St. Thérèse and Our Relationship with the Lord

In the discussion following the first episode of Fr. Barron's Catholicism, where we noted that Christianity is primarily about establishing a relationship with Jesus Christ, and not merely adopting His ideas, we asked what type of relationship (or relationships) is that supposed to be? There are many types of relationships, many models to follow, but there is one in particular that we should consider, the one whereby we become one with the Lord, a fruitful loving communion of persons in one Body.

Today is the feast day of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. Last year, Cinema Catechism showed the film Miracle of St. Thérèse in connection with our exploration of the theme of Marriage and Family. This is a theme that is just as timely now, perhaps more so given that this is election season, with marriage and family continuing to be under assault.

Although she remained in the cloister, St. Thérèse is the patron saint of missionaries, so in the New Evangelization, it is right that we should look to her example in how to better understand and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ with respect to the truth of marriage and the human person.

Marriage and Family: St. Thérèse and the Vocation to Love
originally posted October 7, 2011

This season of Cinema Catechism, we are exploring the theme of Marriage and Family, and the film for October is Miracle of St. Thérèse.

St. Thérèse?? OK, I can see what Thérèse Martin has to do with the family part -- she came from a very devout and pious Catholic family, her parents are both beatified, her four surviving siblings all went on to become nuns. But Thérèse was a cloistered nun, what does she have to do with marriage?

Quite a lot actually. True, she did not enter into a earthly human marriage with a man, but she did have a spouse. She loved with a spousal love in a spousal relationship. And to understand that, we must first understand the idea of "marriage as primordial sacrament," in the words of Blessed Pope John Paul II.

A "sacrament" is an outward visible sign of a mystical nonvisible reality. And in the marriage of man and woman, we see the primary model for God's plan for humanity.

Indeed, there is a spousal meaning revealed in the human body, as shown both in natural observation of the human body and as explained in the opening chapters of Genesis. "Man," male and female, made in the image of the Trinity, is by "his" nature a social being, made for relationship. It is not good that man should be alone -- in solitude, he is missing an essential element, he is incomplete. Man is made for relationship; hence he (singular) is made both male and female (plural). Thus, it is not just any relationship man is made for, where they (plural) are male and female (plural), but he is specifically oriented toward a spousal relationship, a loving communion of persons become one that is fruitful, just as the Trinity is a loving communion of three persons in one divine being who is procreative. Again, in the human marriage of man and woman, we see the primary model for God's plan for humanity.

In scripture, in the story of Salvation History, we can plainly see God's relationship with humanity in general, and Israel in particular, described in spousal terms. The Annunciation to Mary has often been described as a kind of marriage proposal by God to her, with Mary saying "yes" on behalf of all mankind. The first miracle Jesus performed was at a wedding, and many of His parables involved marital imagery. Jesus is, of course, the Bridegroom, having taken as His virginal Bride, the Church. And in the eschatology of the Book of Revelation, life after the resurrection of the body is described in the spousal terms of the wedding banquet of the Lamb. So, marriage is clearly the model by which to understand God's plan for us.

There is a spousal meaning to the human body, every human body. Since we all have a human body, we are all made for a "spousal" relationship of some sort, we are made to love and be loved in that pure and complete fullness of love that is both unitive and procreative, that involves a communion of persons that bears many fruits. This might manifest itself in the human marriage of the flesh, the marriage of a male and female, especially in the Sacrament of Matrimony, resulting in physical children. But it also manifests itself in the spousal relationship that a priest has, in the manner of Jesus, with His Bride, the Church, whereby, in that virginal marriage, there is a loving communion of persons that is fruitful, that results in spiritual children. Likewise, this spousal relationship might manifest itself in a spiritual marriage with Jesus, as we see with Sister Thérèse and other consecrated women religious.

But what about the rest of us? Those who are still "single," who have yet to discern their vocation (marriage or religious life) or who have discerned that they are called to marriage, but, for some reason, it has not happened? Or what about those with a same-sex attraction?

