St Therese has been one of the three Saints with the most prevalent influence on my 'spiritual journey' ... along with St Francis and St Augustine. The circumstances and events surrounding our meeting each other are the most mysterious and alarming of all my experiences.
Where to start? ... Perhaps I should start with the recollection of my rather mysterious and circuitous journey where I come to know and love St Therese. The 'seed' was planted on my first trip to Marmora and Medugorje. How one can come to know and love a person who has been dead for more than one hundred years is a mystery in itself.
I suppose the same mysterious phenomena is at work that leads some people to come to know and love Jesus of Nazareth ... who has been dead for more than two thousand years.
A couple of expressions/writings attributed to St Therese have stuck with me...
"Always strive for absolute trust and absolute confidence in God"
"Great deeds are not important ... Great Love is important"
"Her metaphor for spiritual growth ... St Therese tried to draw a picture with words ... something like this ... imagine a step ladder in the middle of your family room with your toddlers' favorite toy placed on top of the step ladder. Your toddler comes into the family room and notices her favorite toy on top of the step ladder. She crawls over to the step ladder and tries to get one of her legs up on the first step ... of course she is too young to climb onto even the first step. Your child is 'well adjusted' ...i.e. she doesn't scream for adult intervention. She simply patiently and persistently attempts to get her leg up onto the first step ... with the confidence that if she can achieve this ... she will be able to repeat the process and climb to the top of the ladder and retrieve her favorite toy. St Therese encourages us to treat our 'spiritual journey' the same way ... accepting that we cannot climb even one step towards God on our own ... we must simply keep doing what we can, lifting the leg up towards the first step, and wait for God to stoop down to us and lift us up onto the first step ... and again ... and again ... patience and humility!"
How can one know with certainty whether a person who lived and died in the past ... 100 years or 1,000 years ago ... has any direct influence in our life today ... positive or negative?
I will not attempt to answer the above question ... seems to me the only thing in life that is absolutely certain ... is ... uncertainty.
Nonetheless, I will attempt to share some of my experiences ... limiting my personal bias as much as possible ... I encourage the reader to draw their own conclusions.
I was back in Medugorje in November 1996 ... my third and final visit. After spending a couple of quiet and peaceful weeks in Medugorje I suddenly became restless and agitated. I felt I needed to get out of town ... it didn't matter where ... just out of Medugorje. Such a dramatic change in my feelings ... and so sudden!
At this time I was again penniless ... I had some RRSP money back in Canada but it was tied up in a fixed term investment ... maturing in a couple of weeks. My only option was to find a free ride out of Medugorje. I spent several days checking out the possibility of hitching a ride with a 'caravan' that was returning home ... relief supplies of all kinds arrived regularly by the truck load ... and the trucks retrurned to their home base empty. All of my efforts were unsuccessful ... my agitation growing with each failed attempt to find a ride out of Medugorje. What was pushing me?
One night I was sitting at home ... a local family's residence ... and someone knocked at the door. Since the visitor only spoke French I was asked to try and help him. He was an elderly man who was looking his friends ... he had just arrived in Medugorje with a group of people from France. Somehow he got separated from the group and was knocking on doors trying to find them.
I invited him in for a cup of tea ... at some point during our conversation the subject of St Therese came up ... he mentioned that he had a letter at home that St Therese's sister Celine had written to him many years earlier. Wow! ... that's a pretty close connection to St Therese eh!
I escorted him to the church where he found his group ... he thanked me and said something to the effect ... "you will be blessed for your kindness". I learned that he was a retired priest ... we would meet again!
A few days passed ... still no luck finding free passage out of Medugorje. I had almost given up when an aquaintance mentioned there might be a possibilty with some people from France. He suggested I attend the French mass and make some enquiries after mass. I had already gone to mass that morning ... and was in no mood to attend another mass. Something seemed to push me into the church.
The priest may have mentioned my plight after his homily ... in any event outside the church after mass a gentleman approached me and asked me if I was interested in a flight to France. I politely explained that I was penniless ... certainly couldn't afford a plane ticket to France. He went on to explain that it would be entirley free ... the bus ride to the airport and a flight to Lille France. Wow!! A gift from Heaven. Now I'm excited ... really excited. It turns out one of their group cancelled at the last minute and there would be an empty seat on the plane. What group? Yup! ... the group with the retired priest ... the elderly man I helped a few nights earlier. Go figure eh! The story gets more mysterious ... read on.
