Pope Benedict on St Thérèse of Lisieux

Thanks to Irmo Francis Valeza SJ for the link to the video on his Facebook. The original is on Rome Reports.

Today is the tenth anniversary of my starting as editor of Misyon, the magazine of the Columbans in the Philippines. I was very happy to start on the feast day of St Thérèse of Lisieux, whom I 're-discovered' about twenty years ago. I had read Story of a Soul as a young seminarian - my dentist from childhood, the late Dr Éadbhard O’Brien-Moran, gave me a copy when I was entering the Columbans in 1961 - but didn't find it particularly appealing, maybe because of the style of writing.

But I decided to give it another go forty or so years later and have read it many times since then. I have also found it helpful in telling people how the saint's Little Way can lead us to the holiness to which each of us is called, as Lumen Gentium, The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Vatican II so forcibly reminds us: Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: 'For this is the will of God, your sanctification' [l Thess 4:3; cf. Eph1:4].

St Thérèse [photo by her older sister Céline, Sr Geneviève in the Lisieux Carmel]

And this was a reminder, not something knew. St Thérèse expresses it this way: Perfection consists simply in doing his will, and being just what he wants us to be (translation of Ronald Knox) or Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He will us to be (translation of John Clarke OCD).

This statement comes at the end of a comparison that St Thérèse makes between different souls and different kinds of flowers, according to God's will. It's a living image of holiness or perfection, an image of ongoing growth, quite different from the 'blueprint' image of perfection or holiness that I used to have. A blueprint is appropriate for a building but not for a living being, unless you are an architect with the vision of Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, whose yet unfinished Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family) in Barcelona was consecrated by Pope Benedict in 2010.

Detail of the roof in the nave. Gaudi designed the columns to mirror trees and branches.

Here St Thérèse speaks to us in her own words: 

'He taught them with authority.' Sunday Reflections, 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Moses, Carlo Dolci, painted 1640-45

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Mark 1:21-28 (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Jesus and his followers went as far as Capernaum, and as soon as the sabbath came Jesus went to the synagogue and began to teach. And his teaching made a deep impression on them because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority.

In their synagogue just then there was a man possessed by an unclean spirit, and it shouted, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus said sharply, ‘Be quiet! Come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions and with a loud cry went out of him. The people were so astonished that they started asking each other what it all meant. ‘Here is a teaching that is new’ they said ‘and with authority behind it: he gives orders even to unclean spirits and they obey him.’ And his reputation rapidly spread everywhere, through all the surrounding Galilean countryside.

An Soiscéal Marcas 1:21-28 (Gaeilge, Irish)

When I was 16 I joined Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil (Local Defence Force), part of the Irish Army Reserve (cap badge above). Membership was voluntary. We trained on Sundays and there was a two-week summer camp. However, I didn’t stay in it long enough to experience that.

I remember two individuals very clearly, not by name but by rank. One was a corporal and the other a sergeant. The corporal took delight in shouting and swearing at everyone. He was in his early 20s and we mostly between 16 and 18. We did what he told us to do. But none of us had any respect for him. 

The sergeant, also in his early 20s, while strict, never shouted at us and the strongest word he ever used was ‘damn’. While in its fullest meaning this really is a curse, usage over the centuries has made it a very mild expression, with hardly any connection to its dictionary definition. We did what the sergeant told us to do, and with genuine respect for him. He respected us and because of that his authority came primarily from his person, not from his rank.

I am always struck by the way St Mark highlights the authority Jesus had. It wasn’t from any position he held but from the Truth that he is. He tells us in St John’s Gospel that he is ‘the way, the truth and the life’. The people recognised this: his teaching made a deep impression on them because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority; ‘Here is a teaching that is new’ they said ‘and with authority behind it: he gives orders even to unclean spirits and they obey him.’

I remember our rector in the seminary, Fr Joseph Flynn, once saying to us, ‘Let us at least be hypocrites’. What he meant was that if we fall short of what we believe and profess, and know that we are falling short and ask God’s forgiveness, we will still have something of the authority of Jesus himself. The tax collector who prayed in the Temple, ‘Lord, have mercy on me a sinner’, still carries authority whereas the hypocritical Pharisee doesn’t.

