> [[tcj-soas-ics-03-c|← Previous]] | [[tcj-soas-ics-toc|TOC]] | [[tcj-soas-ics-04-a|Next →]] # Reflections and Questions – Chapter III. The Distressing Years ## Reflection 1 When Thérèse overheard the news that Pauline was about to leave home, she was overwhelmed by the sadness of the human condition. “I didn’t know what Carmel was, but I understood that Pauline was going to leave me to enter a convent. I understood, too, she would not wait for me and that I was about to lose my second mother! Ah! how can I express the anguish of my heart! In one instant, I understood what life was; until then, I had never seen it so sad; but it appeared to me in all its reality, and I saw it was nothing but a continual suffering and separation” (S 87). This statement may strike us as extreme, but loss through separation is an unremitting reality of life. Judith Viorst writes, “When we think of loss, we think of the loss through death, of people we love. But loss is a far more encompassing theme in our life. For we lose not only through death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on. And our losses include not only our separations and departures from those we love, but our conscious and unconscious losses of romantic dreams, impossible expectations, illusions of freedom and power, illusions of safety—and the loss of our own younger self, the self that thought it always would be unwrinkled and invulnerable and immortal... These losses we confront when we are confronted by the inescapable fact... that our mother is going to leave us, and we will leave her; that our mother’s love can never be ours alone; that what hurts us cannot always be kissed and made better; that we are essentially out here on our own; that we will have to accept—in other people and ourselves—the mingling of love and hate, of the good with the bad; that no matter how wise and beautiful and charming a girl may be, she still cannot grow up and marry her dad; that our options are constricted by anatomy and guilt; that there are flaws in every human connection; that our status on this planet is implacably impermanent; and that we are utterly powerless to offer ourselves, or those we love protection—protection from danger and pain, from the inroads of time, from the coming of age, from the coming of death; protection from our necessary losses. These losses are a part of life-universal, unavoidable, inexorable. And these losses are necessary because we grow by losing and leaving and letting go.”[^6] We may not have experienced the exact loss that Thérèse did by the death of her mother and Pauline’s leaving home, but we can all identify with Thérèse’s pain because we have all suffered loss in various forms. ## Question 1 **_Questions._** Like Thérèse, have you ever felt that life is nothing but a continual suffering and separation? What gave you the strength to bear the sadness of loss at these times? ## Reflection 2 Because Thérèse was intelligent and loved by her teachers, she was hated by one of the students who was jealous of her. “She experienced a jealousy pardonable in a student. She made me pay in a thousand ways for my little successes” (S 82). We do not know the specific ways that the older student inflicted suffering upon Thérèse, but since the older student” was really adept at influencing the students and even the teachers” (S 81–82), we may surmise that she used her influence to turn others against Thérèse. Thérèse’s situation is easy to understand. She was the new kid on the block who was receiving the admiration of her teachers andclassmates. The older student felt threatened; her influence over the students and teachers was in jeopardy. The older student also felt impotent. Thérèse was “almost always first in the class” and “[the older student] wasn’t too intelligent” (S 81–82). In such a situation, since the jealous person feels powerless to compete and unable to raise herself up, she tears the other person down.[^7] The envied person is hated because she make us feel inferior or guilty or ashamed of ourselves; she is like a mirror in which we see a portrait of what we are not. “[The] man shows you what you have fallen away from and what you might have been,” says Sydney Carton to himself, as he reflects upon the reason why he so loathes Charles Darnay.[^8] We are like the older student. We make people whom we envy pay a thousand ways for their giftedness. We make them the brunt of jokes and talk behind their backs. We give them the silent treatment and “forget” to tell them information that they need to know in order for them to perform their jobs well. We attempt to destroy their good names by sowing seeds of suspicion about them in the minds of our colleagues and friends. Envy does not work its evil out in the open; it engages in covert operations. It works behind the scenes under the guise of good. Adrian van Kaam gives us an example of the tactics of envy. I may say something like this: “Personally I have nothing against him. It’s refreshing to hear new ideas. of course, one must always be careful with that kind of person.” When I have established myself in the minds of my audience as a reasonable fellow, I can go further. “I like him, but there is something about him that makes me uneasy.” First, I present an image of sense and mitigation. My listener, a “regular guy,” appreciates moderation. Then I pass along a feeling of suspicion. It may catch on like a contagious disease. I suggest discreetly that something is wrongwith this fellow. Nobody knows what. But I hope that this suggestion may be enough to evoke a vague uneasiness.