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The way of spiritual childhood taught by St. Teresa of Lisieux was
highly praised on several occasions by Pope Benedict XV, and by
Pope Pius XI who often expressed his confidence in the providential
mission of the saint for the spiritual formation of souls in our day.
The way of childhood which she recommends to us is explained by the
innate qualities of the child, which should be found in an eminent
degree in the child of God. There is in this idea a deep intuition in
perfect harmony with what theology teaches on sanctifying grace, the
infused virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. By recalling the
innate qualities of the child, the principal virtues of the child of
God, and what distinguishes spiritual childhood from natural
childhood, we shall find great light on the doctrine of grace.
THE INNATE QUALITIES OF THE CHILD What are
ordinarily the innate qualities of a child? In spite of his little
defects, we find in a child, as a rule, simplicity and conciousness
of his weakness, especially if he has been baptized and
is
being raised in a Christian manner. The simplicity, or the absence of duplicity, of a child is wholly
spontaneous; in him there is no labored refinement, no affectation. He
generally says what he thinks and expresses what he desires without
subterfuge, without fear of what people will say. As a rule he does
not pose; he shows himself as he is. Conscious of his weakness, for
he can do nothing of himself, he depends in everything on his father
and mother, from whom he should receive everything. This awareness
of his weakness is the seed of humility, which leads him to practice
the three theological virtues, often in a profoundly simnple manner.
At first the child spontaneously believes what his parents tell
him; often they speak to him of God and teach him to pray. Innately
the child has confidence in his parents, who teach him to hope in God
even before he knows the formula of the act of hope, which he will
soon read in his catechism and recite morning and evening. Finally
with all his heart the child loves his parents, to whom he owe
everything; and if his father and mother are truly Christian, they
lift the lively affection of this young heart toward God, our Lord,
and His holy Mother. In this simplicity, this consciousness of his
weakness, and this simple practice of the three theological virtues,
there is the seed of the loftiest spiritual life. For this reason,
when Jesus wished to teach His apostles the importance of humility,
setting a little child in the midst of them He said: "Amen I say to
you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (1) In recent years we have
seen realized the prediction of Pope Pius X: "There will be saints
among the children," called at an early age to frequent Communion.
Later on, during the awkward age, the child often loses his
simplicity, the consciousness of his weakness, and wishes to act
prematurely like a man; he gives evidence of pride and duplicity. And
if he delights in speaking of certain virtues, it is less of the
theological virtues than of human virtues, like fortitude and courage,
which lend importance to his budding personality, and a certain
prudence which he does not know how to distinguish from false
prudence, and which, in his attempt to hide disorders in his life, may
turn into deceit. The harsh experience of life then reminds him of
his weakness; at times he meets with injustice, which shows him the
value of a higher justice. He suffers from lies that are believed,
thus discovering the value of uprightness. Finally, if he reflects, if
he has not ceased to pray a little every day, he understands Christ's
words: "Without Me you can do nothing," and the profound meaning of
the Our Father again becomes apparent to him. He repeats this prayer
of his childhood, sometimes spending ten minutes saying the Our Father
once from the depths of his heart. He has again found the road of
salvation. THE PRINCIPAL VIRTUES OF THE CHILD OF
GOD St. Teresa of the Child Jesus reminds us that the principal
virtues of the child of God are those in which are reproduced in an
eminent degree the innate qualities of the child, minus his defects.
Consequently the way of spiritual childhood will teach us to be
supernaturally ourselves minus our defects. The child of God should,
first of all, be simple and upright, without duplicity; he should
exclude hypocrisy and falsehood from his life, and not seek to pass
for what he is not, as our Lord declares in the Sermon on the Mount:
"If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome": (2) that
is, if the gaze of your spirit is honest, if your intention is
upright, your whole life will be illumined. The child of God should
preserve the consciousness of his weakness and indigence; he should
constantly recall that God our Father freely created him from nothing,
and that without God's grace he can do absolutely nothing in the order
of sanctification and salvation. If the child of God grows in this
humility, he will have an ever deeper faith in the divine word,
greater even than little children have in the words of their parents.