Single people have a vocation too, but it is not a vocation to solitude. It is not good that man should be alone -- in solitude, he is missing an essential element, he is incomplete. Each of these single people also has a spousal meaning in his or her very body. They too are called to that vocation which is the primary vocation of all -- the vocation to love. They too are called to love and be loved in a relationship of pure and complete love, the fullness of love with the Lord that is communion with Him and is fruitful. So, if they cannot enter into a human marriage, for whatever reason -- if, for example, they have not found anyone who wants to marry them or because they are same-sex attracted -- they are still called to a relationship of spousal love. If they wish to be true to the person that are made to be, even if they do not pursue the consecrated religious life, they should still seek to love the Lord and His Bride as a spouse loves his or her beloved, fully and completely, in a dynamic and fruitful loving communion of persons.

The Story of a Soul
St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Chapter 8
It was the Nativity of Mary. What a beautiful feast on which to become the Spouse of Jesus! It was the little new-born Holy Virgin who presented her little Flower to the little Jesus. Everything was little on that day except for the graces I received and the joyful peace I felt as I gazed at the stars in the evening sky and thought that I should soon ascend to heaven and be united with my divine Spouse in eternal happiness.

On September 24, I took the veil. . . . Eight days after I took the veil, our cousin, Jeanne Guérin, married Doctor La Néele. Some time later, as we were talking in the parlour, she told me of all the care she lavished on her husband. Her words stirred me and I said to myself: “It’s not going to be said that a woman will do more for her husband, a mere mortal, than I will do for my beloved Jesus.” I was filled with fresh ardour and made greater efforts than ever to see that all I did was pleasing to the King of kings who had chosen me as His bride.

When I saw the letter announcing Jeanne’s marriage, I amused myself by composing an invitation which I read to the novices to make them realize what had struck me so forcibly: how trifling are the pleasures of an earthly union compared to the glory of being the bride of Jesus.

ALMIGHTY GOD
Creator of Heaven and Earth
Supreme Sovereign of the Universe
and
THE MOST GLORIOUS VIRGIN MARY
Queen of the Court of Heaven
Announce to you the Spiritual Marriage of their august Son
JESUS
KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS
with
Little Thérèse Martin

now Princess and Lady of the Kingdoms of the Childhood of Jesus and His Passion, given to her as a dowry by her divine Spouse from which she holds her titles of nobility OF THE CHILD JESUS and OF THE HOLY FACE.

It was not possible to invite you to the wedding feast held on the Mountain of Carmel, September 8, 1890, as only the heavenly Court was admitted, but you are nevertheless invited to the At Home tomorrow, the Day of Eternity when Jesus, the Son of God, will come in the clouds of heaven to judge the living and the dead in the full splendor of His majesty.

The hour being uncertain, you are asked to hold yourself in readiness and to watch. . . .

__________________

Read the rest of the original post and more from The Story of a Soul here.

"All vocations involve some form of being 'wedded' to another"

Dating is to Marriage what Seminary is to Priesthood
Rev. Brian Bashista, Director of the Office of Vocations
Arlington Catholic Herald, June 10, 2009

Our ultimate goal in life is to get to heaven, to become a saint. This call or invitation by God to be united with Him and one another forever in paradise is a universal call. However the way we live out this universal call is not universal. It varies according to the specific purpose or mission for which God has created each of us. This mission, simply put, is our vocation. . . .

Christ has called us all by name, our first name in fact, at our baptism to share His life, to share His mission of salvation. Therefore we all have a vocation. We are all called in some way to play a role in salvation history for love of Christ and His people. All vocations are therefore rooted in love because they are rooted in Christ. This love is sacrificial and self-less, in other words, it is Christ-like and other-directed. . . .

A vocation begins with Christ’s total gift of Himself to us and is then realized in our response to His gift, namely our total gift of ourselves to Him for the sake of others. . . . Love is not chosen, it is discovered and responded to. Properly speaking, someone does not choose another to marry but discovers, with the other, a mutually shared Christ-centered love that eventually leads to an invitation to enter sacramental marital love. The same is true for priesthood—one does not choose to become a priest, they discover with and through the Church, Christ’s invitation to be one of His priests. . . .

All vocations involve some form of being “wedded” to another. This union involves the offering of mutual love and support which then is open to bringing forth new life. For most men this wedded life will be freely entered into with a wife through the beautiful sacrament of marriage and the openness to father children through the order of nature. For other men, those who are called to be priests, this wedded life will be freely entered into with a “Supernatural Wife,” the Church -- his Spiritual Bride with whom he will father new sacramental life or supernatural children through the order of grace. It is vital that we discover our vocations. Our fulfillment, our blessedness, our salvation, and more importantly the salvation of others depend upon our acceptance of the mission, the vocation that Christ invites us to embrace. . . .