Yesterday I had an email from a recovering alcoholic who told me he ‘went into a blank space’ when he learned of the death of a priest who had also been a recovering alcoholic. This priest had been very close to him during the first years of his recovery. I know that the priest had occasional lapses but sought the help of others in AA when he did. That’s what gave him the authority he had with fellow 'strugglers'. 

Some saints, such as St Thérèse of Lisieux (above, aged 15), carry the authority of the purity of their lives. Some, like St Augustine of Hippo, carry the authority of a person who has, with God’s grace, overcome a life of sin. Moses, who speaks to us in the first reading today, carries the authority of a great leader who acknowledged his own impatience and who accepted the consequence of this, that he would lead his people to the Promised Land, see it, but never enter it himself.

  St Augustine and St Monica, by Ary Scheffer (painted 1846)

San am sin chuaigh Íosa isteach i gCafarnáum. Agus lá na sabóide féin, ar dhul isteach satsionagóg dó, thosaigh sé ag teagasc.Agus bhí ionadh orthu faoina theagasc; á dteagasc a bhí sé mar dhuine a mbeadh údarás aige, níorbh ionann agus na scríobhaithe.

Bhí, san am sin, duine sa tsionagóg a raibh smacht ag spiorad míghlan air, agus scread sé amach: “Há, cad ab áil leat dínn, a Íosa Nazairéanaigh? Chun ár millte a tháinig tú. Is eol dom cé hé thú: Naomh Dé.” Labhair Íosa leis go bagrach: “Bí i do thost, agus gabh amach as.” Bhain an spiorad míghlan rachtaí as an duine, ghlaoigh amach go hard agus d’imigh as. Agus bhí alltacht chomh mór sin ar chách go raibh siad ag fiafraí dá chéile: “Cad é an rud é seo?” deiridís: “teagasc nua á dhéanamh le húdarás; na spioraid mhíghlana féin, fógraíonn sé orthu agus déanann siad rud air.” Agus níorbh fhada gur leath a chlú go fada gearr ar fud cheantar uile na Gailíle.

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Three young witnesses to the faith

Last evening I celebrated Mass with the Sisters and girls and young women at Holy Family Home here in Bacolod City. You can read about Holy Family Home here, here and here. We were celebrating the feast of Blessed Laura Vicuña about whom I posted yesterday. This was our third year to do so. Blessed Laura is the patron of those who have suffered from abuse.

I link the celebration with that of St Agnes, whose feast was the day before, and who was martyred at the age of 12 or 13. Blessed Laura, who died exactly 1600 years and one day after St Agnes, was just a few months short of 13. Two years before her death she had offered her life to God for the conversion of her mother. God listened to her prayers.

St Agnes, El Greco (detail)

As I was telling the stories of these two young girls who had given their lives to God, I recalled what had happened in the life of the great Thérèse of Lisieux when she was 14. The website of the Apostleship of Prayer gives this account of the story which the saint recounted in her autobiography, Story of a Soul:

St. Therese joined the Apostleship of Prayer on October 15, 1885 when she was twelve years old. The practice of the Daily Offering planted the seeds for her great spiritual doctrine known as "The Little Way." In her autobiography, she wrote that she had great desires: to be an apostle, a missionary, even a priest, and a martyr. But how could she fulfill these desires? She was a cloistered Carmelite nun. She wrote:

MY VOCATION IS LOVE! Yes, I have found my place in the Church and it is You, O my God, who have given me this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love. Thus I shall be everything, and thus my dream will be realized. But how will she prove her love since love is proved by works? Well, the little child will strew flowers, she will perfume the royal throne with their sweet scents, and she will sing in her silvery tones the canticle of Love. Yes, my Beloved, this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love.