At this point I have no idea where in France the city of Lille is located ... and I really don't don't care ... I was thinking I would find my way to where Jean Francois lives ... a young man I met on the Kibutz in Israel ... and hang around with him for a while. While sitting on the plane I remembered that Jean Francois had written his address on the inside cover of my Bible. I retrieved my Bible and asked the person sitting beside me if he recognized the name of the village where Jean Francois lived. He consulted with his neighbours and in a few minutes I learned that Jean Francois's house was only 10 kilometres from the airport in Lille. Unbelievable eh! ... I can walk to Jean Francois's house. What a mysterious journey!
We land at the airport late at night ... too late to call ... decide to hang around the airport until the next morning. I walk to a store where I buy a couple of croissants and ask to use their telephone. I call the number Jean Francois gave me ... I believe his mother answers the telephone. I explain who I am and she replies ... "you are too late ... he's dead" Can you imagine how shocking this news is to me? I don't believe it! This can't be true!
Let's review how I got here ...
1) The sudden change of mood in Medugorje ... from peaceful to serious anxiety
2) The frustrating efforts to get out of Medugorje ... exascerbated by the fact that I had no money
3) Meeting the retired priest and getting a free plane ticket to France from his group.
4) While still in Medugorje thinking I would visit my friend Jean Francois ... learning on the airplane that I could walk to his village from the airport.
5) Call his home and his mother tells me he is dead ... nothing more.
Where is St Therese taking me?? ... on with my story ...
A few hours after the shocking telephone call I decided to visit Jean Francois's grave site. I asked a few people in the village about the location of the graveyard ... and also asked if they knew Jean Francois. No doors opened.
Walking down the street I noticed the local church ... and the door was open. I met a gentleman just inside the door to the church ... I asked about Jean Francois. Perhaps my French was inadequate ... seems he spoke the local dialect ... in any event I felt I wasn't making much progress. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small plastic case that contained a rosary ... one of the many souvenirs I had purchased in Medugorje. I gave it to the gentleman and asked him to pass it on to Jean Francois's family. Suddenly everything changed ... the gentleman became quite animated ... he motioned me to come along with him. We got in his car and he took me to where Jean Francois lived. Yikes! ... what next? ... seems the rosary just opened another door!
On entering Jean Francois's home I was greeted by his sister Monique and his mother. After explaining who I was his sister asked me ... "Why are you here? It's not to help Jean Francois ... he is dead". I learn he had committed suicide the day or so before I arrived. Yikes!! Double Yikes!!
Is it possible that my agitation in Medugorje was somehow connected to what Jean Francois was going through just before he committed suicide? A scary thought!
I stayed with his family for a few days ... slept in Jean Francois's room ... and attended his funeral. His family and neighbours were so kind and friendly ... I felt that we had known each other for a long time. Apparently Jean Francois had changed considerably after his return from Israel and he had spoken kindly of me to his family and friends.
Where would I go now? My RRSP money was now available ... so I headed for Lisieux ... to finally meet St Therese. The visit to Lisieux was pleasant and mostly uneventful ... met another devotee of St Therese and we spent several hours together. We were walking down a street in Lisieux when this aquaintance pointed out a street named ... Caen Street. I believe this is where I got the idea to take the ferry from France to England a few days later ... I had no idea of the local geography of France or it's proximity to England. A few more surprises were waiting for me ... this trip isn't over yet. :-)
I decided to vist two friends in England ... met them at the same time I met Jean Francois at the Kibbutz in Israel. My memory told me they both lived near London ... so I planned to take a train from where ever the ferry from Caen docked in England.
Walking onto the ferry ... had no idea where to go ... so I followed the passengers in front of me. They lead me to the entertainment lounge ... wasn't really in the mood for 'noise' but decided to sit down and have a beer. There was live entertainment in the lounge ... a couple of singers. The only words I heard were: ... "If you don't know me by now
You will never never never know me"
I started to cry ... it felt like St Therese was talking directly to me ... saying that if I didn't know her by now ... after all that happened in the previous week ... I would never know her. Yet ... I was in for a few more surprises before this trip ends ... read on ...
The ferry docked in Portsmouth ... and the security guard there really hassled me ... as it turned out ... thank goodness! I suppose he took me for a vagabond ... and perhaps with good reason. Here I show up in Portsmouth ... with a Canadian Passport ... only a few British pounds in my pocket ... no return flight to Canada ... no credit card ... yikes! I explain to him that I have my bank debit card which gives me access to money. Seems he has never seen a bank debit card ... he takes me around to several people ... asking them if they recognize my bank debit card ... no luck! I start to worry that he may send me back to France.
Eventually he asks me who I will visit in England ... he wants details ... names, addresses etc. Yikes!