[^9] Envy frequently uses the word _but_ to sow seeds of suspicion while covering its tracks. This is because whatever comes after the word _but_ calls into question what comes before it. Let us take two examples of Marc talking about two other people. “Jack is the most disorganized guy in the world. He really drives me crazy at times, _but_ he is the kindest man I have ever met.” “Sally is always more than willing to give a helping hand, _but_ sometimes I wonder why she is so willing?” In both cases, Marc said something both positive and negative about Jack and Sally. Yet we walk away feeling different toward them. We feel a certain affection towards Jack, because even though he is painted as a muddle-head, he is a kindhearted muddle-head; whereas, we feel a little bit wary about the motivation underlying Sally’s “altruism.” What Marc said about Jack and Sally is one thing but what he communicated about them is another. For what we communicate about another person is what follows in the wake of our words. What our speech conveys is the emotional impress that our words have upon our listeners. But whenever we spew out the venom of envy, we simultaneously poison ourselves, for whenever we look upon the good fortune of others with spite, we become spiteful in the process. Envy (the Latin _invidia_, from _vedere_, to see) has traditionally been associated with the eyes. Envy is the inability to look upon the goods of others with joy. Envy drains one’s life of joy and fills it with fear. St. Thomas defined envy as “sorrow for another’s good” (ST II-II, q. 36, a. 1, sc.). But it is a projected sorrow, the sorrow that I don’t have what others have. And it is a sorrow that is shot through with fear, the fear that I am less than others. The envious person is competitive by nature; he is always comparing himself to others, forever looking out of the corner of his eye to see if his neighbor has more, or something bigger or better. The tragedy of the envious person is like that of a child who cannot rejoice in the Christmas present that he is unwrapping because he is spying the gifts that his siblings have received. ## Reflection 3 In Dante’s _Purgatorio_, the envious have their eyelids sewed together in the manner that wild falcons have their eyelids sewed together for the purpose of taming their fear. This image is symbolic of three aspects of envy. First, the envious are afraid of admitting that someone else is superior to them. Thus, they are squint eyed and look upon the gifts of others with grudging hatred. Jesus says, “The eye is the body’s lamp. If your eyes are good your body will be filled with light. If your eyes are bad (Gk. _poneros_) your body will be in darkness” (Mt 6:22–23). _Poneros_ means grudging or stingy. Envy is tightfisted and niggardly in giving due praise and compliments to others. Who are the people in your life from whom you withhold compliments because of envy? Second, Dante’s image speaks of envy’s blindness. The envious person is blinded to the goodness of others and is deprived of the joy that flows from rejoicing in what others have. Céline once said to Thérèse, “ What I envy about you are your good works.” Thérèse responded by quoting Tauler. ‘If I love the good that is in my neighbour as much as he loves it himself, that good is as much mine as it is his.’ Through this communion I can enrich myself with all the good that there is in heaven and on earth, in the angels, in the saints and in all those who love God.”[^10] The behaviors that flow from envy —backbiting, detraction, etc., destroy our ability to see goodness in our neighbor. Reflect upon the misery that such behaviors bring into your life. Think of how you could be enriched if you were able to find joy in your neighbor. If our neighbor isn’t a gift then he is a threat. Which is he for you?Third, Dante’s image points to one of the basic means which we must employ in the taming of envy—restraint. Just as newly caught falcons have their eyelids sewed together in order to calm their fears and make them obedient to their masters, so too must the fear of the envious be quieted so that they will not fly off in a rage and attack their neighbor. This can be done by our choosing not to act upon envious feelings, for example, not to engage in detraction and backbiting. As our mothers told us when we were children, “If you can’t say anything good about another person then don’t say anything at all.” Exercising this sage advice with those we envy often requires all the strength that we can