I did not cry for nine years after you self destructed like a kamikaze in our midst. There are not even any pieces left to sort through. Where did you go and why couldn’t I stop you. We were closer than close and I should have known when you locked me out what was coming. We always said when we didn’t spend time together neither of us was right in ourselves so we should always make sure to connect no matter what was going on. You kept trying to apologize, trying to come back into our front porch days. You said “When I hurt you I hurt me and I can’t stand that I hurt your feelings. I hate that.” And I always said it was ok. I said we can work through anything just like we always have. I had faith in that. Absolute faith. How crazy did you have to be for me to not be surprised. Denial is more powerful than I ever thought. When you said “I’m scared I might be mentally ill,” I should not have reassured you that you weren’t. The last time I saw you I hugged you brother and I rubbed your little head. You looked like a small boy that day who had been sick, safe at his parents’ dinner table. Your letter to Dad said I would be OK. Well I’m not. None of us are. You must have hurt so badly to do something like that. You just needed it to stop. I thought oh he will be back like always. He just needs to think. I was so close. But I think you thought we were far away and you had no idea how to get back. You couldn’t find us. And you thought we couldn’t help. I finally cried the other night and it was about something else. It felt weird. It didn’t last long. I wish I could miss you the way I miss everyone else. But there is just a void where you used to be. Like the Mariana Trench. No one knows what’s down there, only how unfathomably deep it must be. I’ve been there. But I couldn’t understand anything.
700 years ago in Ireland a young girl left her home in the middle of the night as swiftly and silently as she could. She left with a priest, two household servants and a court jester who were her friends. She was not fleeing a forced marriage to a foreign prince or running away to a convent. She was running from her own father who seemed to have lost his mind after her mothers’ death and was trying to make his daughter marry him in her place.
Dymphna and her friends were able to make it to a Belgian town called Gheel.
She must have been a hard worker and had a compassionate heart. She and her friends established themselves in the town and Dymphna began caring for the sick and the poor. She had a special sympathy for people suffering from mental illness. She still shows that sympathy now through her intercession.
Eventually her father, who was a minor Irish king, found out where she was. He had her priest executed as soon as he arrived and demanded Dymphna return home. When she refused he beheaded her on the spot. She was 15.
The people of Gheel eventually built a church over where Dymphna was buried. Over the years it began to be noticed that healings happened at her tomb, especially healing from mental illness.
Inspired by St. Dymphna’s special concern for the mentally ill the people of Gheel began to take into their homes the pilgrims who came to visit Dymphna’s tomb. In a time when the mentally ill were chained, beaten and locked away the families of Gheel made these sufferers part of their households with acceptance, freedom, dignity and whatever level of responsibility they could handle. Some stayed for a short time, some for the rest of their lives becoming members of the family.
Gheel became famous for this model of family care that seemed to work so well. This tradition is still ongoing though now combined with a hospital that is only used when absolutely necessary, and with modern medicine as part of overall treatment.
Gheel’s example makes us want to rethink the way we treat the mentally ill, especially those whose conditions are severe. Gheel shows us how it could be.
Among us here the mentally unwell often end up without homes or anyone to assist them. Federal and state agencies set up to help these people are understaffed and overwhelmed. It is a testament to serious failures on our society’s part. To see some poor emaciated sufferer shouting and waving his arms at traffic with toilet paper wrapped around his legs as I did last week breaks the heart. It’s wrong and we know it. Unfortunately our state is last in mental health access in the country.
Gheel and St. Dymphna challenge us. How can we as people of faith contribute in a respectful and merciful way to necessary change, to the well being of people who suffer mental, emotional or neurological difficulties? Our society is not set up for them. How can we help? How can we change that?
Perhaps we can begin by asking for St. Dymphna’s intercession and inspiration.
St. Dymphna, healer of mental and emotional suffering, pray for us. Pray for everyone in mental or emotional pain, especially those left on the outskirts without resources. You inspired a whole town to take people with mental suffering into their homes so that they might live near you and the place you are buried. They still come and stay with you and the people of your town today. Help us build a culture of compassion and acceptance so these children of God can live with dignity among us as the people they are and so that the rest of us don’t miss out on what they can give, on their potential part in building community. Show us the way. Amen.