Fortunately, I have their addresses in my backpack ... I rumage around and eventually produce them. He writes down the particulars and seems ready to let me enter England. At this point I ask him for directions to get to my friends place ... I'm still figuring that I have to go to London. He tells me I can take a taxi. What? ... a taxi? Yup ... it turns out one of my friends lives in Portsmouth ... can you believe it? What a trip?
I have a short ... but pleasant visit with this friend ... can't remember her name ... shame on me! She brings me to the train station and I head to London to visit Donna. I eventually find her home ... in some subburb north of London ... and she is not home. I get the feeling it's time to head back to Canada. I find a travel agent not far from where Donna lives and manage to buy a ticket to Canada ... for the next day ... for 73 pounds! A oneway ticket to Canada for 73 pounds ... couldn't believe it. What a way to end this trip!! What an introduction to St Therese.
October 19, 2011
Today it seems St Therese wants to introduce me to some of her family ... her parents and her sister Leonie. Reading about her mother, I found that she and I had a similar 'spiritual' experience. Reading about her sister Leonie brought back all the excitement of the above trip ... especially the part in Caen. At that time I had no idea her sister Leonie had spent much of her life in a convent in Caen ... nor that she had a particularly difficult childhood ... and life. Today as I write this I recall my mom's older sister ... my aunt Leona ... I wonder if the two names are connected. Yup! ... "Lioness" Hmmm!
Parents of Ste Therese
About Léonie Martin: A Difficult Life Léonie Martin was the least gifted of the four sisters of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She was an emotionally disturbed child, abused by the family’s maid, expelled from school, who suffered and caused anguish in her family. She did not fit their expectations of holiness.
Marie Baudoin-Croix, the well-known French poet, has examined the letters of Léonie’s mother, Blessed Zélie Martin, to her daughters, her sister, her brother, and her sister-in-law. We see the backward child, the despair of many, who was the first to follow Thérèse’s Little Way. The author examines Léonie ‘s correspondence with Thérèse, who shared the way generously with her sister. It was only after three valiant but unsuccessful attempts that Léonie, at the age of thirty-five, was finally accepted by the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen. She succeeded in conquering a “tough” temperament, so that by the time of her death in 1941, at the age of seventy-eight, she was regarded as a saint, and her monastery at Caen was inundated with letters testifying to her posthumous aid.
In his preface, Fr. Christopher O’Donnell, O. Carm. writes: “This book by Marie Baudoin-Croix is to be strongly welcomed. It does not add to what has been available about Léonie to specialist scholars, but it will be a revelation to so many admirers of St. Thérèse in the English-speaking world . . . . It is an ideal companion to the autobiography of St. Thérèse.”
In her introduction the author notes: “Quite simply, it is comforting to everyone to know about one woman’s struggle to conquer a difficult, intractable temperament. Also, the story of the young rebel who was Léonie can give help and hope to parents who are hurt by their clashes—often violent—with their children.”
Léonie’s story can encourage all people, and it inspires especially the parents of other “special needs” children; persons who have a hard time finding a place in society and in the Church; and persons deeply wounded by past experiences.
Marie Baudoin-Croix, the well-known French poet, has examined the letters of Léonie’s mother, Blessed Zélie Martin, to her daughters, her sister, her brother, and her sister-in-law. We see the backward child, the despair of many, who was the first to follow Thérèse’s Little Way. The author examines Léonie ‘s correspondence with Thérèse, who shared the way generously with her sister. It was only after three valiant but unsuccessful attempts that Léonie, at the age of thirty-five, was finally accepted by the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen. She succeeded in conquering a “tough” temperament, so that by the time of her death in 1941, at the age of seventy-eight, she was regarded as a saint, and her monastery at Caen was inundated with letters testifying to her posthumous aid.
In his preface, Fr. Christopher O’Donnell, O. Carm. writes: “This book by Marie Baudoin-Croix is to be strongly welcomed. It does not add to what has been available about Léonie to specialist scholars, but it will be a revelation to so many admirers of St. Thérèse in the English-speaking world . . . . It is an ideal companion to the autobiography of St. Thérèse.”
In her introduction the author notes: “Quite simply, it is comforting to everyone to know about one woman’s struggle to conquer a difficult, intractable temperament. Also, the story of the young rebel who was Léonie can give help and hope to parents who are hurt by their clashes—often violent—with their children.”
Léonie’s story can encourage all people, and it inspires especially the parents of other “special needs” children; persons who have a hard time finding a place in society and in the Church; and persons deeply wounded by past experiences.