Cristóbol Colón (c. 1451-1506)

Posthumous portrait of Columbus

by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio

Sepulcro de Cristóbol Colón (Columbus' Tomb)

with coffin bearers representing the kings of

Castilla, Léon, Aragón, & Navarra

(Taken at Catedral de Sevilla, 1998)

Christopher Columbus was a navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. He made four voyages, all funded by Isabella I of Castile, to explore and several attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, thus initiating the process of Spanish colonization, and the eventual general European colonization of the "New World."

Columbus was not the first person to reach the Americas from Europe. At least one other group preceded him: the Norse, led by Leif Ericson.

Columbus initiated widespread contact between Europeans and indigenous Americans. The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and other Europeans. Columbus himself was responsible for the deaths of millions of Native Americans, possibly between 1 and 3 million, in the first 15 years of his colonization of the Caribbean, including entire peoples' such as the Taino and the Arawak. He has the dubious distinction of being the founder of the practice of slavery in the Americas.

Columbus was probably born in Genoa, although there are other theories. The name Christopher Columbus is English for the Latin Christophorus Columbus. The original name in 15th century Genoese language was Christoffa Corombo. The name is rendered in modern Italian as Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish as Cristóbal Colón.

Dealing with God's "Absence"

The former Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, whom we now know as Pope Benedict XVI, writing in his Introduction to Christianity (pp. 223-230) about Christ's descent to the dead observes that "not only God's speech but also [God’s] silence is part of Christian revelation."

The experience of God's silence, or absence, is one of the most frustrating human experiences, as both the writers of the book of Job and of Psalm 22 so eloquently tell us. We’ve always been taught that the loving God is everywhere and in all things. It’s something you and I bank on in order for comfort when afflicted and to help us endure great suffering.

Yet, we’ve all experienced those times, in one form or another, when nothing seems to keep our comfortable world rightside up: in the death of a relationship, in the suicide of a loved one, in face-to-face confrontation with unspeakable evil, in the realization that our own death is approaching, or even in such lesser tragedies as having one's home broken into or getting a traffic ticket. At those times, far from feeling God’s closeness, we feel, rather, God's absence.

The story of Job in Scripture is a sort of dark comedy, in which God allows a seemingly just man to be tested by a host of snowballing tragedies, one after another, so that it becomes almost ludicrous. What makes the mess even more poignant are Job’s friends and the trite, useless advice they try to give him. Through it all, Job remains convinced that he’s been and is faithful to God, and he’s even determined to press his case before the Almighty.

“Today, my complaint is bitter...Oh, that I knew where I might find [God]...I would lay my case before him...I would learn...what he would say to me...” But, he observes, “...If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him. God has made my heart faint...” and Job all but despairs.

Pope Benedict, in the same book which I mentioned above (pp. 229-230) points to Jesus as the way out of Job’s, and our, dilemma. He says: "Christ strode through the gate of our final loneliness, . . . in his passion he went down into the abyss of our abandonment. Where no voice can reach us any longer, there is he. Hell is thereby overcome, or, to be more accurate, death, which was previously hell, is hell no longer... because there is life in the midst of death, because love dwells in it".

Where, in the times that you and I feel God’s absence, are we to encounter Jesus who is Love? The writer of Hebrews suggests that our starting point is “the word of God” which is described as “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow;...able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” It’s in the meditative reading and absorbing of the message of Scripture, and in learning to pray over it, that our hearts begin to encounter the living Jesus, the living Word, our “great high priest...one who in every respect has been tested as we are...”. This One who ministers to us in the midst of God’s apparent absence in our spiritual lives is not One who is “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses...”, but One who brings us “mercy and grace to help in time of need”.

Many people often refer to the “problem of God’s absence”. The founder of the monastic Order of Julian of Norwich, Fr. John-Julian, calls this “bad theology and bad prayer...” One of Scriptures’ most pointed and comforting messages is that of the prophet Isaiah who represents God as saying: “...Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you...” (Is 49:15) God can never really be absent to us or we’d simply cease to exist. Nevertheless, we often “feel” like God is absent.

In reality, this feeling of “absence” might mean a number of different things:

1) It might mean that we feel that God isn’t meeting our expectations. You and I all have great “plans for God” for our lives, don’t we? Clearly, we’ve not yet learned to “ be still and know that I am God”, as the Psalm says.