St. Dymphna’s feast day is May 15th. She is the patron saint of the mentally ill, victims of incest and domestic abuse, and runaways.
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seventy times.
Mtt. 18 21-22
It’s been almost nine years but I’m still not sure whether I have forgiven it or not. I still struggle with how I am supposed to forgive someone who turned out not to be who I thought they were. Forgive who? What was that who was that?
In the aftermath I realized I was thinking of the whole mess about once every 15 seconds. I began training myself to repeat the names of Jesus and Mary any time I caught myself dwelling on the whole thing. I had dwelt on it long enough truly. I increased my prayer time. I decided to try to stop talking about it. It helped a lot. Slowly I didn’t think about it, not even every week.
I went to Confession. In exasperation I asked the priest, “How do I get to Father forgive them for they know not what they do?” He said my penance would be to go out and meditate on the crucifix in the church and ask the Lord, “Father forgive me for I knew not what I did.” Instant peace came to me then.
As time passed I realized that I “forgave” this person over and over again while they were still in my daily life but not in any real way because what I did was be upset about what they had done, avoid them for a while and then simply go on as before so that they did the same things again and again. My kids suffered emotional scars because of this lack of boundaries on my part. I let this person be with us for so long. At the time I didn’t realize how much the girls were harmed especially when they were still young. How did I fall into this trap? How could I not know how mean this person was being to them? Even the things I did know about them should have been bad enough. I should have not allowed this person around my daughters. I certainly did do things I didn’t know I was doing. Those mistakes seem crazy now.
Then at a time of another tragedy in my life, this person set out to ruin my reputation, blame me, interfere with my friendships and even my family relationships, to tell distorted versions of my private sufferings, commandeer one of my daughters with lies and emotional scenes when she needed me most and was too young ti break out of that situation. This person deeply hurt my other daughter as well during a time of grief and shock for my family with hateful accusations and not allowing her to retrieve what was hers and precious to her from the house. This person also participated in grave financial harm to me and one of my kids that we will never recover from. I was emotionally and socially betrayed on a level that was traumatic enough to keep me curled up on the couch for days. I never thought they would go that far especially at a time like that. Why was I shocked? I can’t answer that fully.
One thing I have learned from all this is that being a forgiving Christian does not mean having destructive people in my life. Even Jesus had boundaries.
But Jesus did not entrust himself to them because he knew their hearts.
Jn. 2:24
However I sometimes still feel angry at this person, even after I have peeled away several layers of resentment and reached certain levels of forgiveness. I didn’t feel that it was complete. Because of those feelings of rage coming up now and then, especially recently, I tend to think of this person every time I pray the Our Father. How can I forgive this person as God forgives me? God forgives me more than completely. God is mercy, God is love. I always ask that I will be able to do this. I have learned forgiveness is a grace. We just have to be willing to receive it. Was I willing? I didn’t know. My mom used to say that sometimes we have to ask to be willing. Other times we have to be ask to be willing to be willing. Sometimes the situation is so difficult we have to pray to be willing to be willing to be willing. I think this is like that.
Recently, sitting quietly in prayer, I felt that the Lord untangled my thinking a bit about what forgiveness looks like in a situation like this. In a flash I understood that all Jesus wanted from me now was to pray for this person’s salvation. I felt my heart open as it seemed the Holy Spirit prayed in me for just that: for this destructive person’s salvation. It was an understated but all the same beautiful moment. I understood that God did not need my tortuous worry about my lingering feelings about this, or the useless dead end paths of my self judgement or scrupulosity on this point. Just prayer for their salvation that is all. The rest was between that person and God. Oh.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Cor. :8-9a
Then I prayed the our Father in freedom and when I said, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” I almost felt a kiss from Jesus, and I had to smile. I love that guy.
During this little slice of Ordinary Time after Christmas and before Lent we might begin to feel spiritually unenthused. Maybe we were already. Maybe we even avoid prayer and the practice of our faith. Maybe we have an aversion to our daily duties. Maybe we’re bored and drawn mostly to distractions. What’s going on? St. Evagrius (AD 385-399) who lived in the Egyptian desert as an early monastic wrote about something called acedia.