He will have a faith devoid of human respect, he will be proud of his
faith; and from time to time it will become in him penetrating and
sweet, above all reasoning. He will truly live by the mysteries of
salvation and will taste them; he will contemplate them with
admiration, as a little child looks into the eyes of his beloved
father. If the child of God does not go astray, he will see his hope
grow stronger from day to day and become transformed into trusting
abandonment to Providence. In proportion to his fidelity to the duty
of the moment, to the signified divine will, will be his abandonment
to the divine good pleasure as yet unknown. The arms of the Lord are,
says St. Teresa Of the Child Jesus, like a divine elevator that lifts
man up to God. Finally, the child of God grows steadily in the love
of his Father. He loves Him for Himself and not simply for His
benefits, as a little child loves his mother more than the caresses he
receives from her. The child of God loves his Father in trial as in
joy; when life is difficult, he remembers that he should love the Lord
with all his strength and even with all his mind, and be always united
to Him in the higher part of his soul as an adorer "in spirit and in
truth." This last characteristic shows that the way of spiritual
childhood often demands courage in trial, the virtue of Christian
fortitude united to the gift of fortitude. This is especially evident
toward the end of the life of St. Teresa of the Child Jesus (3) when
she had to pass through the tunnel, which St. John of the Cross calls
the night of the spirit. She passed through this profound darkness
with admirable faith, praying for unbelievers, with perfect
abandonment and most pure and ardent charity, which led her to the
transforming union, the immediate prelude of eternal life. The way
of childhood thus understood wonderfully harmonizes several seemingly
contradictory virtues: meekness and fortitude, and also simplicity and
prudence, to which Jesus referred when He said to His apostles:
"Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore
wise as serpents and simple as doves." We must be prudent with the
world, which is often perverse; we must also be strong, at times even
to martyrdom, as in Spain and Mexico in recent years. But to have this
superior prudence and fortitude, we need the gifts of counsel and
fortitude, and to have them we must be increasingly simple and
childlike toward God, our Lord, and the Blessed Virgin. The less we
should be children in our dealings with men, the more we should become
children of God. From Him alone can come the fortitude and prudence we
need in the struggles of today: we must hope in God and divine grace
more than in the strength of popular movements; and should this force
stray farther and farther into the way of atheistic communism, we
should continue to resist even to martyrdom, placing our trust in God
like a little child in the goodness of his father. Father H. Petitot,
O.P., in his book, St. Teresa of Lisieux: a Spiritual Renascence,
emphasizes this intimate union of virtues so contrary in appearance in
St. Teresa of Lisieux. Another point of capital importance is that
when well understood the way of spiritual childhood wonderfully
harmonizes also true humility with the desire for the loving
contemplation of the mysteries of salvation. Thereby we see that this
contemplation, which proceeds from living faith illumined by the gifts
of understanding and wisdom, is in the normal way of sanctity. This
penetrating and at times sweet contemplation of the mysteries of faith
is not something extraordinary like visions, revelations, and the
stigmata, extrinsic favors, so to speak, which we do not find in the
life of St. Teresa of Lisieux; it is, on the contrary, the normal
fruit of sanctifying grace, called the grace of the virtues and the
gifts and the seed of glory. It is the normal prelude of eternal life.
This point of doctrine stands out clearly in the writings of St.
Teresa of the Child Jesus. She makes us desire and ask the Lord for
this loving contemplation of the mysteries of the Incarnation, the
redemption, the Eucharist, the Mass, and the indwelling of the Blessed
Trinity in our souls. WHAT DISTINGUISHES SPIRITUAL
CHILDHOOD FROM NATURAL CHILDHOOD Lastly, in her teaching on the way
of spiritual childhood, St. Teresa sets forth clearly what constitutes
the distinction between spiritual and natural childhood.