(2) It could also mean that we’re experiencing a different kind of presence of God:

- Sometimes God is present to us as silence/aloneness. Michael Christopher, the ex-monk character in a novel by San Francisco author, Timothy Farrington, The Monk Downstairs (2002) reflects on this in a letter:
“...my best moments...[in monastic life] came when all our revitalizing monastic activities seemed irrelevant and far away, like a hectic dream, and a perfect silence came upon me. It seems to me that
all I ever really did in prayer was stay with that silence, while my grand religious career crumbled into ruins around me, while [the]Abbot...cracked the whip of good works above my head and the choir sang incessantly, proclaiming God’s loud glory. It seems to me that I have never gone anywhere except deeper into that silence, which is a kind of nowhere. Even now, once in a long while, the grace of that silence comes upon me anew, at the heart of my broken morning prayer, and everything seems all right. I sit quite still, with nothing moving in me and nothing, blessedly, wanting to move. It is a feeling so quiet that to call it joy seems a kind of distortion. It is peace. There is nothing else: no direction, no desire, no particular clarity about my place in the world. Just peace. I don’t see how I could possibly offer that peace to the world...It is only in dying to the world that such peace comes. Nailed to the rude cross of our inevitable failings, helpless and abandoned, we see the world slip away, in spite of our best efforts to cling to it...and that peace comes...God is the nail that splits our palms to break our grip on the world. He is an unfathomable darkness. He’s not what you want to hear...”

- Sometimes God is present to us as barreness/emptiness. Because we’re so much more interested in the consolations of God, rather than in the God of consolation, God is consistently cheating us of our dreams, says Louis Evely, in order to teach us hope. Unwilling to give us less than Godself, God allows us to feel the emptiness which can only lead us to seek the One Whom we know that we can’t do without. The novel’s character, Michael Christopher, again: “...My prayer life has run aground. I am lost, disheartened, demoralized...My mind is a stretch of barren country and swirling dust; my heart has shriveled to the size of a dried pea...The emptiness of prayer is deeper than despair. Preparing us for a love we cannot conceive, God takes our lesser notions of love from us one by one...
Have you never once seen all your goodness turn to dust? I tell you that until you do, all your prayer is worse than useless...” (pp. 65-66)
“...I am a futility. The life of prayer begins with that...” (p. 166)

- And sometimes God is present as quiet undemonstrable love. In the novel, The Monk Downstairs, Michael, the ex-monk, and his upstairs landlord, a woman named Rebecca, at one point both finally attain the inner courage to admit that they, indeed, love each other, at the same time acknowledging a mutual, and very scary, feeling of the unknown toward which this relationship is drawing them. In the midst of this, Michael gives a wonderful commentary on God’s presence to the soul as “quiet undemonstrable love”: “...But there are richer fruits of prayer. Deeper than a sense of sin and unworthiness, deeper than the self-contempt, the dryness, and the futility of will, the truest revelation of the endless fall through the self toward God is a sense of genuine nothingness. This ‘humility’ is no affectation; it is no false modesty calculated to ease the usual traffic of egos; it is simply realism. I am nothing. I have looked within, long and hard, for the soul that would hasten into God, and in the end I was not there. What is left when we get to the bottom of the self, when we have exhausted all our tricks? Real prayer is a disappearance, a surrender to the embrace of deepening mystery, in darkness. In that darkness, finally, God alone is. And God is infinite surprise. So say that I have been surprised by love, surprised by desire...say that I have finally found a reason to struggle with myself...” (pp. 192-193)

“Real prayer is a disappearance, a surrender...” to the embrace of the mystery of Love, of God who alone is and is present in us, the God of “infinite surprise”. In prayer we need always hold our preconceptions of God in abeyance, lest we miss the Reality of Godself which God chooses to give us. In accepting that gift, whatever and however it may be, we choose to live with contradiction. We refuse to refuse. We let go of all our expectations of God and how God “should be” for us, and simply, humbly accept what IS.

The Jesus of Mark’s Gospel describes this whole process we’ve been talking about as one of handing over all, handing over our will, in order to “have treasure” in the reign, the kingdom, which Jesus is establishing. The young man who approached Jesus asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” is shocked and put off by Jesus response, Mark tells us, “because he had many possessions...” And even the Apostles, who’d been with Jesus for some time on the road, who had seen him in selfless action -- even they are put off by Jesus’ words. But Jesus leaves no doubt about what he is asking of anyone who truly wants to follow him, to live in his Presence: “...how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God...” You must give ALL; there can be no priority above God in our life. Impossible?? - because that’s what the young man and the

Apostles (and we, if we’re really honest) thought/think. “Yes,” Jesus says, “For mortals it’s impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible...” And if you’re willing to take the risk, to endure, in your giving, what feels like emptiness, like God’s absence, then you’ll find yourself, strangely, having all you need and, most importantly, “in the age to come [which is, paradoxically, already beginning now], eternal life.”