What is acedia? The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2733) calls it a form of depression caused by giving in to spiritual laxity or presumption. The Desert Fathers thought of it as a spiritual condition people can fall into with a complex set of symptoms, a spiritual malady, or even as a demon.
[Acedia is] a hatred of industriousness, a battle against stillness, stormy weather for psalmody, laziness in prayer, a slackening of ascesis, untimely drowsiness, revolving sleep, the oppressiveness of solitude, hatred of one’s cell, an adversary of ascetic works, an opponent of perseverance, muzzling of meditation, ignorance of the scriptures, a partaker in sorrow, a clock for hunger.
St. Evagrius
Yikes.
St. Evagrious of Pontus says the real roots of acedia are self centeredness, anger and misdirected desire. When oppressed by acedia we tend to seek comfort and pleasure to counteract the restlessness we feel, and in response to our aversion to spiritual practice. We avoid the tasks we are responsible for. We withdraw from charitable activity and are more prone to gab with others for our own entertainment and distraction than to be useful to them. We fill our lives with surface busy-ness, avoiding prayer and study. We lack spiritual desire and quietly long for things and activities that will draw us away from the spiritual. We are both restless and exhausted. We want to sleep, we want to pace the floor. We feel at once angry and dissatisfied as well as listless, staring at nothing. This sounds terrible. No wonder Evagrious called it “the most oppressive of demons.’
All of this reminds me of a passage from one of my favorite books, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.
“There once was a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself; not just sometimes but always. When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he’d bothered. Nothing really interested him- least of all the things that should have. “It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time,” he remarked as he walked dejectedly home from school.”
And “… while he was never anxious to be where he was going, he liked to get there as soon as possible.”
Had Milo been a monk he would have been diagnosed by the Desert Fathers like Evagrius, as suffering from, and indulging in acedia.
If we find ourselves troubled by acedia, what is the remedy? What should we do?
Master your thoughts.
Notice when your thoughts are going into that irritable, lazy restless lane again, and change course as soon as you notice. Something that helps me is to repeat the names of Jesus and Mary; “Jesus Maria Jesus Maria Jesus Maria” each time I find myself on that negative track again. Be patient with yourself. It doesn’t help to be mad or disappointed in yourself. Simply move on and persevere.
“Whether or not all these thoughts trouble the soul is not within our power; but it is for us to decide if they are to linger within us or not and whether or not they stir up the passions.”
St. Evagrius
Resist. If you want to sleep or run away or indulge in compulsive activity, persevere in what you are actually supposed to be doing in spite of how you feel. If you are avoiding prayer, pray. If you are avoiding your duties, get back on track. If you’ve lost sight of your routines, get back to them. I suggest working on one thing at a time so you aren’t overwhelmed. When you are stuck in acedia even one of these things can be hard enough to change.
Gratitude. Write down five things you are grateful for when everything is getting on your nerves. It works surprisingly well.
Manual labor. Nothing helps me as much as some vigorous sweeping, mopping or dragging things around outside. According to the Fathers, acedia is both mental and physical. This is why it’s so hard to kick.
Meditate on the Passion and Death of Jesus. Maybe praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary or The Way of the Cross can assist you in this. This is uniquely grounding for us as Christians.
Ask God for the gift of tears. According to Evagrius, the gift of tears in prayer, and tears of repentance are indispensable for liberation from acedia. So have a good holy cry, it cleanses the soul.
Preach the Psalms to your own soul. As Dorothy Day wrote, “My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms. ”
Engage your intellect. I learned this from Fr. Gregory McLaughlin who taught me that when I was being ruled too much by my emotions, I should study, especially religious study such as Scripture or good spiritual reading. It works.
Go to confession. This may seem obvious but remember the Sacrament of Reconciliation is healing and restorative. God gave us Confession so we can receive his mercy, overcome our sins and begin anew which is exactly what we need to be free of acedia and free for God.
Good deeds. Go through the day quietly tucking in small kindnesses wherever you can. This is a remedy for almost any malady of any kind. When you are ready, throw yourself into working for others in some way.
Gently fold these things into your life and you will soon sense a clear fine spiritual love reclaiming its place in your heart.
