Conversion & Charity
A Lesson from the Childhood of St. Thérèse
When I was first introduced to The Story of a Soul, I expected the spirituality of St. Thérèse of Lisieux to be… well, a little soft. I thought it would be a bit overly flowery. As assigned reading from my spiritual director, I did what I was told, but with some rapidity. I wanted to get back to the spiritual rigor that I had found in the works of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. It was with this attitude that I missed just how challenging this little flower from France could be and as providence and good direction would have it, I was told to read it again. And thanks be to God, because without a better acquaintance with this saintly friend, I would’ve missed the concrete example of Carmelite spirituality and the stark and happy heights of Christian charity.
In a profound passage, St. John of the Cross urges his spiritual children to such love with this advice:
God is more pleased by one work, however small, done secretly without desire that it be known, than a thousand done with the desire that people know of them. Those who work for God with purest love not only care nothing about whether others see their works, but do not even seek that God himself know them. Such persons would not cease to render God the same services, with the same joy and purity of love, even if God were never to know of these. 1
It is as if there were mini-martyrdom available to us in every good work. Jesus says that “whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Mt. 16:25). Without the self-interest of wanting at least God to see our serving him, we gain our lives in losing ourselves, loving God with an abandon that only faith could tell us is not reckless.
And what does this insight of St. John of the Cross look like in practice? After all, are we not children of our age, an age in which even the most mundane of works, like ordering lunch, could end up on a social media post for the world to witness. A hidden life of love? How countercultural.
One needs look no further than the patroness of mission, St. Thérèse, who so humbly relays the story of her “complete conversion,” during the Christmas of 1886.
Prior to this conversion, she had tried to please God by doing chores around the house, but she still awaited the gratification of a “thank you” from her family. When they failed to take note of her efforts, she would cry. She would even cry because she was crying, since she sincerely wanted to do her works from the purest of charity. Still, she kept getting in her own way. “It was necessary for God to do a small miracle in order to make me grow up in one moment, and He did that miracle on the unforgettable day of Christmas.” 2
After Midnight Mass, it was then the custom to find Christmas presents magically in one’s shoes which had been left by the fireplace. On this Christmas, however, little Thérèse overheard her tired father murmur with some annoyance at seeing the shoes, that it was fortunate that this was the last year of such practices. She ran upstairs, away from her father’s sight, and though her tears had begun, she nonetheless remarks:
“Thérèse wasn’t the same any longer; Jesus had changed her heart! Forcing back my tears, I ran quickly back down the stairs, and, restraining my pounding heart, I took my shoes, and, placing them in front of Papa, joyously I took out all the objects, looking happy as a queen.” 3
It was a mini-martyrdom, but also a breakthrough to another kind of happiness–a gratification available to the spiritual palate touched by grace.
St. Thérèse speaks of the quality of this experience in terms of charity. After this complete conversion, she says: “I felt a great desire to work for the conversion of sinners, a desire that I had never felt so strongly… In a word, I felt charity enter into my heart, the need to forget myself in order to please others, and ever afterward I was happy!” 4 This is exactly what gaining one’s life looks like after losing it.
There is nothing soft in the flowery Thérèse. Even if subtle, hers is the rigorous solidity of Mount Carmel and the happiness of charity, hidden. If you don’t yet see it, read her story, perhaps even again and again.
Joshua Clemmons works as a Pastoral Associate at Christ the King Catholic Church in Dallas, TX. He received his M.A. in Theology from the University of Dallas where he is now an adjunct professor of theology. A convert to Catholicism, Joshua loves the Carmelite spiritual tradition, and is probably a little too inclined toward discussions pertaining to religion and politics.
Citations:
St. John of the Cross, “The Sayings of Light and Love.” In Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. and Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez (Washington D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1991), 86-87.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul, trans. Robert Edmonson (Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2017), 102.
Ibid., 103-104.
Ibid., 104.