The choice, as for Job, for the Psalmist, for the young man, and the Apostles, is yours and mine.

My Lord, You have heard the cry in my heart

because it was You Who cried out within my heart.

Forgive me for having tried to evoke Your presence in my own silence.

It is You Who must create me within Your own silence!

Only this newness can save me from idolatry!...

(Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island (p. 232)

Our Lady of Walsingham

Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham

at Julian House Monastery, Waukesha, WI

During the Middle Ages two shrines were especially popular among the English people: one honoring St. Thomas à Becket and the other, Our Lady of Walsingham. The latter shrine had its beginnings in 1061 and has remained England's principal shrine to Mary, Mother of God, "the only pre-Reformation shrine now in Anglican hands." (Fr. John Julian, OJN, Stars In A Dark World) In fact, the BBC did a nationwide poll six years ago, asking what was the favorite spiritual place for English people. The overwhelming winner was the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The motif of the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham is based on the medieval seals of the priory in Walsingham. In 1921 Fr. Alfred H. Patten, then vicar of the Anglican parish in Walsingham Village, working with artists, architects, and church historians, was able to develop a statue based on the medieval seals. The Blessed Virgin sits on a high-backed throne, with the Child Jesus on her lap holding a book of the Gospels.

Almighty Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

you have revealed the beauty of your power

by exalting the lowly Virgin of Nazareth

and making her the Mother of our Savior:

May the prayers of our Lady of Walsingham

bring Jesus to the waiting world

and fill the hearts of all your people

with the presence of her Child,

who lives and reigns with you

and the Holy Spirit, one God,

now and for ever. Amen.

Oxford's "Ruler of the Schools"

Tomb of Bl. Robert Grosseteste at Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral from the town square

Shrine of St. Hugh of Lincoln at Lincoln Cathedral

Memorial of Alfred Lord Tennyson outside Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Castle - Observatory Tower

Robert Grosseteste ("great head"), c. 1175-1253, was, as Fr. John Julian, OJN notes: "...at once a respected natural scientist, astronomer, mathematician, lawyer, professor, university president, French poet, agriculturist, translator, philosopher, theologian, ecclesiastical reformer, and bishop!" He held the latter post from 1235-1253. Matthew Paris (c. 1200–1259) an English Benedictine monk at St. Alban's Abbey, Hertfordshire, chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts, and cartographer, characterizes Grosseteste as "...at the table of bodily refreshment, pleasant and jovial; at the spiritual table, devout, tearful, and penitent; as a bishop, diligent and honorable..." He was certainly loved by the English people, though he was never officially canonized a saint. Bishop Mandell Creighton (1843-1901), an English historian and bishop of London, has called Grosseteste "really the last of the great English churchmen..."

If there were any doubt about that last statement, one would only have to refer to the Memorial which Robert Grosseteste addressed and delivered to Pope Innocent IV before the Papal Court at Lyons, May 13, 1250, regarding the abuses affecting the Church's life in England: "...What is the cause of this hopeless fall of the Church?", he asks. He then answers that it's the lack of "good shepherds of souls", along with an increase of lousy clerics, and the skirting of pastoral authority. Bad pastoring, he says, has led only to "unbelief, division, heresy and vice" because the living word of the Gospel, source of zeal for concern for the souls of their charges, is being ignored.

Then, with unusual honesty and boldness, Grosseteste goes on: "...And what is the cause of this evil. I tremble to speak of it, and yet I dare not keep silence. The cause and source of it is the Curia itself! Not only because it fails to put a stop to these evils as it can and should, but still more, because by its dispensations, provisions and collations, it appoints evil shepherds, thinking only of the income it yields for a person, and for the sake of it, handing over many thousands of souls to eternal death. And all this comes from him who is the representative of Christ! He who so sacrifices the pastoral office is a persecutor of Christ in his members. And since the doings of the Curia are a lesson to the world, such a manner of appointment to the cure of souls...teaches and encourages those who exercise the rights of patrons to make pastoral appointments of a similar nature, as a return for services rendered to themselves, or to please those in power...The cure of souls consists not only in the dispensation of the sacraments, in singing of the hours, and reading of masses, but in the true teaching of the word of life, in rebuking and correcting vice; and besides all this, in feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, housing the strangers, visiting the sick and prisoners -- especially those who are the parish priest's own parishioners..."

