The Saints and Our Children: The Lives of the Saints and Catholic Lessons to be Learned by Mary Reed Newland

Author:Mary Reed Newland [Newland, Mary Reed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2015-09-16T05:00:00+00:00

6

THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

STUBBORN SAINT

THÉRÈSE MARTIN was a darling child. She was also spoiled. She says she was not but then she is a poor judge because, when you have been spoiled by gentle, loving parents and sisters, it never quite looks like spoiling, or being spoiled, and you find other words for it.

It was to be expected. Even the Martins suffered a certain prejudice in favor of their youngest and let prudence be the victim of indulgence and possessiveness humor misbehavior. The Martins could spoil their youngest without meaning to just like everyone else.

This is intensely interesting and helpful to families trying their best to raise saints, for it shows that faults and defects existed in even such a child as Thérèse Martin and that is not what one has been led to believe. Though the faults of a saint should not be of undue concern when it is their virtues we are supposed to imitate, nevertheless to know they had some is a relief to us who have them also. It is also interesting to see that many of the lovely childhood virtues assumed to have been exclusively hers are common to almost all small children and common to childhood. Our children share with St. Thérèse the riches of the baptized and will be given as good a chance to be their kind of saint as she was to be hers. God does not so much want more St. Thérèses as He wants more saints. This has to be understood, or parents cannot search her life for practices that helped form her with any conviction that they might also help form their children. Their children have more in common with St. Thérèse than they ever dreamed.

What was she like?

She was very pretty, very intelligent, had captivating ways and was the youngest of nine, the one God sent them in answer to their prayers for a priest. For a family dedicated to the raising of saints, this meant the attention, love and effort of all were focused on this one child in an intense way. She was everybody's darling. "I had always been the most petted and loved by my parents and sisters, and if they too [her two brothers and two sisters in heaven] had remained on earth, they would no doubt have given me the same proofs of affection."

She sometimes was naughty and at other times, although perhaps not deliberately naughty, she was certainly surprised by imperfection. She tells of these things herself. Even her remarkable spiritual perception, her feats of self-denial, did not change her temperament, and faults cropped up clearly enough for her to remember them when she looked back.

She was almost exclusively in the company of her parents and older sisters, and because of this she learned many things other children quite as intelligent might not have occasion to learn until later. It is important to remember that although other children are not as spiritually gifted as St. Thérèse, many are as intelligent. Hers was spiritual genius: the genius to love God heroically.

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