A few days ago I was interviewed on local Catholic radio about loss and grief, my stories and relationships with my family and friends who have died, and how my faith figured into the journey.
One of the questions I was asked was whether I had any advice about handling the holidays. As you may know I lost my first husband in a car accident 25 years ago. Then, between 2012 and 2015 we lost four family members, all tragically. My second husband we lost to brain cancer. Six months later my mom, only 63, died of a combination of things; COPD, Lymphoma, untreated Lyme’s disease and dementia. My brother committed suicide in 2015 and my step dad died in a house fire four months later. These were the people we usually spent the holidays with.
Honestly we haven’t done well with holidays at all since all that, especially without my mom, the holiday queen (or shall we say dictator). We hardly ever had to do anything except bring a thing or two and stay out of her way, being unquestioningly obedient and obsequious to her requirements of us. These included No (more) practical jokes (that had been a major coup attempt to take over her iron fisted rule over the holidays) no disorder or chaos of any kind, and everyone cooperate peacefully and sing Christmas Carols whether we liked it or not.
We missed all of that after her death. We would never be able to cook like that (and for DAYS), set a beautiful Fiesta ware table like that, make flower arrangements ourselves from our own garden or provide the atmosphere she did. We would never do two Christmas trees; one artistic and one victorian style in different parts of the house, or line the sidewalk with luminares, or cover everything with color themed lights, or wrap the presents in themed artistically matching colors. Or be her. We could never be her. Nobody could. And nobody Could read The Grinch Who Stole Christmas like her. It only made us sad.
So that first Thanksgiving without her we did something completely different. We had a chaotic Thanksgiving pot luck at my step brother’s house. It was loud with football on the TV the whole time and music playing and people in the band room banging the drums and everybody talking in every room. Lots of people people people.
My step brother has become more of a recluse since then. We don’t see much of him though there is no ill will and only deep affection between us. We keep in touch.
So pretty much we didn’t really do Thanksgiving. I mean not really. Sometimes we did very little and it depressed everyone even more. Other times we did nothing. It would just be my daughters and me and the babies.
At Christmas we did what we needed to do for the three kids but everyone kept it as simple and quiet as possible. It was hard not to get depressed. We usually did get depressed. I truly longed for Christmas to just be a religious feast day instead of all the other stuff on top of that.
Eventually we began to bring back some traditions we missed, like going around the table doing “wishes and gratefuls” on Thanksgiving. You say three things you are grateful for about the year. Then you wish the person sitting next to
you a year of whatever you see them needing or wanting. We brought that back. The kids come up with some pretty sweet and funny things to say too.
We brought back our old household tradition of leaving Santa cigarettes and beer on Christmas Eve. We know from experience that is what St. Nicholas is into. He left cigarette buts and beer cans all over the yard that time he set up a trampoline for the girls all those years ago. So we give him what he really wants.
But THIS year for the first time I am truly excited about the holidays. Because THIS year we have a HOUSE to have these events in! Our own HOUSE again. We have room for sitting at the table, to invite friends too, room in the kitchen for my daughters and I to cook together, a yard for the kids to play in. We don’t understand football at all but I want to put it on anyway. It will remind us of our men and we will just be comforted by it, not, I am hoping, sad. I think we may even be happy.
All of my mom’s Fiesta ware except a tea cup and a salt shaker were destroyed in the fire but I have been building a new collection. And we have SO much to be grateful for!
I plan to introduce some new traditions as well. We plan to light candles on the table for each of our beloved dead. Also when the girls were little we had poetry night and A.A. Milne night. On A.A. Milne night we would take turns reading from The World of Pooh and laugh and laugh. That stuff is hilarious. We continued that into their teens and laughed just as much.
And poetry night we could read one of our own poems or someone else’s we admired. We used to have a lot of fun with that.
We used to break into a family dance sometimes after dinner.
I’m thinking we could read aloud from The World of Pooh after Thanksgiving Dinner and then have a family dance.
On Christmas Eve last year I got the kids to memorize a poem each. It turned out really funny. (Especially the Shell Silverstein ones). I should start working with them earlier this time. But we can have poetry night again this Christmas. We will all do a poem!
There is even a yard for the kids to play in afterwards. I think it will be good.
