St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Theology of Flowers

By Alexander Walton

St. Thérèse of Lisieux was a French Carmelite nun, mystic, and poet who lived in the late nineteenth century. Despite her short life, her theology led Pope Pius X to call her the greatest saint of modern times, and her intellectual and spiritual contributions to Catholicism led her to be one of the few people honored as a Doctor of the Church. What makes this young French woman who died at the age of 24 so remarkable? How did she achieve such fame in such a short life? Put simply, she was remarkable and incredible for her simplicity and humility. St. Thérèse championed the “little way”, which was an effort to make every one of one’s actions imbued with the greatest amount of love possible. Specifically, St. Thérèse challenged herself to live a daily life filled with small acts of charity. As a result of her inspiring witness, St. Thérèse remains an inspiring model to Catholics as we consider the importance of protecting our common home. Indeed, it is with great anticipation that the Church presently waits for a new apostolic letter on her life from Pope Francis. Interestingly, the Roman pontiff also intends on releasing his follow-up to Laudato Si’ on October 4th – a mere 11 days before his intended missive concentrating on St. Thérèse.

Although at this time the content of both documents remains unknown, one can recognize the auspicious occasion for the Church and her vicar as they stand in common admiration and affection for this young Frenchwoman’s witness. Indeed, the “Little Flower’’’s mystical battles with grief as well as her emphasis on verdurous beauty within the natural world immortalized in her poetry are both examples of Pope Francis’ observation that “Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society.” St. Thérèse is certainly an example of the relationship between a deep commitment to the preservation of the natural world and unbridled love for all people. In our season of creation, St. Thérèse remains an inspiring challenge to live a life full of love, cognizant of the beauty in every human being.

St. Thérèse’s view of God and of the Church’s role on earth is uniquely inspirational for its origination from a poetic temperament as compared to one which is philosophically and therefore axiomatically inclined. Notwithstanding her own formidable mental acuity, the young Frenchwoman was not primarily awed by the incredible scholastic achievements of figures such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Athanasius. Instead, the subject of St. Thérèse’s love and admiration was her countrywoman with whom she now shares the title Co-Patroness of France, an illiterate young peasant girl who helped to repel one of the most powerful armies in history through her indefatigable love of God and awe-inspiring bravery. The woman who is given particular pride of place in St. Thérèse’s heart and theology is the universally admired St. Jeanne d’Arc. In her poem “To Joan of Arc”, St. Thérèse described the enduring beauty and strength of her hero with the following lines:

“At the bottom of a black dungeon, laden with heavy chains,

The cruel foreigner filled you with grief.

Not one of your friends took part in your pain.

Not one came forward to wipe your tears.

Joan, in your dark prison you seem to me

More radiant, more beautiful than at your King’s coronation.

This heavenly reflection of eternal glory,

Who then brought it upon you? It was betrayal.

Ah! If the God of love in this valley of tears

Had not come to seek betrayal and death,

Suffering would hold no attraction for us.

Now we love it; it is our treasure.”

Although St. Thérèse is usually remembered for her mischievous sense of humor, enduring patience, and consistent joie-de-vivre, the Carmelite nun shared St. Jeanne’s incredible mental fortitude. She unceasingly championed her “Little Way” despite constantly battling depressive episodes that threatened to leave her bedridden. When tuberculosis riddled her body so intensely that she was her every breath was infused with pain so great that her fellow nuns would weep to look at her, St. Thérèse would crawl on her hands and knees to join her sisters in prayer. St. Thérèse’s emphasis on art and its relationship to Christ finds common purchase with the hymn penned in recognition of St. Simon of Cyrene’s unique punishment to help bear the cross of Jesus Christ.

“Must Jesus bear the Cross alone and all the world go free?

No, there’s a cross for everyone, and there’s a cross for me.

How happy are the saints above,

Who once went sorrowing here!

But now they taste unmingled love,

And joy without a tear.

The consecrated cross I’ll bear

Till death shall set me free;

And then go home my crown to wear,

For there’s a crown for me.”

St. Thérèse understood that the message of the cross is to follow Jesus onto the path of humiliation, ostracization, and suffering. By rejecting the ways of the world, Christians recognize that they will likely be subject to suffering, because to love is to suffer. Despite the danger borne by those who seek to embrace radical love, St. Thérèse demands that all people find joy in the suffering they will reap from acts of love and kindness. To paraphrase W.H. Auden, St. Thérèse wants us all to love our crooked neighbor with our crooked heart every day, in every way, all the time.

