October 09, 2003

St. Therese of Lisieux

Posted by Scott at 06:34 AM

The Little Way - I wrote last August about how I think that good moms sometimes seem like they will have express tickets to heaven for all the little crosses that they carry each day. I drew a parallel to St. Therese of Lisieux and her "little way". Mark Shea wrote about St. Therese yesterday if you want a little more background on this philosophy. Excerpt:

Therese began to perfect in earnest her "Little Way": a way of prayer and life which sought to find God not in some immense Olympian struggle or via some gigantic work of greatness, but in the ordinary stuff of day to day life. Therese, like you and I, felt far too small to attempt the heights mastered by giants. She was acutely aware of the ordinariness of her life. But instead of succumbing to the modern belief that this rendered her life dull and pointless, Therese chose to offer precisely this raw material of ordinariness up to God that he might transform it.

Supposedly there is a movie about St. Therese that has been produced recently but it needs marketing and distribution. I saw some snippets of it a few weeks back and saw some interviews with the test audiences. I hope it comes out to larger markets. It seems like a very inspiring movie.

Comments

Cassidy just had a section in her religion book about St. Theresa- I think it was the same one- she said live prayerfully and simply.
Without too long of an answer, aren't today's requirements for sainthood more than good deeds, like you need miracles or something? I'm sure I should know this, but I don't.
Anyway, Cassidy has been learning about the commandments in depth, and she wanted to know if Tom thinking a married actress is attractive would be committing adultery or coveting thy neighbor's wife- I let her know that Dad is not living in sin by that, as long as he doesn't start obsessing about anyone he actually knows, and being as our neighbors our a 90 year old widow and Aunt Natalie, she thinks her dad is safe.
Later,
Alyssa

Posted by: alyssa at October 9, 2003 09:44 AM

Hi Lyss,

The Church teaches that we are all called to be saints. That is Therese's message, that's Opus Dei's message, that's Vatican II's message, etc. Sanctity is not just for the priests, religious, the Mother Teresa's of the world. It does not require that you give up everything and live a life of poverty or be a martyr. We had started to get the misconception that a saint is only someone officially recognized by the Church as a saint -- the Joan of Arc's of the world. Those saints are people the Church holds up as role models worthy of emulating. This century has been noteworthy because of the numerous recognition of more "ordinary" saints. But the Church acknowledges that there are immeasurably more saints in heaven than are officially recognized. In a sense these officially recognized saints are held up as one might admire a professional athlete. You might never achieve their level, but they inspire you in the pursuit -- in this case, the pursuit of sanctity amidst your "ordinary" life.

The "miracle requirement" is a recent addition when considering a candidate for official beatification/canonization. It usually involves some miracles that happened when a person prayed through the intercession of that candidate. For instance, if you were terminally sick and prayed to Mother Teresa to intercede to God for your health and were inexplicably healed against all odds, that might be used as a defense of her official beatification. Miracles that came through such intercession are used as an _indicator_ that the person is with God in heaven and is a saint. The recognition process involves a lot more than a handful of miracles. There is a bunch of research into that person's life and background. People tend to dwell on the "miracle" aspect as if we are looking for a card trick to prove sainthood.

Re: Cassidy's question. Admiring anyone's beauty is not objectively sinful. Scrutinizing and dwelling on it, on the other hand, could be. The hard part with today's fashions is that it is often hard to admire a person's beauty without it being an occasion for sin. And I'm assuming she knows that the use of "neighbor" in this context does not literally mean just your next door neighbors. *grin*

Posted by: Scott at October 9, 2003 11:59 AM

I am sure there has never been any obsessing of movie stars or anything like that. HA HA

Posted by: Chris at October 10, 2003 05:59 PM

Just for the record I do not obsess over neighbors or movie stars. I believe I was just used as an example.

Tom

Although that Mrs. Stein... Wow.

Posted by: Tom at October 10, 2003 11:16 PM