I'm guessing that Grosseteste ruffled more than just a few red Cardinals' robes that day, not to mention blew any chance of endearment with Pope Innocent. He virtually sealed his fate as to any chances of being considered for sainthood down the line, not that it probably bothered him that much, and rightly so! But what a model for anyone in church leadership, to humbly, yet forthrightly, "tell it like it is" when necessary: to hold even those in high places accountable for proclaiming the truth of the Gospel. It won't earn you many friends or help you to influence people, and will almost inevitably mark you as a "troublemaker", or as one "out of step", or "eccentric". It's usually a sure stopper for any kind of career advancement, even though that's rarely a priority for such a person.

But my hunch is that Robert Grosseteste slept well at night, and died in the peace of a good and righteous conscience. His whole life's effort had been to take St. Paul at his word: "...since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for building up the church..." (1 Corinthians 14:12)

William Tyndale (Tyndall) - c. 1494-1536

Tyndale is a famous 16th-century Protestant reformer and scholar who, influenced by Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther, translated substantial parts of the Bible into the early modern English of his day. He was a gifted linguist, fluent in French, Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, in addition to English. There had been a number of partial and complete Old English translations made from the 7th century onward, and Middle English translations, particularly during the 14th century. But Tyndale's was the first English translation drawing directly on Hebrew and Greek texts, and the first to use the new medium of print for wide distribution of his work. In 1535, Tyndale was arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde, outside Brussels, for about a year and a half, tried for heresy, strangled to death, then burned at the stake.


Early on, Tyndale proclaimed: "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou doest."

Tyndale's Work:

1525 The New Testament Translation (incomplete)
1526* The New Testament Translation (first full printed edition in English)
1526 A compendious introduccion, prologe or preface into the epistle of Paul to the Romans
1528 The parable of the wicked mammon
1528 The Obedience of a Christan Man
1530* The five books of Moses Translation (each book with individual title page)
1530 The practyse of prelates
1531 The exposition of the fyrste epistle of seynt Jhon with a prologge before it
1531? The prophete Jonas Translation
1531 An answere unto Sir Thomas Mores dialoge
1533? An exposicion uppon the. v. vi. vii. chapters of Mathew
1533 Enchiridion militis Christiani Translation
1534 The New Testament Translation (thoroughly revised, with a second foreword against George Joye's unauthorized changes in an edition of Tyndale's New Testament published earlier in the same year)
1535 The testament of master Wylliam Tracie esquier, expounded both by W. Tindall and J. Frith
1536? A path way into the holy scripture
1537 The byble, which is all the holy scripture Translation (only in part Tyndale's)
1548? A briefe declaration of the sacraments
1573 The whole workes of W. Tyndall, John Frith, and Doct. Barnes, edited by John Foxe
1848* Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures
1849* Expositions and Notes on Sundry Portions of the Holy Scriptures Together with the Practice of Prelates
1850* An Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue, The Supper of the Lord after the True Meaning of John VI. and I Cor. XI., and William Tracy's Testament Expounded
1964* The Work of William Tyndale
1989** Tyndale's New Testament
1992** Tyndale's Old Testament

* These works were printed more than once, usually signifying a revision or reprint. However the 1525 edition was printed as an incomplete quarto and was then reprinted in 1526 as a complete octavo.

** These works were reprints of Tyndale's earlier translations revised for modern-spelling.

New terms which Tyndale introduced into the English language:

Jehovah (a bastardization of the Hebrew "Yahweh" in the Old Testament, composed from the Tetragrammaton YHWH
Passover (for the Jewish holiday, Pesach)
Atonement (= at + onement) meaning "to unite" or "to cover", from the Hebrew kippur
scapegoat the goat that bears the sins and iniquities of the people in Leviticus 16

Tyndale also coined these familiar phrases:

let there be light

the powers that be

my brother's keeper

the salt of the earth

a law unto themselves

filthy lucre

it came to pass

gave up the ghost

the signs of the times

the spirit is willing

live and move and have our being

fight the good fight

William Tyndale, in his single-minded zeal to get the Bible into English, made a lot of enemies, both in high government and ecclesiastical places, and beyond. Diplomacy was not his forte! Sir Thomas More, the King's chancellor was sicced on Tyndale, and More was verbally vicious on more than one occasion. He particularly accused Tyndale of Lutheranizing the Bible (because of his collaboration with Martin Luther who'd done some translations into German) and of changing certain key terms, such as "bishop" to "overseer", "presbyter/priest" to "elder", and "charity" to love.