Once someone has sensed that God might be calling them to this vocation or the other, they must act upon these inspirations. Rather than resist the promptings they should move toward and act upon them. They should place these thoughts before the “other” to see if they are mutually shared. . . . It is as unrealistic for someone to be certain they will marry someone before they date them as it is for someone to be certain they are called to the priesthood before they enter the seminary. Dating is to marriage what seminary is to priesthood. Both are a type of courtship that leads to the discovery of where someone is truly called, or not called. . . . This discovery or discernment is a process of getting to know the other and responding positively to the love Christ is calling them to share. . . .

Fr. Bashista is the director of the Office of Vocations, Diocese of Arlington.
He can be reached at vocations@arlingtondiocese.org.
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Marriage and Family: the Priesthood

Recent years have seen many people complain, again and again, "why can't we have married priests?"

In fact, as noted below, in the celibate priesthood, the priest does have a spouse, and we call him "Father" for good reason.

Pastores Dabo Vobis
Blessed Pope John Paul II
March 25, 1992

22. The priest is called to be the living image of Jesus Christ, the spouse of the Church. . . . In his spiritual life, therefore, he is called to live out Christ's spousal love toward the Church, his bride. Therefore, the priest's life ought to radiate this spousal character, which demands that he be a witness to Christ's spousal love. . .

29. “This perfect continence for love of the kingdom of heaven has always been held in high esteem by the Church as a sign and stimulus of love, and as a singular source of spiritual fertility in the world." (Lumen Gentium 42) In virginity and celibacy, chastity retains its original meaning, that is, of human sexuality lived as a genuine sign of and precious service to the love of communion and gift of self to others. This meaning is fully found in virginity which makes evident, even in the renunciation of marriage, the "nuptial meaning" of the body through a communion and a personal gift to Jesus Christ and his Church which prefigures and anticipates the perfect and final communion and self - giving of the world to come: "In virginity or celibacy, the human being is awaiting, also in a bodily way, the eschatological marriage of Christ with the Church, giving himself or herself completely to the Church in the hope that Christ may give himself to the Church in the full truth of eternal life." (Familiaris Consortio 98)

Sacramentum Caritatis
Pope Benedict XVI
February 22, 2007

24. The Synod Fathers wished to emphasize that the ministerial priesthood, through ordination, calls for complete configuration to Christ. . . . This choice on the part of the priest expresses in a special way the dedication which conforms him to Christ and his exclusive offering of himself for the Kingdom of God. . . . It is not sufficient to understand priestly celibacy in purely functional terms. Celibacy is really a special way of conforming oneself to Christ's own way of life. This choice has first and foremost a nuptial meaning; it is a profound identification with the heart of Christ the Bridegroom who gives his life for his Bride. . . .

The Spousal Relationship with the Lord in Religious Life

Verbi Sponsa
Instruction on the Contemplative Life and on the Enclosure of Nuns
Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
May 13, 1999

1. The Church as Bride of the Word shows forth in an exemplary way in those dedicated to a wholly contemplative life the mystery of her exclusive union with God. For this reason the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata presents the vocation and mission of cloistered nuns as “a sign of the exclusive union of the Church as Bride with her Lord, whom she loves above all things,” showing how they are a unique grace and precious gift within the mystery of the Church's holiness. . . .

Cloistered nuns see themselves especially in the Virgin Mary, Bride and Mother, figure of the Church; and sharing the blessedness of those who believe (cf. Lk 1:45; 11:28), they echo her “Yes” and her loving adoration of the Word of life, becoming with her the living “memory” of the Church's spousal love (cf. Lk 2:19, 51). . .

4. The history of God's relationship to humanity is a history of spousal love, prepared for in the Old Testament and celebrated in the fullness of time.

Divine Revelation uses the nuptial image to describe the intimate and indissoluble link between God and his people (cf. Hos 1-2; Is 54:4-8; 62:4-5; Jer 2:2; Ezek 16; 2 Cor 11:2; Rom 11:29).

The Son of God presents himself as the Bridegroom-Messiah (cf. Mt 9:15; 25:1), come to seal the marriage of God with humanity, in a wondrous exchange of love, which begins in the Incarnation, comes to its summit of self-offering in the Passion and is for ever given as gift in the Eucharist.

