The Suffering of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: Cross, agony and abandonment to God
The suffering of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux was an unprecedented physical and spiritual calvary: from tuberculosis to gangrene sores, to the final agony. Yet, precisely in that supreme pain, the little Carmelite revealed to the world the heart of her Little Way: abandoning herself into the hands of God like a child.
1. The physical calvary: tuberculosis and sores
Thérèse's suffering was atrocious, as to the chest illness was added intestinal tuberculosis, which brought with it gangrene, while sores formed, caused by her extreme thinness. Ailments that could in no way be relieved, and even darker days were announced.
2. The mystery of her passion
It was she herself who led her sisters into the mystery of her passion which was announcing itself as particularly unbearable.
"Do not grieve, my little sisters, if I suffer greatly and if at the moment of death you do not see in me, as I have already told you, any sign of happiness. Our Lord died well as a victim of Love, and you see what His agony was like!" (QC 4.6.1)
The ninth hour and the mystery of the Cross
Sister Céline (Sister Geneviève) recounted: "Towards mid-afternoon, she felt herself struck by strange pains in all her limbs. Then resting her arm on the shoulders of Mother Agnes of Jesus, she stretched the other towards me to be supported, and remained like that for a few moments.
At that moment three o'clock struck... and we felt ourselves seized by a certain emotion. What was she thinking at that moment? To us it recalled the overwhelming image of Jesus on the Cross, and that coincidence seemed to me full of mystery" (PO 310).
3. The agony of the final hours
When Thérèse's agony came it was terrible and very long. At five o'clock they realized that the end was now imminent:
"For more than two hours a terrible death rattle tore at her chest. Her face was congested, her hands violet, her feet ice-cold and she trembled in all her limbs. Profuse sweat beaded her forehead with enormous drops and ran down her cheeks. She was under the weight of a growing oppression, at times she let out small involuntary cries. At six o'clock, when the Angelus rang, she looked long at the statue of the Blessed Virgin..." (QG 30.9)
4. The last words and the final ecstasy
The last words Thérèse spoke on earth, looking at her Crucifix a few moments before expiring, have touched the hearts of countless Christians:
"Oh, I love Him! My God... I love You..."
Words of love in a death of love, even if too often we forget from what terrible cross they rose towards the heavenly Father.
An infinite tenderness from Heaven
The last moments before expiring were a most sweet ecstasy that lasted the space of a Credo, witnessed by the whole community kneeling beside the bed. It seemed that someone was speaking to her and she made small movements as if wanting to respond: there was in her eyes an indescribable happiness.
An infinite wonder, as if her hopes had all been infinitely surpassed. But the greatest wonder was given by what shone from her face in those supreme moments: it seemed that the welcome reserved for her by God was of a tenderness and mercy such that even she, Thérèse, had not been able to imagine.
She had said one day, to explain the tenderness with which she was preparing to go to meet God:
"If He reproaches me even a little, I will not cry. But if He does not reproach me at all, if He welcomes me with a smile, then I will cry!" (QC 21.7.2)
5. The message: letting oneself be loved
For some hours her face acquired a moving beauty, Thérèse's hands clutched the Crucifix so tightly that they could not take it from her, and the delicate remains seemed those of a young girl of 12-13 years. Just as Jesus on the cross, Thérèse had revealed to the world all her eternal filiality, abandoning herself into the hands of her Abba.
What strikes one in the account of the young Carmelite's passion is her call to become a child again, even in the very substance of her being that is in spirit, in soul and even in body. I am "a poor little nothing" Thérèse used to say, contemplating with shivers of passion and sweetness the Love that irresistibly lowered itself to her.
And on the bed of pain that poor nothing, crushed by suffering, knew that all her hope consisted in letting herself be loved.
What Thérèse would have wanted to communicate to everyone, even reduced to that state of annihilation, was her feeling thus summarized in a writing:
"O God, how sweet You are to the little victim of Your Love."