Mom’s house was always filled with cigarette smoke on holidays because so many of us smoked. None of the smokers are with us anymore. But maybe we will light one up just to recreate the ambience.
I almost forgot we have a fire pit. So we can have a fire and my youngest can play guitar and we can sing our family song, Wish You We’re Here by Pink Floyd. 🙂
And any time my daughters and I are together we end up telling stories about the people we miss and what they used to do or say back then. We still miss them. But mostly we laugh.
And anyway, we know they are still here. They are probably laughing too. Even Mom. 😉
During these horrifying days of unutterable violence and war, of every kind of atrocity, what can we do? We are far away. We are not leaders of nations. We have to go to work, we have to let the dogs out, listen to a little kid, put dinner together, and also be horrified, feel helpless, ache for the children caught in this, and feed the cat. We have to figure out what to wear tomorrow, wonder if we forgot something we were supposed to do, and as the scenes of mutilation blood and terror cross our minds we wonder what to even say to God.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe we should just let our hearts be pierced as Mary did. We could take on her pure and open heart completely in tune with her suffering Son’s and willing to be present and active in those hours he was slowly dying. She accepted the piercing of her heart, and “the secret thoughts of many [were laid] bare.” I used to wonder what that last part meant. I couldn’t get an answer from anyone about it that seemed right.
But what happens when our secret thoughts are laid bare? We see the truth about ourselves. Our conscience is awakened and we tend to desire to change. Maybe the piercing of Mary’s heart caused conversion of heart for others and still does.
At the same time she was made the mother of all Christians from the cross by Jesus, she received from God a special gift for nudging us toward conversion, of laying bare the truth within us. This would be in line with her role as Spouse of the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth and Love.
We know Mary has been given unique gifts and that she intercedes for us in heaven. She is advocate of the people of God and she hears the cries of the world.
Such is her unity with God that in her hearing of suffering her knowledge of it is already prayer. Mary is there in Israel and Gaza now touching every face, assisting the dying, suffering with those in distress and in the piercing of her heart at the foot of this cross the possibilities open for changes of heart.
She is to be found wherever her Son is found, exactly where he said he would be; among those who are hungry naked imprisoned or persecuted. He is with the suffering and so is Our Lady. She is there praying with all who pray. Her feet are muddy and her face is streaked with tears. She wants us to join her and in the wind of the Spirit we can.
This is not a helpless dwelling on the horror taking place. This is knowing that God makes our little prayers BIG. We are to reign with Christ and this is how he shares his reign with us. He loves to share his mission with his disciples.
We don’t know what God will do in response. But we know he will do something. We know he gave the world a mother we need so much.
We can take on the mind and heart of Mary. We can go with her and bring comfort in mysterious ways, change hearts even when we don’t know it. We can become windows of grace God’s will can flow through into this world.
We are only little windows but God doesn’t care. He shares his power and love to widen our hearts for his love to flow through.
And in our hearing and seeing and knowing if we remain close to God, our silence becomes full and active. What we know instantly becomes intercession, becomes prayer.
When you hear of bloodshed and terror you will already be praying, and prayer does things.
Like Mary let our hearts be pierced at the foot of this cross. May God receive our offering.
“Come, Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, thy well beloved spouse.”
It’s a bit of a struggle. Some days are better than others. I noticed this summer that I was more emotionally fragile than I normally am. The anniversary of my brother’s death causes me grief but it hit me harder than usual this August. After it was over I didn’t feel all that much better. I had days I wondered what was going on with me this summer. When I start to feel alienated, withdrawn and broken I have to stop and sort out what it could be.
It could be regular old depression. It could be a stressor in my life. Or ten stressors. It could be that weird wiring I have from my Complex PTSS (formerly called PTSD). It could be grief issues coming up again for some reason. It could be more traumatic memories trying to surface – a process I particularly hate.
In any case I try to accept myself as God accepts me. Someone I like asked on social media whether God is with us in depression. It’s one thing to know the truth of his presence intellectually and quite another for our hearts, for our souls to know it. Of course he is with us.
Over the years when I am in this state that sometimes feels like a darkness and exhaustion, sometimes like broken-ness, sometimes like a crushing weight, I know he is with me, taking care of me, helping me bear this little cross of mine until I feel better.