muster. But in doing so, we grow in charity, the remedy of envy. Who are the people in your life whom you find most difficult not to malign? Finally, Dante offers us another exercise in dealing with envy. As the envious are huddled in a group with their eyelids sewed together, they hear a passing voice echoing the Virgin Mary’s words at the wedding feast of Cana “_Vinum non habent_” (“They have no wine”). Mary’s act of thoughtfulness is an example of the antidote that we must employ to quell envious behavior. Looking out for the good of one’s neighbor is healing balm for envious eyes. ## Question 2 What Acts of Kindness and Thoughtfulness Can You Choose to Do for People Whom You Envy? ## Reflection 4 There is a story of a man who while on vacation in Europe, visited the Louvre. As he was leaving, he said to the attendant at the front door, “I must admit, I was not impressed.” To which the attendant rejoined, “Sir, let me remind you, that the paintings in this museum are no longer on trial, but those who view them are.” The statement, “I wasn’t impressed,” is often said with an air of blasé superiority, but sometimes the statement is nothing but a judgment upon the speaker, an expression of a soul that has become satiated by overexposure to stimuli and, as a result, is bored with life. As Thérèse is writing about her relationship with Céline, she muses upon the freshness of childhood, undulled by sophistication, that still retains the capacity to receive with joy the simple gifts of daily life.” The gifts Marie and Pauline gave their little girls also gave them great joy, though the gifts had no great value. Ah! it was because we were not _blasé_ at this age; our soul in all its freshness was expanding like a flower content to receive the morning dew” (S 86). As we grow older and become worldly-wise and sophisticated, we become hardened to the beauty that life sets before us. The harried, hurried, pace of modern living beats out of us the freshness of childhood’s receptivity. One simple way to begin to recover this receptivity is by slowing down and pausing to look at the world around us. One day as William Wordsworth was crossing Westminster Bridge in London, a bridge that he had crossed countless times before, he stopped and looked at the city about him. He captured what he had experienced that morning in his poem “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1803.” Earth has not any thing to show more fair; Dull would be he of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty. This city now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky, All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er say I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will; Dear God! the very houses seem asleep, And all that mighty heart is lying still! [^11] ## Question 3 The purpose of a bridge is to convey us from one place to another. Stopping upon a bridge is symbolic of a contemplative stance toward life; it is choosing to pause and to drink in the beauty of the moment. Several years ago I saw an exhibition of paintings by Monet. I was struck by the fact that the subject matter of many of his paintings was of train stations, factories, and constructions sites. One painting entitled _The Train_, which showed a train in the foreground and numerous factories belching out clouds of black smoke in the background, occasioned one author to comment, “The site in this picture looks more like Gary, Indiana than anything traditionally associated with Impressionistic France.”[^12] How strange that people would take time to come to a museum and stand in front of a painting depicting such a commonplace sight! But is not this one example of what art invites us to do, to pause and look at what we see every day, but never take the time to contemplate? What are the “Westminster bridges” of your daily round that contain the “morning dew” of God’s beauty? Have you become blasé to them because you have not taken time to pause and look? --- [^6]: Judith Viorst, _Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies and Impossible__Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow_ (New York: Fawcett Gold Medal, 1986), 2–3. [^7]: Even though the literature differentiates jealously from envy, I am using the terms interchangeably. [^8]: Charles Dickens, _A Tale of Two Cities_ (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 89. [^9]: Adrian van Kaam, _Envy and Originality_ (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1972), [^10]: O‘Mahony, _Those Who Knew Her_, 125. [^11]: William Wordsworth, “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge: Sept. 3, 1803,” in _William__Wordsworth_, ed. Stephen Gill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 285. [^12]: Paul Hayes Tucker, _Claude Monet: Life and Art_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 56. --- **Source:** [[scriptorium/books-personal/personal-bibliography#^biblio-tcj-soas-ics|Thérèse, *Story of a Soul*]] > [[tcj-soas-ics-03-c|← Previous]] | [[tcj-soas-ics-toc|TOC]] | [[tcj-soas-ics-04-a|Next →]]