Tyndale's answer to More was simple and powerful. In a letter written to John Frith, Tyndale said with regard to all of More's charges of malicious intent and false translation: "I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Iesus to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God's word, against my conscience, nor would do this day, for all that is in earth, whether it be honor, pleasure or riches, might be given me."

Ironically, Thomas More beat Tyndale to martyrdom by one year! Do you suppose they compared notes in the hereafter?! What surprises must have been in store for them both!

Il Poverello

Portrait of St. Francis of Assisi,

probably done while he was still living.

Depicts him wiping his eyes, which were

afflicted almost to the point of blindness.

San Francesco a Ripa in the Trastevere section of Rome,

which I visited in 1998.

It houses the cell which Francis had in the adjacent convent

in 1219, as well as the stone he used for a sleeping cushion!

Interior of the Church of San Francesco a Ripa

Processional statue of Francis

in San Francesco a Ripa

Unfortunately, I've never yet visited Assisi. The closest I ever got to a place where St. Francis had lived is the Church of San Francesco a Ripa in Rome. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", but I didn't think the church was much to look at aesthetically. Aside from its historical value in Francis' life, there is at San Francesco a magnificent Bernini statue of Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, similar in style to his breathtaking Ecstasy of St. Teresa [of Avila] in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, which I also saw.

The life story of St. Francis of Assisi is intriguing, with all the elements of a bad boy undergoing a wholesale transformation for the good. Though he left few authentic writings, many over the centuries have fleshed out in words and in art the human character who was Francis. Though Francis was pretty much a mess physically speaking, he managed to give a new impetus to the Church's mystical and spiritual life. The simplicity and freshness of his vision really came from his refashioning of the apostolic model reflected in the life of the earliest followers of Jesus of Nazareth. What I think a lot of folks don't know or forget is that this vision had its roots in Francis' rich life experience, both the good and the not-so-good: as a rich kid, a libertine, a fairly capable musician and singer, an idealistic warrior who was quickly disillusioned, an open soul who caught the Divine and never let It go, the indefatigable lover of humans, male and female, and of animals, and a human being himself afflicted with some of nature's worst physical conditions. Francis is the perfect example of how the Christian mystical life finds its voice through a spontaneous, hands-on love of God's creation. Francis said once to Brother Masseo: "Do you want to know why it's me whom people follow -- do you want to know? It's because the eyes of the Most High, continually watching the good and wicked, haven't yet found among sinners any smaller man, or one more insufficient and more sinful. And so the Most High has willed to choose me to do his marvellous work, for there is no one more worthless, by which all the nobility and grandeur, strength and beauty and learning of the world can be confounded."

In 1224, two years before he died, Francis withdrew to the hermitage at La Verna in the Appennines. He was exhausted with work and from the effects of his multiple illnesses, all of which he joyously embraced. After fasting for weeks, contemplating Christ's Passion, and after an entire night spent in prayer Francis apparently had a vision as the sun was rising: "A seraph with outspread wings flew towards him from the edge of the horizon, and bathed his soul in raptures unutterable. In the center of the vision appeared a cross, and the seraph was nailed upon it. When the vision disappeared, he felt sharp sufferings mingled with ecstasy in the first moments. Stirred to the very depths of his being, he was anxiously asking the meaning of it all, when he perceived upon his body the Stigmata of the Crucified."

When Francis felt his last day approaching, he told a Friar to write a letter to his long-time friend, Lady Jacopa de Settesoli Frangipane, whom Francis had lovingly nicknamed "Brother Jacopa". The letter informed her of his imminent death and asked her to come to the Porziuncola. Francis requested that she bring him an ash-colored wool cloth, candles for the burial, and the sweets which she always gave him in Rome when he was ill. The Friars were looking around for someone to take the letter to Jacopa when it was revealed to Francis that she was already enroute.

Soon, there was a knock on the door of the tiny hut, near the chapel which served as an infirmary.
Jacopa had arrived with her sons and was allowed to enter, though customarily women were not admitted to the monastery. Jacopa had brought all the things which Francis had requested, including the sweets made with almonds, sugar, honey, and other ingredients, called mostaccioli [spicy, chocolaty cake-like cookies with almonds] in Rome.
Today, in Umbria, these sweets are still made in Francis' memory. Jacopa also brought Francis a red silk cushion, adorned with her family's coat of arms, and her bridal veil, embroidered with these words:"Ama, ama, ama = Love, love, love". Jacopa related to Francis that while she was praying in Rome, she had heard a voice from heaven, saying that he would soon pass from this life, and that he would ask for the very things which she had now brought him.