Differentiating between them, St. Paul tells us: "Do not become
children in sense. But in malice be children; and in sense be
perfect." (4) Consequently maturity of judgment first of all
distinguishes spiritual from natural childhood. But there is also a
character to which St. Francis de Sales (5) draws attention. In the
natural order, in proportion as the child grows, the more
self-sufficient he should become, for some day he will no longer have
his parents. In the order of grace, on the contrary, the more the
child of God grows, the more he understands that he will never be
self-sufficient and that he depends intimately on God. As he matures,
he should live more by the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who,
by His seven gifts, supplies for the imperfections of his virtues to
such an extent that he is finally more passive under the divine action
than given up to his personal activity. In the end he will enter into
the bosom of the Father where he will find his beatitude. A young
person, on reaching maturity, leaves his parents to begin
life for himself. The middle-aged man occasionally pays a visit to his
mother, but he no longer depends on her as he formerly did; instead,
it is he who supports her. On the contrary, as the child of God grows
up, he becomes so increasingly dependent on his Father that he no
longer desires to do anything without Him, without His inspirations or
His counsels. Then his whole life is bathed in prayer; he has obtained
the best part, which will not be taken away from him. He understands
that he must pray always. This doctrine, at once so simple and so
lofty, is set forth in detail in the following page from St. Teresa of
Lisieux:
To remain little is to recognize one's nothingness, to expect
everything from God, as a little child expects everything from his
father; it is to be disturbed about nothing, not to earn a fortune.
Even among poor people, as long as the child is quite small, they
give him what he needs; but as soon as he has grown up, his father
no longer wishes to feed him and says to him: "Work now, you can be
self-supporting." Well, so as never to hear that, I have not wished
to grow up. since I feel myself incapable of earning my living, the
eternal life of heaven. I have, therefore, always remained little,
having no other occupation than to gather the flowers of love and
sacrifice and to offer them to God for His pleasure. To be little
also means not to attribute to oneself the virtues that one
practices, believing oneself capable of something; but it means
recognizing that God places this treasure of virtue in the hand of
His little child that he may make use of it when necessity arises;
and it is always God's treasure.(6)
This is likewise the teaching of St. Augustine, when he affirms
that, in crowning our merits, God crowns His own gifts. This is also
what the Council of Trent says: "So great is God's goodness toward us
that He wills that His gifts should become merits in us." (7) We can
offer Him only what we receive from Him; but what we receive under the
form of grace, we offer to Him under the form of merit, adoration,
prayer, reparation, and thanksgiving. St. Teresa adds: "Finally, to
be little is not to become discouraged by one's sins, for children
often fall, but they are too little to do themselves much harm." In
all this spiritual teaching appears the great doctrine of grace:
"Without Me you can do nothing"; "What hast thou that thou hast not
received?" St. Teresa lived this lofty doctrine, on which the fathers
of the Church and theologians have written so much. She lived it in a
very simple and profound manner, allowing the Holy Ghost to lead her,
above human reasoning, toward the harbor of salvation, to which she,
in her turn, leads many sinners. Happy indeed the theologian who shall
have converted as many souls as our saint! The Anglican preacher,
Vernon Johnson, was not converted by theologians or by exegetes, but
by St. Teresa of the Child Jesus. St. Gregory the Great expressed
his admiration for this way of childhood when he wrote in a homily,
which the breviary recalls in the common for virgin martyrs: "When we
see young maidens gain the kingdom of heaven by the sword, what do we
say, we who are bearded and weak, we who allow ourselves to be
dominated by wrath, inflated by pride, disturbed by ambition?" Truly
St. Teresa of Lisieux traced for us the simple road which leads to
great heights. In her teaching, as it pleased Pope Pius XI to point
out, the gift of wisdom appears in a lofty degree for the direction of
souls thirsting for the truth and wishing, above all human
conceptions, to live by the word of God.(8)
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