Discover the Little Way of St. Thérèse
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus is among the most popular and most beloved saints in the Catholic Church. However, many have the mistaken idea that her life was easy and romantic and that her message can be reduced to the cute slogan: “Do little things with great love.” This view is far from accurate. St. Thérèse experienced life as all of us do, facing moments of joy, but also moments of profound crisis and pain. Sometimes she responded well to life’s challenges and other times she failed in her attempt. This is precisely why she is such a reliable witness to the Good News of God’s mercy and grace manifested in Jesus Christ, who came not to seek the just, but sinners. Thérèse reminds us that in his Son, God came to look for the weak and imperfect, and that He desires to be present and at work especially in the midst of our brokenness and sins, in the areas where we need Him the most.
Thérèse’s desires and her weakness
Thérèse entered Carmel at the age of fifteen with very intense desires and the firm resolution to bring about her ideal of sanctity, whatever the cost. “I want to be a saint… I am not perfect, but I want to become perfect” (LT 45). “To become a great saint” was the goal on which her eyes were fixed (LT 52, 80).
Discovering the Little Way
Finding themselves in such a dilemma, most people would become discouraged and give up their ideal of sanctity or at least significantly lower their desires and aspirations. Thérèse, however, decided to take a different approach: “Instead of becoming discouraged, I said to myself: God cannot inspire unrealizable desires. I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness. It is impossible for me to grow up, and so I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections. But I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short, and totally new” (C 3r).
Practicing the Little Way
St. Thérèse invites all little souls to acknowledge that we are as weak and powerless to live the Gospel as a little child who is trying to go up a stairway with steps too steep for him to reach. We are to trust God who will take us upstairs himself. Is she then saying that we only need to trust and remain passive, just waiting for the Lord to do it all? Not exactly. She is not advocating for us to fall into the vice of complacency. This is how she explains it: “Agree to be that little child. Through the practice of all the virtues, raise your little foot to the scale in the stairway of holiness. You won’t succeed in reaching the first step, but God requires you only to demonstrate your good will. Soon, conquered by your futile efforts, he will descend himself, gather you up in his arms, and carry you off to his kingdom for ever.”
Thérèse had received and developed a liberating view of God, one that turned into an invitation to all to never stop believing and hoping in his
merciful love. As Scripture tells us: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 Jn 4: 16).
Through her life and teachings God reminds us that we can never trust too much in his love and mercy. He calls us to do our part, as insufficient and inadequate as it may be, and confidently surrender the rest to him who is always faithful and who will never leave nor forsake us (cf. Deut 31: 6).
In summary, those of us who follow the Little Way are called to do three things:
Recognize our weakness, sin and our powerlessness over them.
Keep trying to grow in holiness through prayer, the sacraments and in the constant and sincere attempt to practice virtue, such as doing little things with great love.
Keep trusting and hoping in God’s mercy, that he will satisfy our desires for holiness, even if we don’t understand how, even if we don’t see it in this life, but in heaven.
Fr. Jorge Cabrera of Mary Immaculate, OCD,
was born and raised in Puerto Rico. He entered the Discalced Carmelites in 2001 and was ordained to the priesthood in 2009. Fr. Jorge has a Master’s Degree in Divinity from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana, and a Licentiate in Spiritual Theology with concentration on Carmelite Spirituality, from CITeS (International Center for Teresian and Sanjuanist Studies) in Avila in conjunction with Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid, Spain.