St. Therese tells the story of Pranzini, a man who had murdered two women and a young girl and had been sentenced to death. All reports were that he was going to his death angry and bitter and unrepentant. Therese, only fourteen at the time, committed herself to praying and offering up sacrifices for his conversion. The day after his execution she secretly read the newspaper account of his death. Here is how she wrote about it:


Pranzini had not gone to confession. He had mounted the scaffold and was preparing to place his head in the formidable opening, when suddenly seized by an inspiration, he turned, took hold of the crucifix the priest was holding out to him and kissed the sacred wounds three times! Then his soul went to receive the merciful sentence of Him who declares that in heaven there will be more joy over one sinner who does penance than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance!


Young Therese called Pranzini her "first child."


This is "The Little Way" of St. Therese which Blessed Mother Teresa also followed: to do everything as an act of love for God, to offer all the little (and big) hardships of life for the conversion of sinners.


Imagine St. Therese arriving in heaven after her death at the age of twenty-four. Who do you think was the first person to meet her? Her mother Zelie? Her father Louis? Perhaps the first person to meet her on her arrival in heaven was a man with a big smile on his face who could hardly wait to thank her for the role her prayers and sacrifices played in getting him there... a murderer named Pranzini.

St Thérèse as a child

I told the girls, many of whom have suffered deeply, about the sacrifices of these girls, the same age as many at the Mass, had freely made for the sake of others. They showed that our suffering, in whatever form it comes, doesn't have to be wasted but can bring life - eternal life - to others. I could see that they were listening intently.

Though I rarely ask any of the girls about what they have been through - they get proper professional help - they are very much aware that I know something of their suffering.

The three young girls whom we remembered at our Mass last evening are persons who can bring hope into the lives of so many today. They also had a deep sense of the reality that God calls each of us to be a saint, incuding every child. I remember how the words of St Paul, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Col 1:24), once hit me like an arrow through the heart after a retreat many years ago. They have been words of hope to me ever since.

I thought I'd include the full painting by El Greco, which he did between 1597 and 1799, from which the detail of St Agnes above is taken. It's called The Virgin and Child with St Martina and St Agnes. St Martina was a Roman virgin martyred in 226. There are many stories about her but not much, if any, factual history.

St Agnes, whose name is a Greek word meaning 'chaste' is associated, as in El Greco's painting, with lambs, as the Latin word for lamb is agnus. Yesterday, the feast of the saint, as happenes every year, the pope blessed the lambs the wool of which will be used to make the palliums that are given to newly-consecrated metropolitan archbishops on the Feast of St Peter and St Paul.

Philippine Legislators Push Two-children Families

Zélie and Louis Martin, parents of St Thérèse, to be beatified 19 October.

Some of our legislators in the Philippines probably would not have approved of the 'irresponsibility' of Louis and Zélie Martin because they had nine children, four of whom died in infancy, including their only two sons. Their youngest child is known to the world as St Thérèse of Lisieux. Three of her sisters also became Carmelite Nuns, Marie, Pauline and Céline, while the fourth, Léonie, became a Visitandine nun.

Section 16 of House Bill No 5043 reads: Ideal Family Size. - The State shall assist couples, parents and individuals to achieve their desired family size within the context of responsible parenthood for sustainable development and encourage them to have two children as the ideal family size. Attaining the ideal family size is neither mandatory nor compulsory. No punitive action shall be imposed on parents having more than two children.

On the other hand, the same legislators would probably be happy that the Martin children didn't add to the population of France, though, as Filipinos, they would be horrified at the family name not being continued. But how many families have produced a St Thérèse? And how many canonized saints have parents subsequently beatified? And how many family names are carried on in such a way as that of the Martin Family, honoured throughout the world and giving inspiration to so many?

The promotion of two-children families, as was done during the Marcos Dictatorship, is designed to put pressure on couples. Part of the legacy of Marcos, as I have found, is a certain sense of embarrassment among some, though not all, who have grown up in large families.

The Martin Family, courtesy of Jackie Parkes.