The Lord Jesus pours into human hearts his love and the love of the Father, enabling them to respond fully, through the gift of the Holy Spirit who never ceases to cry out with the Bride: “Come!” (Rev 22:17). This fullness of grace and holiness is realized in “the Bride of the Lamb ... coming down out of heaven, from God, shining with the glory of God” (Rev 21:9-10).

The nuptial dimension belongs to the whole Church, but consecrated life is a vivid image of it, since it more clearly expresses the impulse towards the Bridegroom.

In a still more significant and radical way, the mystery of the exclusive union of the Church as Bride with the Lord is expressed in the vocation of cloistered nuns, precisely because their life is entirely dedicated to God, loved above all else, in a ceaseless straining towards the heavenly Jerusalem and in anticipation of the eschatological Church confirmed in the possession and contemplation of God. Their life is a reminder to all Christian people of the fundamental vocation of everyone to come to God; and it is a foreshadowing of the goal towards which the entire community of the Church journeys, in order to live forever as the Bride of the Lamb. . . .

Nuns moreover, by their very nature as women, show forth more powerfully the mystery of the Church as “the Spotless Bride of the Spotless Lamb”, rediscovering themselves individually in the spousal dimension of the wholly contemplative vocation.

The monastic life of women has therefore a special capacity to embody the nuptial relationship with Christ and be a living sign of it: was it not in a woman, the Virgin Mary, that the heavenly mystery of the Church was accomplished? . . .

7. “The pilgrim Church is by her very nature missionary”; therefore mission is also essential to Institutes of contemplative life. Cloistered nuns fulfil that mission by dwelling at the missionary heart of the Church, by means of constant prayer, the oblation of self and the offering of the sacrifice of praise.

Their life thus becomes a mysterious source of apostolic fruitfulness and blessing for the Christian community and for the whole world.

It is charity, poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 5:5), which makes nuns co-workers of the truth (cf. 3 Jn v. 8), participants in Christ's work of Redemption (cf. Col 1:24), and through their vital union with the other members of the Mystical Body makes their lives fruitful, wholly directed to the pursuit of charity, for the good of all.

Saint John of the Cross writes that “truly a crumb of pure love is more precious in the Lord's sight and of greater benefit to the Church than all the other works together.” In the wonderment of her splendid intuition, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus declares: “I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was ablaze with love. I understood that Love alone enabled the Church's members to act . . . Yes, I found my place in the Church . . . at the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be Love.”

The insight of the Saint of Lisieux is the conviction of the Church, repeatedly voiced by the Magisterium: “The Church is deeply aware and, without hesitation she forcefully proclaims, that there is an intimate connection between prayer and the spreading of the Kingdom of God, between prayer and the conversion of hearts, between prayer and the fruitful reception of the saving and uplifting Gospel message.” . . .

As a reflection and radiation of their contemplative life, nuns offer to the Christian community and to the world of today, more than ever in need of true spiritual values, a silent proclamation of the mystery of God and a humble witness to it, thus keeping prophecy alive in the nuptial heart of the Church. . . .

Living in and by the Lord's presence, nuns are a particular foreshadowing of the eschatological Church immutable in its possession and contemplation of God; they “visibly represent the goal towards which the entire community of the Church travels. ‘Eager to act and yet devoted to contemplation,’ the Church advances down the paths of time with her eyes fixed on the future restoration of all things in Christ.”

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Marriage and Family: St. Thérèse and the Vocation to Love

This season of Cinema Catechism, we are exploring the theme of Marriage and Family, and the film for October is Miracle of St. Thérèse.

St. Thérèse?? OK, I can see what Thérèse Martin has to do with the family part -- she came from a very devout and pious Catholic family, her parents are both beatified, her four surviving siblings all went on to become nuns. But Thérèse was a cloistered nun, what does she have to do with marriage?

Quite a lot actually. True, she did not enter into a earthly human marriage with a man, but she did have a spouse. She loved with a spousal love in a spousal relationship. And to understand that, we must first understand the idea of "marriage as primordial sacrament," in the words of Blessed Pope John Paul II.

A "sacrament" is an outward visible sign of a mystical nonvisible reality. And in the marriage of man and woman, we see the primary model for God's plan for humanity.

