← [[f2-c-05|Entrance into Carmel — Climbing Mount Carmel]] | [[formation-II-c-handbook-toc|Table of Contents]] | [[f2-c-07|The Trial of Faith — Her Dark Night of the Soul]] → # My Vocation Is Love **Required Reading:** Story of a Soul, chapter IX **Explanatory note:** On September 13, 1896, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart (Thérèse’s eldest sister Marie) asked Thérèse, (while she was making her personal retreat) to jot down a summary of her “little way of confidence and love.” Thérèse responded: “I am going to stammer some words even though I feel it is quite impossible for the human tongue to express things that the human heart can hardly understand” (pg. 294). “I feel how powerless I am to express in human language the secrets of heaven, and after writing page upon page I find that I have not yet begun” (pg. 296). Thérèse wrote a beautiful note to Sister Marie and included a reflection she had written during her tenday retreat. This letter and her reflection on her vocation resulted in what would become Manuscript B (Chapter IX) of Story of a Soul. Upon reading, Sister Marie wrote back to Sister Thérèse expressing her gratitude and awe. “Oh! I wanted to cry when I read these lines that are not from earth but an echo from the Heart of God.... Do you want me to tell you? Well, you are possessed by God, but what is called... absolutely possessed, just as the wicked are possessed by the devil” (Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux, Vol. II. LC 170, pg. 997). Manuscript B is considered to be one of the most well-known and influential writings in Christian spirituality. # Essential Points to Discuss • Thérèse indicated numerous times in her writings that her sole teacher was Jesus Himself. “Without showing Himself, without making His voice heard, Jesus teaches me in secret…[and] I understand so well that it is only love that makes us acceptable to God... Jesus deigned to show me the road that leads to this Divine Furnace, and this road is the surrender of the little child who sleeps without fear in its Father’s arms” (pg. 294). “Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude…He has no need of our works but only of our love... ” (pg. 295). Note: In this respect, Thérèse follows the teachings of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross: “…we shouldn’t build castles in the air. The Lord doesn’t look so much at the greatness of our works as at the love with which they are done.…let us offer the Lord interiorly and exteriorly the sacrifice we can…Thus even though our works are small, they will have the value our love for him would have merited had they been great” (Interior Castle, VII.4:15). Thérèse quotes from the Spiritual Canticle: “…the smallest act of PURE LOVE is of more value to her [the Church] than all other works together” (pg. 305). • As she journeyed through spiritual maturity, Thérèse earnestly searched to find clarity of her vocation. She discovered within herself an infinite longing to love God in countless ways: “To be Your Spouse, to be a Carmelite, and to be a mother of souls — should not this suffice me? And yet it is not so…I feel the vocation of the WARRIOR, THE PRIEST, THE APOSTLE, THE DOCTOR, THE MARTYR…Crusader, the Papal Guard…; if I wanted to write all my desires, I would have to borrow Your Book of Life… ” (pg. 299-301). Thérèse felt the real 29 dilemma of choosing and so continued to search the Scriptures for direction. Thérèse opened the Epistles of St. Paul to find an answer. • When reading 1 Corinthians, she was not quite satisfied with the words of the Apostle: “…that all cannot be apostles, prophets, doctors, etc.” Thérèse desired to see herself in them all. However, she was not discouraged. She continued to search and much to her delight, she tumbled into the words of St. Paul: “Yet strive after THE BETTER GIFTS, and I point out to you a yet more excellent way. All the most PERFECT gifts are nothing without LOVE. That charity is the EXCELLENT WAY that leads most surely to God” (pg. 302). It is within the context of “Love” that Thérèse finally found the profound understanding of her vocation. • “Charity gave me the key to my vocation. … 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, that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the Gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood. I understood that LOVE COMPRISED ALL VOCATIONS THAT LOVE WAS EVERYTHING, THAT IT EMBRACED ALL TIMES AND PLACES…IN A WORD IT WAS ETERNAL! Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love…my vocation, at last I have found it…MY VOCATION IS LOVE! Yes, I have found my place in the Church and it is You, Oh my God, Who has given me this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love. Thus I shall be everything, and thus my dream will be realized” (pg. 302). (emphasis added) • Much to her delight, Thérèse had discovered that her vocation is “love.” But how did Thérèse prove her love? How could she attain this high calling? By continuously responding with charity to whatever came her way, however small: “I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love” (pg. 304305). Poem PN34 — Strewing Flowers: “Strewing Flowers is offering you as first fruits/My slightest sighs, my greatest sufferings/My sorrows and my joys, my little sacrifices/Those are my flowers!...” (Appendix G). • “…Thérèse’s little sacrifices were true deeds of love that they were extraordinary deeds.” What makes a deed extraordinary is not the deed itself, but the love that is contained in the deed. “It is easy for us to miss the magnitude of this statement because love has been reduced to an emotion or trivialized to ‘being nice.’ But love is neither of these watery realities; it is the deepest reality of life, for God is love. Thus, when we love with love of charity, our actions are the actions of God. St. John of the Cross writes that each action of a soul in union with God ‘is more meritorious and valuable than all the deeds a person may have performed in the whole of life without this transformation, however great they may have been… [because] all the acts of the soul are divine, since both the 30 movement of these acts and their execution stem from God. ’ It is this mystical reality that is behind Thérèse’s words ‘I shall be Love’” (pg. 316317). • As noted previously, Thérèse was not troubled by her imperfections and shortcomings. She continues to see herself as an imperfect, weak little bird. “What then will come of it? Will it die of sorrow at seeing itself so weak? Oh no! the little bird will not even be troubled” (pg. 306). By pondering her imperfections, Thérèse realized that the key to the fulfillment of her calling of love is to depend on the mercies of God. In short, Thérèse is saying that by patiently bearing the pain that follows in the wake of committing some fault or failure, souls are confiding themselves to the mercy of God (who came to call not the just but sinners) and “it is by the mercy of God alone that we are purified” (pg. 318). • “Our sins can make us feel that we are beyond the reach of God’s mercy. Thérèse believed just the opposite. ‘I feel [that] even though I had on my conscience all the sins that can be committed, I would go, my heart broken with sorrow, and throw myself into Jesus’ arms, for I know how much He loves the prodigal child who returns to Him’” (pg. 319). **private reflection**: Whenever we act with the love of charity, God loves through us and is made manifest in this world. Have you ever considered your “strewing of flowers,” your daily acts of charity, from this perspective? (pg. 317). **private reflection**: Think of times when you have felt that your sins have put you beyond the reach of God’s mercy. During these times, what has helped you to believe in God’s merciful love? (pg. 319). 31 --- **Source:** Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, *Formation II Year C: Story of a Soul (The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux)* (US National Formation Program, 2024).