Vintage Saints and Sinners
Vintage Saints and Sinners
Thérèse of Lisieux
Do you seek satisfaction—but struggle to find purpose in the routines of daily life? Well, bold Thérèse of Lisieux is the saint for you. She reframes everyday experience, with its unseen acts of service, as an invitation into transformational love and faithfulness. Discover the wisdom of the Thérèse, who dares to say, “Everything is grace.”
Meet host Karen Wright Marsh, and learn more about the show here: www.karenwrightmarsh.com
Guest Katelyn Beaty is author of A Woman’s Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Religion News Service, She is an acquisitions editor for Brazos Press and has served as an editor at Christianity Today magazine.
Find out more at www.katelynbeaty.com/
For more reading, Karen recommends
“Take a Little Way: a Reading from Thérèse of Lisieux with Leader’s Guide”
At https://karenwrightmarsh.com/vintage-sessions
“The Love of Saint Thérèse” by Philip Zaleski
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/12/the-love-of-saint-thrse
“Father James Martin on St. Thérèse of Lisieux, his favorite saint (Sorry Ignatius!)”
Become a podcast partner! Make your gift at: www.theologicalhorizons.org/giving. Thank you!
Karen Marsh (00:11):
Welcome to the Vintage Saints and Sinners podcast. I'm Karen Wright Marsh. Do you wonder if Christian faith can be truly lived in today's complex and changing world? Well, this is the place to find broken and beautiful companions for your everyday pilgrimage. Here, you'll find embodied witnesses, Christians from different eras and from different cultures. They are people we sometimes call saints, but they were also sinners, just like you and me. Today, I'm here to tell you the story of Therese of Lisieux, and to talk about her with a good friend of mine, Katelyn Beaty. I'm glad you're here with us.
Karen Marsh (01:26):
Here's a backwards fairytale. It begins with silk slippers and ends with rough sandals. It's about a woman who, when she died, had accomplished so little in her life that the people who knew her best didn't even have enough to write an obituary. The woman was Therese of Lisieux. She was born in 1873 into a comfortable bourgeois home in Northwestern France. Her super devout Christian parents woke everybody up for household prayers at 5:30 every morning, they encouraged regular fasting, church attendance and Sabbath observance. Therese was the youngest of five, and her four older sisters pampered her. Her parents found her adorable. Everything on earth smiled at her. But when Therese was only four years old, her mother Zelly died. One by one, her sisters left home, leaving Therese alone with her father. She was stricken with loneliness and grief, but she had boldness at her core.
Karen Marsh (02:33):
Therese had loved God from day one. I mean, even as a toddler, she determined to devote her whole life to God. She began to plan her future of service to Christ, and among her ambitious ideas, she dreamed of being a soldier or an apostle or hermit or a missionary or even a priest. But there was one central problem with all of these ideas, and that was not one of them was open to a little girl like her. So at nine years old, Therese marched to enlist at the local convent. The Carmelite sisters there sent her back home, she was too young to become a nun. So she waited impatiently for five long years, and then returned to the convent gate, ready to begin her awesome new career as a nun. But she was refused again, still too young. But then on a family pilgrimage to Rome, she met the Pope, Pope Leo the eighth. And Therese saw her chance, and she got up in his face and begged for his help.
Karen Marsh (03:44):
The Pope brushed her off, he muttered something about obeying her superiors. So Therese turned up the volume. She grabbed his ankles. She refused to budge, begging him to help her get into the convent. In fact, the story goes that the papal guards dragged the sobbing girl off to the door. Well, back home in Lisieux, Therese was promptly admitted to the convent. Was it divine Providence or her show of melodrama? She had arrived at last, delivered from her stuffy middle class childhood and into her life's calling: to worship God 24/7, to adore Jesus utterly and with all of her being. We get a look into Therese's spiritual imagination when we read her memoir called The Story of a Soul. It's jammed with capital letters and exclamation points. She writes about pretty flowers, little angels, victims, salty tears, martyrs, consuming fire, lots of drama. One biographer said that reading her book feels like eating too many marshmallows.