Indeed, there is a spousal meaning revealed in the human body, as shown both in natural observation of the human body and as explained in the opening chapters of Genesis. "Man," male and female, made in the image of the Trinity, is by "his" nature a social being, made for relationship. It is not good that man should be alone -- in solitude, he is missing an essential element, he is incomplete. Man is made for relationship; hence he (singular) is made both male and female (plural). Thus, it is not just any relationship man is made for, where they (plural) are male and female (plural), but he is specifically oriented toward a spousal relationship, a loving communion of persons become one that is fruitful, just as the Trinity is a loving communion of three persons in one divine being who is procreative. Again, in the human marriage of man and woman, we see the primary model for God's plan for humanity.

In scripture, in the story of Salvation History, we can plainly see God's relationship with humanity in general, and Israel in particular, described in spousal terms. The Annunciation to Mary has often been described as a kind of marriage proposal by God to her, with Mary saying "yes" on behalf of all mankind. The first miracle Jesus performed was at a wedding, and many of His parables involved marital imagery. Jesus is, of course, the Bridegroom, having taken as His virginal Bride, the Church. And in the eschatology of the Book of Revelation, life after the resurrection of the body is described in the spousal terms of the wedding banquet of the Lamb. So, marriage is clearly the model by which to understand God's plan for us.

There is a spousal meaning to the human body, every human body. Since we all have a human body, we are all made for a "spousal" relationship of some sort, we are made to love and be loved in that pure and complete fullness of love that is both unitive and procreative, that involves a communion of persons that bears many fruits. This might manifest itself in the human marriage of the flesh, the marriage of a male and female, especially in the Sacrament of Matrimony, resulting in physical children. But it also manifests itself in the spousal relationship that a priest has, in the manner of Jesus, with His Bride, the Church, whereby, in that virginal marriage, there is a loving communion of persons that is fruitful, that results in spiritual children. Likewise, this spousal relationship might manifest itself in a spiritual marriage with Jesus, as we see with Sister Thérèse and other consecrated women religious.

But what about the rest of us? Those who are still "single," who have yet to discern their vocation (marriage or religious life) or who have discerned that they are called to marriage, but, for some reason, it has not happened? Or what about those with a same-sex attraction?

Single people have a vocation too, but it is not a vocation to solitude. It is not good that man should be alone -- in solitude, he is missing an essential element, he is incomplete. Each of these single people also has a spousal meaning in his or her very body. They too are called to that vocation which is the primary vocation of all -- the vocation to love. They too are called to love and be loved in a relationship of pure and complete love, the fullness of love with the Lord that is communion with Him and is fruitful. So, if they cannot enter into a human marriage, for whatever reason -- if, for example, they have not found anyone who wants to marry them or because they are same-sex attracted -- they are still called to a relationship of spousal love. If they wish to be true to the person that are made to be, even if they do not pursue the consecrated religious life, they should still seek to love the Lord and His Bride as a spouse loves his or her beloved, fully and completely, in a dynamic and fruitful loving communion of persons.

The Story of a Soul
St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Chapter 8
On the morning of September 8, peace swept over me and I made my vows in that “peace which surpasseth all understanding.” I demanded innumerable favours. I felt that I was really a queen and I made full use of my title to ask the King for every kind of benefit for His ungrateful subjects. I forgot no one. I wanted every sinner to be converted that day and for purgatory to be emptied. . . .

It was the Nativity of Mary. What a beautiful feast on which to become the Spouse of Jesus! It was the little new-born Holy Virgin who presented her little Flower to the little Jesus. Everything was little on that day except for the graces I received and the joyful peace I felt as I gazed at the stars in the evening sky and thought that I should soon ascend to heaven and be united with my divine Spouse in eternal happiness.

On September 24, I took the veil. . . . Eight days after I took the veil, our cousin, Jeanne Guérin, married Doctor La Néele. Some time later, as we were talking in the parlour, she told me of all the care she lavished on her husband. Her words stirred me and I said to myself: “It’s not going to be said that a woman will do more for her husband, a mere mortal, than I will do for my beloved Jesus.” I was filled with fresh ardour and made greater efforts than ever to see that all I did was pleasing to the King of kings who had chosen me as His bride.

When I saw the letter announcing Jeanne’s marriage, I amused myself by composing an invitation which I read to the novices to make them realize what had struck me so forcibly: how trifling are the pleasures of an earthly union compared to the glory of being the bride of Jesus.

