it seems to me we lay our finger on the difficulty which prevents us from believing it is possible in our case to have joy in sorrow. We have a false conception of the joy which is involved; we imagine that it is a sensible joy, a joy which we can feel, and this is obviously incompatible with sorrow. Instinctively we picture a kind of suffering which flatters us and raises us in our own estimation, we see ourselves suffering grandly, generously, courageously, and we suppose joy in suffering to be like this. But it is not like this. To feel the sorrow of suffering is an essential element of suffering -let us be quite clear on this point. To feel bitterness, to feel our nature faltering, to see ourselves without courage, overwhelmed by suffering, to feel this and accept it is patience.

We must pass beyond the bitterness which lies in all these natural effects of suffering and, rising above them, find peace and joy. Peace in what? In God's good pleasure alone, absolutely alone. And joy in what? Solely in pleasing God without any feeling of joy for ourselves, or any human or personal satisfaction. This is the joy that Thérèse experienced. Her words will enlighten us on this point. per If you wish to feel joy in suffering and have an attraction to it, it is really your own consolation you are seeking, because once we love, all suffering disappears." And again: "I find only one joy, that of suffering, and this joy, which is not a pleasure of the senses, is above all joy."? Joy which is not a pleasure of the senses: therefore it is not a question of feeling joy in suffering considered as such, but of establishing ourselves firmly in the conviction that by accepting suffering we please our Heavenly Father, of reminding ourselves of this as soon as suffering appears, of resting in suffering as in God's good pleasure an and of placing our joy therein, a joy not of the senses but of the spirit.

It would, I think, be in accordance with the mind of the Saint whose desire was to encourage the diffident, to say that this joy is accessible to us as it was to her. What is required? That in suffering we should see, as she saw, a mark of God's love for us; that we should make patience, as she did, an exercise of love, of delicate, childlike love for God. Then the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, as He did in St. Thérèse, will do in us what He did in her. Out of the bitterness and sorrow that is inseparable from suffering He will bring forth joy, joy which, as St. Paul says, is after charity the first fruit of the Holy Spirit: "fructus autem Spiritus est caritas, gaudium." Then it will not be difficult to reflect by our smile the interior joy of our soul., "I forced myself to smile at suffering," St. Thérèse tells us. And why did she do this? For a reason that appears so childlike but is actually the profoundest wisdom. "I forced myself to smile at suffering, so that God, deceived as it were by the expression of my countenance, might not know that I suffered."

Père Liagre, C.S.Sp