This
Journal

November
1999

Today's faculty retreat brought us to the Carmelite Spiritual Center at Aylesford in Darien. Actually a great big comfy bus and a bunch of private cars brought us. The day, we discovered, was to be devoted to St. Therese of Lisieux and we would be led through it by Fr. Bob Colaresi. I think he knew he had his hands full.

The biggest obstacle to such a day would be that most of us are pretty sharp, pragmatic - even cynical - people - children of our time. Our time has not made it likely that we would be vastly interested in a "spoiled little brat" (Bob's words) who found God everywhere, became a nun at 15, and died at 24 of tuberculosis, uttering (as this booklet here indicates) 850 touching expressions as she passed. You may have seen the holy cards: a cloyingly sweet pastel portrait with roses - always roses. The prayers on the flip side were true relics of 19th century sentimental piety. You'd have a hard time convincing most of us that this saint had much of anything to do with our lives and concerns.

I think Bob did as good a job as anybody could by acknowledging his own difficulties with her - but not so much with her as with the image created by the cultural and spritual needs of our very young century. Her message is one of living a simple(?) life of love wherever you find yourself. (John Russell's "Notes for a Homily about St. Therese" briefly presents her life and her ideas in a readable, straight-forward style.) The shrine at Aylesford holds a number of artifacts: her toy tambourine, her chair, a portrait painted by her sister, a manuscript of her autobiography. Interesting stuff from days gone by, especially the manuscript in the impossibly perfect (compact and consistent) penmanship so reminiscent of the nuns of my childhood. Curious as these things are, they failed to connect with me on any significant level. I'd seen them before.

But today I looked more closely at a set of reproduced photographs of Therese. This was a person. Was she actually the first saint to be photographed? No matter. Here's a kid I could find in class someday. Spunky eyes, curious smile, full of light even in those later shots near death, friendly. They say she couldn't spell too well. I haven't been able to read much of her writing yet, but maybe reading her photograph is a start.

Her relics - a smallish casket of bones and dust, most likely - are currently travelling around the U.S., drawing very large crowds. I don't think much of this, don't have much desire to stand in the presence of her mortal remains, wonder about the priorities of those who do. I'm sorry; there's just something too medieval (read: suspicious and superstitious) about it all. It's the kind of thing Chaucer took on in his Tales. But I'm no stark icon smasher; I recognize all this imaging as a part of Catholic culture; it's a very human thing to need these signs and symbols. Perhaps there is no better way to introduce many people to Therese and her mesage. But I have to admit that I'm a tad cynical about the present tour. Something makes me squirm. This is quite possibly just my own problem. But I don't really think so.

Am I still reacting to that sizeable dose of jansenistic and legalistic catholicism from the 1950s?. Still reacting to the holy cards? Quite likely (You'd think I'd have shaken it off by now and kept the good stuff, but it's still all tangled up in here. Some parts of me refuse to grow, it seems.)

And I do not regret having given myself to Love.
Therese of Lisieux