ALMIGHTY GOD
Creator of Heaven and Earth
Supreme Sovereign of the Universe
and
THE MOST GLORIOUS VIRGIN MARY
Queen of the Court of Heaven
Announce to you the Spiritual Marriage of their august Son
JESUS
KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS
with
Little Thérèse Martin

now Princess and Lady of the Kingdoms of the Childhood of Jesus and His Passion, given to her as a dowry by her divine Spouse from which she holds her titles of nobility OF THE CHILD JESUS and OF THE HOLY FACE.

It was not possible to invite you to the wedding feast held on the Mountain of Carmel, September 8, 1890, as only the heavenly Court was admitted, but you are nevertheless invited to the At Home tomorrow, the Day of Eternity when Jesus, the Son of God, will come in the clouds of heaven to judge the living and the dead in the full splendor of His majesty.

The hour being uncertain, you are asked to hold yourself in readiness and to watch.

Chapter 11
When I awoke from [a certain] dream, I believed and I knew that heaven exists and that souls dwell there who love me and look upon me as their child. . . .

O my Beloved! This grace was only the prelude of the greater ones You wished to shower on me. Let me recall them to You, and forgive me if I talk nonsense in trying to tell You again about those hopes and desires of mine which are almost limitless ... forgive me and heal my soul by granting it what it wants. It should be enough for me, Jesus, to be Your spouse, to be a Carmelite and, by union with You, to be the mother of souls. Yet I long for other vocations: I want to be a warrior, a priest, an apostle, a doctor of the Church, a martyr. ... I would like to perform the most heroic deeds. I feel I have the courage of a Crusader. I should like to die on the battlefield in defence of the Church.. . .

Like the prophets and the doctors of the Church, I should like to enlighten souls. I should like to wander through the world, preaching Your Name and raising Your glorious Cross in pagan lands. But it would not be enough to have only one field of mission work. I should not be satisfied unless I preached the Gospel in every quarter of the globe . . . I should like to have been [a missionary] from the creation of the world and to continue as one till the end of time. But, above all, I long to be a martyr. From my childhood I have dreamt of martyrdom, and it is a dream which has grown more and more real in my little cell in Carmel. . . . My Jesus, fling open that book of life in which are set down the deeds of every saint. I want to perform them all for You!

Now what can You say to all my silliness? Is there anywhere in the world a tinier, weaker soul than mine? Yet just because I am so weak, You have granted my little, childish desires and now You will grant those desires of mine which are far vaster than the universe. These desires caused me a real martyrdom, and so one day I opened the epistles of St. Paul to try to find some cure for my sufferings. . . . [I read,] “Be zealous for the better gifts. And I show unto you a yet more excellent way.” The apostle explains how even all the most perfect gifts are nothing without love and that charity is the most excellent way of going safely to God. I had found peace at last. . . .

Charity gave me the key to my vocation. . . . I realized that love includes all vocations, that love is all things, and that, because it is eternal, it embraces every time and place.

Swept by an ecstatic joy, I cried: “Jesus, my love! At last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love! I have found my place in the bosom of the Church and it is You, Lord, who has given it me. In the heart of the Church, who is my Mother, I will be love. So I shall be everything and so my dreams will be fulfilled.” . . . How brightly this beacon of love burns! And I know how to reach it and how to make its flames my own.

I am only a weak and helpless child, yet it is my very weakness which has made me daring enough to offer myself to You, Jesus, as the victim of Your love. . . . My heart has no desire for riches or glory, even the glory of heaven. That glory belongs by right to my brothers – the angels and the saints. . . . But what I demand is love. I care now about one thing only – to love You, my Jesus! Great deeds are forbidden me, I cannot preach the Gospel nor shed my blood – but what does it matter? My brothers toil instead of me and I, a little child, well, I keep close by the throne of God, and I love for those who fight. Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Well, I will scatter flowers, perfuming the divine Throne with their fragrances, and I’ll sweetly sing my hymn of love. Yes, my Beloved, that is how I’ll spend my short life. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers, and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and doing the least of actions for love. I wish both to suffer and to find joy through love. Thus will I scatter my flowers.

__________________

Also, you may find of interest the blog Sponsa Christi, a young consecrated virgin reflects on her vocation.

"I thirst!" -- Mother Teresa's Calling Within a Calling

Years after Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was called to religious life with the Sisters of Loreto, she received another calling from the Lord, to go out and serve the "poorest of the poor."