Karen Marsh (04:59):
In many ways it's like any teenage girl's diary. But instead of flirtations with cute boys, Therese is all about abandonment to her beloved Jesus. She prays, "my God, I choose all. I do not wish to be a Saint by halves." Ever the go getter, Therese envisions bold saints out there in the world, doing big things for God. And though she still burns to do battle for God's glory, she knows that her war will never be out on the open field. Instead, she sees herself as a prisoner of love forever cut off from the world, held captive within the cloister. And she determines to submit her will to God in everything. This is her ultimate challenge. She says, "I am only a very little soul who could offer very little things to our Lord." She speaks of taking the little way, where every small action, every unseen sacrifice, even something as simple as offering up a drink of water, is an action of full surrender to Jesus's tender, infinite love.
Karen Marsh (06:20):
Therese tells us, keep yourself far from all that glitters and learn to love your littleness. Follow this little way. Take an attitude of lowliness, or poorness of spirit, of trust. Even be satisfied to feel nothing as you serve God and others whenever and wherever you can. It is then, she says, however obscure and unnoticed you may be, it is then that Jesus will come to seek you out and transform you with his love. Her faith was tested in the Carmelite convent, crowded in with much older nuns who did not seem to share her passion for Christ-like, loving service. The sisters began to annoy her in a million different ways. One sick irritable sister criticized her constantly. Another sister rattled her rosary beads incessantly while Therese was struggling to concentrate on Jesus. Therese forced herself to bear all of these offenses without complaining.
Karen Marsh (07:33):
Sometimes I imagine teenage Therese realizing that she's truly stuck for life inside this chilly convent. After all the years of planning, praying, envisioning some ecstatic life with God, was she privately disenchanted by how things turned out? Did she ever lay alone on her straw pallet and wonder why God had ever inspired her with such fantastical unfulfilled dreams? But Therese was a tough girl who stayed in there. She didn't hide behind abstract doctrine or pious words. She was really about commitment. She said, "Jesus does not demand great deeds. All he wants is self surrender and gratitude. That is all Jesus asks from us. He needs nothing from us except our love day in and day out." She was an ordinary witness of extraordinary love, theology on its knees. But her story does not end happily. She died at 24 of tuberculosis, but her true achievement was this idea of the little way, the brave emotional vault over the abyss of self-interest and into radical Christian love. And I cannot help but be in awe of that.
Karen Marsh (09:06):
The Vintage Saints and Sinners podcast is the audio companion to my book, Vintage Saints and Sinners, 25 Christians Who Transformed My Faith. To learn more, come on by my website, karenwrightmarsh.Com. Please rate and review this podcast on iTunes, and invite your friends to join us. Now for a conversation about Therese of Lisieux with Katelyn Beaty.
Karen Marsh (09:38):
I'm happy to have Katelyn Beaty with me today. She's the author of A Woman's Place: A Christian Vision For Your Calling in the Office, the Home and the World. Katelyn has written for the New York Times and the New Yorker, And she currently serves as the acquisitions editor for Brazos press. She's previously served as editor at Christianity Today magazine, and she lives in Brooklyn. Thank you for joining me, Katelyn.
Katelyn Beaty (10:02):
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Karen Marsh (10:04):
So, Therese of Lisieux. We're both Protestant church girls, I know from childhood, so she's kind of new to me. And when she died, Therese was really a nobody, we know from her biography that really only the sisters in her convent knew that she existed. And yet she's come to be the most popular Saint among Roman Catholic Christians, right up there with Francis of Assisi. And I wonder what you see as her appeal, and kind of the secret to her growth as a popular Christian?
