J.M.J.
In her superb autobiography, Story of a Soul: The
Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux (Washington, D.C.: ICS
Publications, 1976), translated by Father John Clarke, O.C.D. (1917-1985), Saint
Thèrése of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Virgin and Doctor (1873-1897), shared
her desire to live diverse vocations in the Church out of love for God:
To be Your Spouse,
to be a Carmelite, and by my union
with You to be the Mother of souls,
should not this suffice me? And yet it is not so. No doubt, these three
privileges sum up my true vocation: Carmelite, Spouse, Mother, and yet I
feel within me other vocations. I
feel the vocation of THE WARRIOR, THE
PRIEST, THE APOSTLE, THE DOCTOR, THE MARTYR. (page 192)
The Little Flower explained her wish.
I feel in me the vocation
of the PRIEST. With what love, O Jesus, I would carry You in my hands when,
at my voice, You would come down from Heaven. And with what love would I give
You to souls! But alas! while desiring to be a Priest, I admire and envy the humility of St. Francis of Assisi and
I feel the vocation of imitating him
in refusing the sublime dignity of the Priesthood.
(ibid.)
Saint Thèrése was not attempting to refute the
Church’s ancient doctrine that declares that ordination to the Sacred
Priesthood is reserved only to men. Instead, she confessed her relentless
prayer to do as the priest does, namely, to give Christ to hungry souls.
Even if she could accept for herself the God-given
gift of the ordained priesthood, she asserted, she would refuse because of her
personal unworthiness to become an alter
Christus (“an other Christ”). Saint Thèrése referred to the example of
Saint Francis of Assisi who consented to being ordained to the Diaconate but
not to the Priesthood.
What can ordained priests as well as other disciples
of Christ learn from the Little Flower’s moving sentiments?
Priests come away with a renewed sense of their own
unworthiness in the sight of the Lord. Who can really claim the privilege of
acting in persona Christi (“in the
person of Christ”)? When priests offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, they take
the place of Christ; they possess the awesome authority to “command” Jesus, in
the words of Saint Thèrése, to “come down from Heaven.” No priest can presume
to have earned this precious grace, which hails from God alone.
Other members of the Church also are enriched by meditating
on this paragraph in the Story of a Soul.
Because of his Baptism, each Christian is called to share the Gospel with his
neighbor. This is a serious obligation, not a polite recommendation. With
genuine concern for the honor of God and the salvation of souls, one is to
“carry” the Savior to others, thereby helping to contribute to their eventual
everlasting salvation in Christ.
Saint Thèrése had a true sense of her own identity:
she suffered from no illusions as to what the Lord required of her in her
personal vocation as a “Carmelite, Spouse, Mother.” She wanted nothing else than to do as the Almighty Himself
directed her, realizing that submission to the Divine Will is the path to
Heaven.
Whether a member of the clergy, a consecrated person
or lay person, each of us has a pressing task: to reveal Jesus to those around
us. We imitate the “Little Way” of Saint Thèrése in sharing the Messiah with
others, confident that He will bless and strengthen them as He has fortified
us.
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