Excerpt’s from “Mother Teresa's Secret Fire”
What Forged Her Soul Was an Intimate Encounter With Divine Thirst
by Father Joseph Langford, MC
(Together with Mother Teresa, Father Langford is a co-founder of the priestly branch of the Missionaries of Charity.)

The Train to Darjeeling: Another Reading

On the morning of Sept. 10, Sister Teresa Bojaxhiu left Calcutta’s Howrah Station, bound for Siliguri, in the northern plains of West Bengal. She would disembark in Siliguri and board what was affectionately called the "toy train," so nicknamed for its tiny dimensions, and from there continue on the last leg of her journey. . . .

Inspiration Day

As the train ascended into the clean, cool mountain air, Sister Teresa would have looked out her window onto lush thickening forests. Trains were slow in that day, not because the engines were weak, but because the track was unreliable. A trip of several hours could turn into days, as late-summer heat could buckle rails and add hours to the journey. But, when moving, a passenger’s mind could ride the rhythm of the train’s progress and easily move into prayer.

Somewhere on this ordinary journey, in the heat, in the gathering shadows, in the noisy, crowded car, something extraordinary happened. At some unknown point along the way, there in the depths of Mother Teresa’s soul, the heavens opened.

For decades, all she would tell her Sisters of that life-changing moment was that she had received a “call within a call,” a divine mandate to leave the convent and to go out to serve the poor in the slums. But something incomparably greater and more momentous had transpired as well. We now know, thanks to early hints in her letters and conversations, and her own later admissions, that she had been graced with an overwhelming experience of God -- an experience of such power and depth, of such intense “light and love,” as she would later describe it, that by the time her train pulled into the station at Darjeeling, she was no longer the same. Though no one knew it at the time, Sister Teresa had just become Mother Teresa.

For the still young nun, barely 36 years old, another journey was beginning; an inner journey with her God that would turn every aspect of her life upside down. The grace of the train would not only transform her relationship to God, but to everyone and everything around her. Within eight short days, the grace of this moment would carry her and her newfound inner fire back down the same mountainside, and into a new life. From the heights of the Himalayas she would bring a profoundly new sense of her God back into the sweltering, pestilent slums of Calcutta -- and onto a world stage, bearing in her heart a light and love beyond her, and our, imagining.

From then on, Mother Teresa would simply refer to September 10th as “Inspiration Day,” an experience she considered so intimate and ineffable that she resisted speaking of it, save in the most general terms. Her silence would prevail until the last few years of her life, when she at last was moved to lift the veil covering this sacred moment.

Putting It All Together

As I worked on our constitutions in the Bronx, I began to ask myself if there might be a connection between Mother Teresa's experience on the train and Jesus’ words, “I thirst.” Could they both be part of the same grace; could it be that Mother Teresa’s encounter on the train was, at its core, an encounter with Jesus’ thirst? If that were the case, the words on the wall would simply be her way of telling us, without training the spotlight on herself, yet in a way we would not forget, the essence of what had happened that grace-filled day on the train.

As I prayed and thought over it in those months, I became more persuaded that the grace of the train had been, at least in part, Mother Teresa’s own overpowering experience of Jesus’ thirst. The only thing left to complete my quest was to seek her confirmation.

On her next visit to New York, in early 1984, I finally had both reason and opportunity to ask her about the experience of the train. A few days into her visit, when I was alone with her in the front garden outside our house in the Bronx, I told her of what had been my long search to better understand her “inspiration,” and my desire to describe it accurately in our community’s constitutions. I explained to her that, for me, the only thing that made sense of her placing “I thirst” in her chapels, was that it grew out of her own experience of the thirst of Jesus -- and most importantly, that her encounter with the divine thirst had been the heart and essence of September 10th. . . .

I waited in silence for an answer. She lowered her head for a moment, then looked up and said, “Yes, it is true.” Then after a pause, she added, “And one day you must tell the others . . .”

Here, finally, was the core of Mother Teresa’s secret. In the end, it had not been some dry command to “work for the poor” that had made Mother Teresa who she was. What had forged Mother Teresa’s soul and fueled her work had been an intimate encounter with the divine thirst – for her, for the poor, and for us all. . . .