It’s hard not to feel guilty when I’m depressed. Sometimes I need a walk or to pray. Other times I just need to hide in my room with a book. That last feels like I am being lazy and I feel bad. Jesus doesn’t want me to feel bad about what I need to do to get through depression. It’s hard for me to take care of myself when I am like this. It’s something I have to do for Jesus. “Eat a sandwich for me. Drink some water.” I tend to not only forget to eat when I am running rough, sometimes I feel angry about having to eat. So he says sweetly, “Eat something for me because I love you and I want you to.” And I will for him.
I’m so tired. I have this feeling of wanting to go home but I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. Even Heaven sounds exhausting.
Some afternoons are crushingly tough. Depression can be gray and tiring. Other times it can be a ferocious attack tearing me apart.
I’m impatient with my family, or irritable and I have to apologize.
This time around my depression seems like an agitated depression I have never had before. That scares me because my brother got like that before his suicide, though his was certainly more extreme. I think of this as a mild depression in comparison to what I saw my brother go through and not make it out of.
I am doing all the things I need to do. That in itself is a good sign. I even talked to my doctor; something I tend to avoid if at all possible. I try everything else first that I know to try. I look at my diet, stress, circumstances. I start taking B-Complex at my hardest time of day which tends to be the afternoon.
I look at the roses in the catalog. (I love looking at roses). I blow bubbles. I pet my cat.
I tell God, “I am depressed right now and I’m not sure what to do anymore. I’m so glad you are with me.”
Always I know it is temporary. I will get better. I imagine feeling better, sun on my face, feeling peaceful.
Now it is the holidays which are hard for my family and me, and maybe for you too. However I also know we will get through it, we all will.
If you are wondering if you should be “too blessed to be stressed” or something, (what nonsense), or if you are like me during depression and feel guilty about everything all the time every day, if you don’t know why your heart feels like it’s bleeding, and why you don’t have more faith, (you have plenty!) well I welcome you, and God does too.
Every second, love surrounds you, helping you along. This too shall pass, and once you have done all you can, and gotten the help you need, (I did, please don’t be ashamed about that) the rest is up to the Lord. Your job is to get through the day with his help.
Another thing I do is offer up my anguish to God with Mary, as she asked at Fatima, for the souls of others.
Oh Jesus, it is for love of you, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against your Sacred Heart and against the Immaculate Heart of Mary and, (I add), for everyone who suffers sorrow anywhere in the world today.”
I say to Jesus and Mary at the end of the day that I made it and thank you and also I add that I love sleeping and I’m comfortable and thank you for sleep.
“The Lord will dawn on you in radiant beauty. You shall see his glory within you.” — Liturgy of the Hours
We are sitting in my living room, reflecting silently together in the glow of the blinking lights of the Christmas tree. It looks particularly lovely in the dark. Its light turns the smooth, gentle face of my companion from pink to yellow to blue and back again. She seems content with her tea in a flowery cup from our kitchen.
“St. Therese, what is Christmas?” I ask.
She likes this question. I have been trying and trying to write about her, but she wanted me to interview her about Christmas. So we’re talking about Christmas.
“It is the time that the children of God remember and celebrate the birth of the infant Jesus.”
She smiles with a faraway look, “It is also a time that once again the doors of heaven swing open, great graces and torrents of spiritual light are poured into the world. The child Jesus will come to each person in a special way, to be reborn in each soul, all the world receives a blessing from heaven.”
“So many people have a hard time with Christmas, St. Therese. Some people have trouble with their families, don’t have money for gifts, or are agitated and stressed at Christmas, or they get their feelings hurt at their family celebration, or things don’t go the way they want them to, or they feel lonely or they are grieving. Can you address situations like that?”
She looks at me tenderly, knowing my mixed feelings at this time of the year, and that, as I said, they are shared by far too many others. She herself suffered grief, sorrow, loneliness, depression, severe illness and disappointment.
“I want God’s children to know that Jesus truly comes to them in all humility and with love. Just as he left his beautiful heaven to be with us on earth, so he comes to be in your soul, a heaven infinitely more dear to him because of his love, his personal love for you. When you are tired, look inside and find the little beggar of love. Cradle him, cherish him; look at him. Find a moment of peace there in the Christmas stable of your heart and he will give you his grace.”