I don't know if the legislators promoting Republic of the Philippines House Bill No 5043 have read the following report or if they are aware of the well established fact that an average of 2.1 children is necessary to maintain a country's population. They probably give 'sermons' about 'close family ties' and 'Philippine family values' without looking at what has happened in China, for example, where the one-child policy is so rigorously imposed, and is happening in some western European countries where, within a generation or two, the average child will have no brothers or sisters, no uncles or aunts. Is this what we want?

New Stats: Europe Facing Demographic Winter, Growing Political, Economic... : 15th Sep 08

Population statistics and projections were released recently showing that European countries are dying out, even with immigration, their populations aging and shrinking. A report released this week by Eurostat, the European Union's statistical service, showed that by 2015, the number of deaths in Europe will have outstripped the number of births. By 2060, the ratio of people of working age to those over age 65 will be two to one.

None of the countries of Europe currently have a general fertility rate above replacement level and it is predicted that what is being called a "demographic winter" will strike Europe within thirty years.

The report showed that the growth momentum of Europe's 27 member states will continue to carry it until 2035; after this the population will begin to decline drastically from a predicted 521 million to 506 million by 2060. The report says that until 2035, "positive net migration would be the only population growth factor.""However, from 2035 this positive net migration would no longer counterbalance the negative natural change, and the population is projected to begin to fall."

All of the countries studied in the report, with the exceptions of the Republic of Ireland, Andorra, Poland, Malta, the Principality of Monaco, allow abortion with few or no restrictions. Nearly all the countries of the European Union maintain state funded contraception programmes.

The report showed that by 2060, Britain would have the largest population with a current fertility rate, according to the Office for National Statistics, of 1.91 children per woman and nearly restrictionless immigration policies. The ONS predicts a population of 70 million by 2031, but says that at least 70 per cent of the rise will be attributable directly to immigration. Germany, currently the biggest country in the EU with more than 82 million people, will see its population shrink by 14 per cent according to the Eurostat report.

ONS figures released last week showed that there are now more pensioners than children in the UK. Even so, given the situation of other countries, the report revealed that Britain will have the youngest population in Europe. By 2060, 24.7 per cent of people in Britain will be 65 or older but in Poland, the proportion will be 36.2 per cent. About 17 per cent of Europeans are currently aged 65 or older; by 2060 the numbers will have risen to 30 per cent.

The average age for Britons is 39 and will be 42 in 2060, but this will be the lowest age in Europe with the exception of Luxembourg. The average age of Europeans is now just over 40; this will be 48 by 2060. The current median age for women in France, 40.7 years, is already over that at which women can easily conceive.

Desperate countries have begun implementing various schemes to try to convince their populations to continue the species but these have yielded small results and overall fertility rates have continued to fall. Sweden offers one of the most generous government child benefits and maternity leave programmes in Europe, with women able to take as many as 15 months on 80 per cent pay. The efforts, however, have yielded only a tiny increase in the birth rate from 1.5 children per woman in 1999 to 1.71 in 2004. Meanwhile the government of Sweden continues to fully fund contraceptive programmes and 36,045 Swedish children died by abortion in 2006.

With population growth and economic growth closely connected, some are predicting that the demographic crisis will begin to exacerbate historic tensions between countries and regions and various ethnic groups. Barry McLerran, producer of the film "Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family", said Russia's population crisis was an overlooked factor in its recent invasion of Georgia.McLerran noted that due to Russia's low birth rate, 1.17 children per woman, and the shortened lifespan due to disease, Russia's population is declining by approximately 750,000 people a year. Efforts by the Russian government to boost its population, including paying parents the equivalent of US $9,200 for every child after the first one, are failing.

McLerran asks, "So, where does a nation with a plummeting birth rate find people?" One answer, he suggests, is territorial expansion.

And the problem is not limited to Europe. In 1989, 11.6 per cent of Japan's population was over 65. Less than 20 years later, seniors are 21.1 per cent of the Japanese people. The documentary points out that in less than 40 years, fertility rates have fallen by over 50 per cent worldwide. In 1970, the average woman had 6 children during her lifetime. Today, the global average is 2.9. Worldwide, there are 6 million fewer children under six years of age today than there were in 1990. LifeSite through Family & Life.