In the most indirect and humble of ways, not unlike the Virgin Mary, Mother Teresa had wished to exalt the goodness of the God she had met on the train, and the divine message that, after changing her life, held the power to change our own. She had always known, as I later realized, that her message was meant for us all – for the neediest and furthest away first of all. And the message of Jesus’ thirst, of his longing to love us, silently conveyed in her works of love as much as by her few and gentle words, was bearing fruit all around her and all around the world. Already, in the time I had known her, I had seen with my own eyes how her unspoken message could touch, and heal, and change lives.

Her Message Launched

Mother Teresa’s understanding of the thirst of God was entirely simple, yet deep, powerful and engaging. She learned that God not only accepts us with all our misery, but that he longs for us, “thirsts” for us, with all the intensity of his divine heart, no matter who we are or what we have done.

But how can God “thirst” for us if there is no lack in God? While thirst can imply lack, it also has another sense. In Mother Teresa’s lexicon, thirst signifies deep, intense desire. Rather than indicating lack, the symbol of divine thirst points to the mystery of God’s freely chosen longing for man. Simply put, though nothing in God needs us, everything in God wants us -- deeply and intensely, as he shows throughout Scripture.

Mother Teresa’s insights reveal something important, even essential, in the depths of God’s being. Mother Teresa insists that the thirst of Christ reveals something not only about Jesus, but about God himself. Jesus’ thirst points us toward a great mystery in the very bosom of the Godhead -- what Mother Teresa describes as “the depths of God's infinite longing to love and be loved.” As ardent a statement as this is, her insights are confirmed by no less a source than the Fathers of the Church. The great St. Augustine would write that “God thirsts to be thirsted for by man.” In our own day, Benedict XVI would affirm that “the thirst of Christ is a gateway into the mystery of God.”

The mystery of God’s thirst for us was the one great light Mother Teresa held high in the night, hers and ours. . . .

Sharing the Darkness of the Poor

As difficult and painful as her dark night became, Mother Teresa never allowed herself to become “lost” in her darkness. She never rebelled against it, nor against the God who laid it on her shoulders, nor against the poor of Calcutta with whom and for whom she bore it. On the contrary, she gradually came to understand its deeper meaning, and even to willingly embrace it for the sake of her God -- who had borne that same agony for her sake, in Gethsemane.

Even while tending to the physical and material needs of the poor, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, Mother Teresa’s primary focus was their “salvation and sanctification,” their inner advancement toward divine union, as their highest dignity and long-term vocation. She was not sent simply to work for material betterment, a point even her admirers often miss. Calcutta’s poorest, living and dying on the streets, enjoyed neither sufficient material goods, nor the goodness of their fellow man. Since they were left with nothing and no one to mirror to them the face of God, Mother Teresa was sent to show them in his name, in concrete works of love, how beloved of God they were. For love’s sake, she herself would bear a portion of their interior pain. She would give of herself, in this life and the next, to “light the light of those in darkness on earth.” The more the truth of her victorious faith is known, the more she will be an inspiration to those who are learning to find their peace, to make their contribution, and to cling to their God, as she did, in the night. . . .

Lessons in the Night

Darkness need not be the opposite, the enemy of light. When seeded with God's grace, darkness becomes its catalyst. Night becomes womb to day. It is the power of love, of God's own nature as love, that works this alchemy. When embraced for others, when transformed by love, darkness indeed becomes light. . . .

Turning the Darkness to Light

We are each called and equipped by God to not only survive our personal Calcutta, but to serve there -- to contribute to those around us whose individual Calcutta intersects our own, just as Mother Teresa did, if on a different scale. If she could face the worst of human suffering in such immense proportions, and do so despite bearing her own pain -- then there must be a way that we can do the same in the lesser Calcutta that is ours. We must never forget, distracted by the demi-problems of our routine existence, just how important our one life is in the plan of God, and the great amount of good we can yet contribute.

How important can our one small, unspectacular life be? Consider this: the good that each of us can accomplish, even with limited resources and restricted reach, not even a Mother Teresa could achieve. The family, friends and coworkers whom we alone can touch, with our unique and unrepeatable mix of gifts and qualities, not even Mother Teresa could reach. No one else on the planet, and no one else in history possesses the same network of acquaintances and the same combination of talents and gifts as each of us do.

There is no need, then, to travel to far-off lands to contribute to Mother Teresa’s mission, or to follow her example. Wherever we are, with whatever talents and relationships God has entrusted us, we are each called not to do what a Mother Teresa did, but to do as she did -- to love as she loved in the Calcutta of our own life.