Lady Jacopa remained at Assisi until Francis' death, funeral, and burial, for which she bore the whole cost. She then returned to Rome where she lived for more than ten years. Her son, Giacomo, died in 1230. When she later made her will, she left all her properties to her son, Giovanni, and demanded to be buried at Assisi. In 1239 "Brother" Jacopa died at Assisi, where she'd moved several years before her death. She was buried in the lower church of the Basilica, near the altar that overlooks Francis' tomb. In 1932, her remains were moved in an urn to the Saint's Crypt, opposite the altar, between the two flights of stairs, behind a black metal grill. There is an inscription on the urn which reads: "FR. [Frater = Brother] JACOPA DE SEPTEMSOLI", and another below it: "HIC REQUIESCIT IACOPA SANCTA NOBILISQUE ROMANA" = "Here rests the holy and noble Roman lady, Jacopa".

Thérèse of Lisieux: The Hidden Face of the Church

(Original drawing by Sister Therese, OJN)

"For let us be honest with ourselves: Who among us has ever read The Story of a Soul for the first time without being disappointed?..." (Ida Friederike Görres, The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, p. 15)

I can't recall when my first reading of The Story of a Soul took place during my seminary years. It's possible that I read it even a couple of times; at least I was familiar with it. My devotion to St. Thérèse probably flowered (excuse the pun!) some time in my year of novitiate, 1967-68. Brother Al Kramek, C.PP.S., who was stationed at St. Charles Seminary, our major seminary nearby St. Mary's Novitiate, learned of my devotion and gave me my first personal copy of The Story of a Soul, and later a first-class relic of St. Thérèse, which several years ago I passed on to Julian House Monastery. Though I don't recall making a big deal out of it, Thérèse has always just been "there" through the years, as a sort of silent big sister. In the past ten years or so I've found myself becoming more intrigued by the great Carmelites, her among them, the details of their lives, and especially the common thread of spirituality running throughout all their teachings.

For a long time, and even now to some extent, Thérèse's writing style was off-putting to me: too "precious" and somewhat saccharin. I've learned to see it in the perspective of the times in which she lived. One can only wonder, if she had written in our idiom, how even more intensely powerful what she had to say might have been. But if one "listens" closely to her and reads between the sugary phrases, one can discern how steely a person she actually was. Her "little way" looks tame and innocent at first glance, but underneath that lies the depth of Thérèse's realism and straightforward strength which constitutes her genuine sanctity. Görres notes: "The third section [of her autobiography] is the real heart and soul of the book; here strong fire glows through all the lace frills and painted glass... "

Thérèse's message can be summarized in many ways, I suppose, as many as there are devotees of her. For whatever it's worth, here is my take on it. Thérèse writes, in The Story of a Soul: "...I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. I understood it was Love alone that made the Church's members act...I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that It embraced all times and places...in a word, that It was eternal!...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 shall I be everything, and thus my dream will be realised..."

She believed and lived this in her short 24 years, and she pledged to continue this ministry, if you will, after her death: "Je ferai pleuvoir sur vous une pluie de roses. = I shall rain down upon you a shower of roses." What a loss it would have been, to the Church and to humanity, had Thérèse not had the spiritual maturity to heed her own sister's [Pauline was her superior at the time] directive to put her unique message to writing in her notebooks. "Only because of this," says Ida Görres, "have countless persons realized that this existence of theirs is a 'way', even a way to sanctity, a way to perfection; that there is an inherent value in all the things which seemed themselves not worthy of attention..." Görres points out that Thérèse bridges the gap between the "old" and "new" piety in the Church: a marvelous example of the Church's power of "semper reformanda", of being able "always to be re-formed". Thérèse could do this because she was far removed from the endless haggling and discussions over reform and rebirth, so common in our day. From within her own pure, childlike soul arose this simple, unshakeable love of God which she would share with her "even Christians", to use Julian of Norwich's terminology, thereby transforming the whole Church.

In her example of the little, loving soul, according to Görres, Thérèse captured the very essence of what the Church is.

"...In the quiet life of Thérèse there was revived the ancient, original, Gospel concept of sanctity, of the baptized Christian whose whole life reflects Christ in all its elements, who is saintly not because [s]he does or says special things which set [her] him off from others, but because [s]he is a tiny member of Christ present in the world and because [s]he endeavors to walk worthily in the path of [her] his vocation..."