St. Thérèse’s theology is also helpful to believers because of the way in which it prioritizes God’s ontology as one filled with wonder, mystery, and joy. This is particularly helpful when those interested in theology and the nature of God seek to understand his immensity. An example of Theresean theology’s power can be seen from its absence in a famous debate on the existence of God between Fr. Ernest Coppleston and Lord Bertrand Russell. During this discussion, these two intellectual heavyweights’ imbroglio concentrated heavily on the «principle of sufficient reason», which is the assertion that everything that does exist must have a reason to exist. Moreover, Fr. Coppleston sought to imbricate what he saw as the truth of the principle of sufficient reason with the observation that for every contingent being (things that could have not existed such as animals, plants, humans, etc.) then there must have been a being necessary to bring the contingent being into existence. Because all beings necessary to a contingent being’s existence are fundamentally contingent beings as well, then there must have been an overarching first and final cause to the existence of contingent beings. Fr. Coppleston argued that the common origin for existence is found in God.

Fr. Coppleston was a philosopher par excellence, but a mathematician he was not. As a Nobel laureate in this field, Lord Russell observed that the lacuna in Fr. Coppleston’s argument could be found in his inability to accept that nothing could exist. As Indian mathematicians such as Brahmagupta had known for centuries, zero or nothingness can exist. Additionally, Lord Russell observed that although Fr. Coppleston may have been correct that every contingent being required a necessary being insofar as human experience was concerned, it is within the realm of possibility that the Universe is an entity unlike other created beings. Most damningly, the mere analytical account of God’s process of creation does not explain why God chooses to create. As a result of Fr. Coppleston’s overly analytical approach, the debate between these two great minds rests at an impasse…or so one would think, if not for the simple response of Theresean theology. St. Thèrése would argue that Love is the greatest argument for God’s existence, and that the Love expressed by the beauty of the world is the best evidence of how deeply God cares for his creations.

As such, St. Thérèse’s challenge and addition to Fr. Coppleston’s Thomism is broadly a poetic challenge to the mathematical bent of Greek Philosophy. Indeed, although many think of Aristotle when thinking of “first principles’’, the astute student recalls that Greek philosophy begins with mathematics, particularly those of Pythagoras. Pythagoras believed that math could be understood as a series of axioms which could be proven on basic logical principles that existed a priori, and therefore experience was irrelevant to ethical, political, and theological inquiry. The emphasis on first principles is retained in Aristotelianism, which is then found in Thomism. St. Thomas Aquinas relies on principles of axioms and logical structures to give an account of God, which mimics the epistemology of Greek philosophy. Moreover, Aquinas’ philosophical analysis is fundamentally a juridical one which countenances a legalistic formulation when approaching moral and theological challenges. Specifically, in Aquinas’ magisterial Summa Theologica, the Angelic Doctor begins with a north star of questio quid juris, which is then resolved by an application of a legal standard or rule indicative of his casuistry.

Aquinas certainly did conceive of God as a loving and beautiful entity, but the cruciality of these traits is often forgotten because of his legal brilliance. For many readers and believers, a legalistic analysis of God can sometimes register as an austere approach that demystifies God’s existence as a being filled with love, mystery, and wonder. For those wedded to the background principles of Greek philosophy, this is a feature and not a bug. As one remembers from Plato, who was an adherent to the Pythagorean axiomatic system, many Greek philosophers had a hatred of poets and playwrights because of their emphasis on that which cannot be reduced to logical structures, particularly that which was “irrational.”

The Pythagoreans were so wedded to their perfectly ordered logical systems that they used to kill those who didn’t believe in certain roots and negative numbers because of its contravention to their logical systems, and so too did they hate poets and playwrights who wrote about jubilation, ecstasy, rage, and rebellion.

Conversely, as a product of the romantic poetry tradition that began in France within Occitane and Provençal, St. Thérèse resisted the analytical tradition of Aquinas in favor of a theology that placed an emphasis on natural beauty, heroic knights such as St. Jeanne d’Arc, and acts of charity. In Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, the Bishop of Rome writes that:

“Our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous. The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God.”

Accordingly, the Pope notes that human ecology and natural ecology are linked, and that the Imago Dei is not merely reflected in the unique incarnation of human beings, but also within the natural world. St. Thérèse is an adherent to this tradition, yet she uniquely breathes life into the wondrous nature of the human person in a manner that is quite refreshing for Catholic philosophy. Because of her emphasis on beauty and love, this dreamy French nun stands as a complement to the magisterial juridical reasoning of St. Thomas Aquinas and the other Doctors of the Church. Although Aquinas remains the common Doctor, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who wrote only one book and a handful of poems, is an increasingly compelling source of inspiration as Catholics seek to care for our common home. Indeed, Catholics should seek to honor her little way by promoting beauty, love, and joy as we honor the natural world.

Works Cited

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