“What should we do if we are disappointed or get our feelings hurt with our families at Christmas?”
“One Christmas when I was 13, my family got back from midnight Mass, and my father was very tired and grumpy. I overheard him say he hoped this was the last year for presents for me because I was getting a little old for this. I was crushed! I had been a very sensitive child ever since the death of my mother when I was little. My family doted on me, but they knew a torrent of tears was coming and they dreaded it. I ran upstairs to cry. Somehow something happened before I reached the top stair. Everything changed for me. A new strength, a new tenderness touched my soul. I encountered in the depths of my heart the light and tenderness of the Holy Child and in an instant I just … changed my mind. My tears dried, I turned around, came back down the stairs and surprised my family very much with my joyful opening of presents and sharing with them all the happiness of the occasion. It was a Christmas miracle!”
“How do we get in touch with the grace you describe in that transforming moment of your life?”
“If I reflect on it, I see that I had been preparing myself for that moment by making small sacrifices wherever I could. I saw this as adorning my heart with freshly gathered flowers for Jesus. Some of these were violets and roses, others were cornflowers or daisies or forget-me-nots. I wanted all the flowers I could gather to cradle the baby Jesus in my heart. “
She is leaning forward now, and I see how her face lights up talking about this.
“It seems to me you are talking about how you trained yourself not to let an opportunity to do a kindness, or make a small sacrifice slip by. Is that what you mean?
“I found that life would bring me plenty of opportunities. So if one of you should find yourself naturally irritated with someone this Christmas, decide for peace and serve that person nicely. It will set you free.
“If your Christmas isn’t going the way you planned, give up your expectations as a sacrifice to Jesus, and you will feel your burden lightened.
“If someone wants to argue, let her win; just this one time.
“You will be surprised how you can walk away happy, or even find that you regard that irritating person with genuine affection. Find opportunities this Christmas, to be kind, to serve, to take the lowest place. I will be there winking at you!”
I laugh, imagining this. “That’s perfect!” I say. “I will be looking for you.”
I lift my tea cup for a toast and we clink our cups together, smiling.
She tells me a story about life in the convent when now and then one of the novices would lose her temper with St. Therese and tell her angrily exactly what she thought of her. “I decided to savor these incidents like good vinegar on a fresh salad.” She chuckles. “You could use that at Christmas, to counteract all those holiday sweets! I will be there to give you a high five to celebrate your glorious victory over yourself, and Jesus will grant you immense strength, you will see.”
“This is hard stuff, though,” I say.
She knows it is hard.
“I had such a longing to be one of God’s great heroes. I had such overwhelming desires to do great things. I came to understand that doing these small things with great love offers plenty of challenge. Yes, these are almost the hardest things of all, these little things to do! But before you know it, you will find such joy. You will realize the presence of the Little Beggar of Love in your soul. And you will be glad you gave him what he wanted for Christmas most of all. The milk of your love at every opportunity you had.
“Ask the good God to show you an opening to do a small bit of good around you, to lighten someone’s burden quietly.”
I am smiling now because I know she is right. This is a way to be good soil for the seeds of the Gospel Jesus came to bring. If we give ourselves over to little Jesus in this way, he will find our souls full of flowers for him to be cradled in, and he will make his sweet presence there known.
We will find ourselves not only doing small things with great love, but with great joy.
And if you burn the cookies, or you say something you shouldn’t have, be patient with yourself, she says.
“Little children fall often but don’t have far to fall, so they don’t hurt themselves very much.” So strive to be little, even to yourself.
Practice this “Little Way,” for his Christmas presents, fill your heart with these flowers, and the little Jesus will come to you with his grace to be cherished within you.
That is the Christmas spirit, I believe, according St. Therese of the child Jesus.
“Love him,” she says, draining her teacup.
“Love him in everything. It’s that simple.”
“In this brilliant night which illuminates the joy of the Holy Trinity, Jesus, the gentle little child of the hour, will change the darkness of my soul into torrents of light.” — St. Therese of Lisieux
Bethany Hang Out 