Katelyn Beaty (10:40):
Yeah, well, I first learned about Therese as a college student, and I would say like a lot of evangelicals, I really wasn't exposed to the life of the saints growing up, maybe aside from, you know, Billy Graham, which we can certainly count him as a saint, but there are also lots of other ones. And so it wasn't until college, and time spent studying abroad at Oxford, when I was really exposed to much more of church history and specifically some of the women who have been declared saints from church history. So it was exciting to me to think of Therese as about the same age as me at that time, and to know that she went on, even past her death at a young age, to be such an example and a comfort for so many people.
Katelyn Beaty (11:39):
I think that part of the secret of her appeal is her writing about the little way, this notion that perhaps instead of thinking of Christian faithfulness as doing big grand public things for God, that what God wants from us is small daily acts of obedience and love. Acts of love that are often hidden behind closed doors and don't get a lot of acclaim or praise, but acts that God sees, and that please God. And I think that Therese, her writing on this is appealing because that's in fact where most of us find ourselves, figuring out how to please and serve God. The vast majority of us are not called to be a Dietrich Bonhoeffer or a Martin Luther King jr. That in fact, we feel that our lives are lives of obscurity and yet Therese helps us remember that God sees the hidden acts of love and obedience, and those counts greatly in God's eyes.
Karen Marsh (12:51):
Yeah. And I think in some ways as Americans, you know, we're so focused on the big action and accomplishment and achievement, and she challenges that so profoundly and kind of turns it upside down with this idea of a little way.
Katelyn Beaty (13:05):
Yeah. And I think we have to acknowledge that probably some of what, you know, when I was in college - and I know this is true at other Christian colleges now - we heard from day one moving into the dorms freshman year that, you know, we were going to become world changers, or we were being prepared to set out and change the world. And on one hand, I think it's great to give college students a big sense of what they could do after college, and to develop a strong sense of vocation, and to see that their life matters and they could go on to do big things. At the same time, I speak to Christians who went to Christian college, heard that they were prepared to change the world, and then 10 years after graduation, maybe their daily work is not glamorous. Their biggest priority at any given day is simply to pay the bills and feed their children. And they don't feel like they're changing the world. And I think that's where Therese's writing meets us and is a comfort to us, that daily acts of love and care and faithfulness, and even a job well done, even if it's a job that's not glamorous, that doesn't have a strong sense of ministry or mission, if it's done with excellence and honor and integrity, that, too, is pleasing to God
Karen Marsh (14:39):
And she really does remind us or ask us, what does Jesus really want from us? You know, is it this world changing transformation or is it the simple act of love and integrity? Do you know of people who follow this little way, people in your own life or people in public life that you think of as examples of followers of the little way?
Katelyn Beaty (15:05):
Yeah, well, honestly, I think of my parents, Tim and Karen Beaty. I doubt that they have encountered Therese's writings, but they have what we would call kind of like normal middle class jobs. They live in the Midwest, three bedroom ranch, very unglamorous. They do not have like public personas, or very little social media activity for that matter. And yet I think about their dedication to their local church. And there are probably 50 or 60 people who attend the church. It's struggled through various rounds of pastors, and different leaders coming and going, and financial challenges. And yet, for probably going on 20 years now, they continue to show up Sunday in and Sunday out. And they teach Sunday school and do confirmation classes. And most Sundays, my mom will go out early to set up the altar. And I just, there's part of me that thinks, oh gosh, I hope that's not what God asks me to do.
Katelyn Beaty (16:19):
Like, that seems like a real slog. But I think it speaks to, what I see in my parents is the gift of the Holy spirit of faithfulness and you know, committing to something that isn't glamorous, and doesn't get a lot of attention or praise, but committing to it for the long haul. Because I think at the end of the day, they believe that they are called to invest in the life of the local church. And they are in deep relationship with the people at that church,
Karen Marsh (16:55):
Right. Faithfulness, obedience, these are not fashionable terms or concepts.
Katelyn Beaty (17:02):
And I think you get a sense from Therese's writing, too, that the little way is also a place of freedom and delight, because I think you see from her life story that from a very young age, she seems to have this singular focus on pleasing the Lord. And she doesn't seem very interested in much anything else. And there's something about that simple desire to please God and serve God that might sound constricting. But I also think it's probably freeing
Karen Marsh (17:41):
When I first started reading her, I was really initially put off, I think because her nickname is the little flower, and I thought, Ugh, you know, she's being held up as this female who is timid and humble and submissive. And like, that's just not for me. You know, I'm not a little flower, don't try to make me a little flower. But you know, but as you said, she's got this incredible determination and ambition to follow and love Christ, and she just will not be put off. And I think what I first saw as a timidity, I see now as her incredible strength and focus. And I do want to ask you though about her talking, her words about suffering. There's a quote in which she says, "sanctity consists in suffering." You know, maybe it's my time in place, but it sounds to me like she's saying we cannot be Holy without suffering. And maybe that's true, but I just sort of back up when I hear something like that. And I wonder how that might be true. Could we say that? What do you think?
Katelyn Beaty (18:54):
I think it all hinges on whether you make God the author of suffering. I think there is a certain way of reading scripture and thinking about suffering in the Christian life as if God enjoys our suffering and directly causes loss and pain. And I think that that raises the problem of evil. And I think the scriptural witness is that God is like a loving father or mother to us, and what kind of father or mother will flee, wants their child to suffer simply for the sake of suffering? That doesn't seem to reflect the heart of God toward us as revealed in, well, in Jesus. But I do think there is a way of thinking about God redeeming experiences of suffering in our lives. So even if we don't say that God willfully makes us suffer, is there a way to say that even in dark places in our lives, God meets us there. God is present with us in the suffering and God will use it for good. I think I can get behind that.
Karen Marsh (20:12):
I love this quote from Therese. She says, "yes, all my hopes will be fulfilled, the Lord will work wonders for me which will surpass infinitely my immeasurable desires." And when I read those words, I'm like, Oh, okay. You know, here's this, she was a girl, such a young woman who took joy in her relationship with Christ and her focus was on Jesus. It wasn't on the suffering, I don't think. It was really for that, for the love and the desire and the fulfillment of all of her dreams and ambitions.
Katelyn Beaty (20:48):
And I think the fact that, you know, we even are talking about Therese today, that we know her name, we're familiar with her writing, it speaks to that promise being fulfilled. That her legacy and her gift to us far extends the span of her short life, and how encouraging it is to think that the fruit of our life and of our faithfulness could extend far beyond the measure of our own life. I mean, I think that's ultimately what all of us want on some level.
Karen Marsh (21:23):
Yes. Well, thank you for hashing it out with me. It's so, so much fun to talk about this interesting quirky young woman. Thanks for the conversation.
Katelyn Beaty (21:35):
Yeah. Thank you for having me
Karen Marsh (21:50):
In a culture where we're pushed to achieve, to make a great impact, young Therese of Lisieux truly goes against the grain. She chose limits, discipline, constraints, and somehow she made beauty out of them. Katelyn and I puzzled over Therese vision of a little way, where unseen acts of love truly are significant. And I hope wherever you are, whatever you do, you can see your everyday-ness in a whole new, more meaningful way.
Karen Marsh (22:31):
Thank you for joining me today. I'm Karen Wright Marsh, and I'm the executive director of Theological Horizons, a ministry based in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia. I'd love to hear from you. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at theological horizons. Come by my website, karenwrightmarsh.com. You'll find out more about the Vintage Saints and Sinners podcast, get show notes, and learn about my book, Vintage Saints and Sinners. You can download free personal study guides for your small group, or just for yourself, and keep the conversation going. Thanks to the generosity of the Lloyd and Vivian Noble foundation, and to the friends of Theological Horizons. I hope you'll support the Vintage Saints and Sinners podcast with a tax deductible gift to Theological Horizons. Go to theologicalhorizons.org/giving, or donate on Venmo at theological dash horizons. The Vintage Saints and Sinners podcast is produced by Gabriel Hunter-Chang. Our music is by Will Marsh of Gold Connections.