Why I Love St. Thérèse of Lisieux
What the Little Flower of Jesus means to me
Today, October 1st, the feast of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, marks two years since I first received Holy Communion in the Catholic Church. My choice of this day was no accident. I believe the Little Flower has guided my Catholic journey for longer than I’ve even been aware of, and so on this her feast day I wanted to sing her praises.
During my process of discerning whether to remain Eastern Orthodox or enter full communion with the Catholic Church, a book about St. Thérèse’s spirituality entitled, The Way of Trust and Love, was gifted to me by a friend. I initially delayed reading this book for quite some time. Although I was friendly with Catholic theology as an Eastern Orthodox Christian, Catholic spirituality was something I held in great suspicion. The Eastern Orthodox polemics—and, quite frankly, propaganda—against western spirituality were strong. Yet the Little Flower began tugging at my heart.
Eventually, I found myself on a trip to Arizona. In addition to visiting one of the greatest natural wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon, I also stopped by one of the greatest supernatural wonders of the Eastern Orthodox world, St. Anthony’s Monastery in Florence, Arizona. Ironically, I did this just after having returned from the actual city of Florence, Italy, where I attended Mass for the Feast of Pentecost in the Basilica where the reunion Council of Florence was held in the fifteenth century. While I wasn’t seriously thinking about becoming Catholic at this point, my heart was (in hindsight) clearly open to it.
So I went to St. Anthony’s Monastery and… I had a decent experience. It was alright. I could sense that St. Anthony’s was a place of deep prayer and immense reverence for our Lord and our Lady. I was even delighted to pick up a physical copy of The Dialogues of Pope St. Gregory the Great in the giftshop! However, being in the epicenter of rigorous Orthodox monasticism (in the United States) left me with an impression that I’d had for much of my Eastern Orthodox life. Namely, that Eastern Orthodox spirituality isn’t really accessible to non-monastics.
To be sure, I have deep respect for the spiritual and monastic traditions of Eastern Christianity. St. John Cassian’s Conferences is even becoming an important resource in my own spiritual life as of late. But after nearly two thousand years of guidance by the Holy Spirit, I expected a little bit more direct insight into non-monastic forms of spirituality. I didn’t make the connection at the time, but I believe this thought, which my visit to St. Anthony’s certainly roused, is what inspired me to finally sit down and read Fr. Jacques Phillippe’s The Way of Trust and Love in my Arizona hotel room.
Through Fr. Jacques, I was spiritually introduced to my dear St. Thérèse. Quite honestly, I found his book, and indeed Thérèse’s entire spirituality, to be nothing “profound” in the sense of radically new or innovative. Rather, its profundity was precisely in its simplicity. It was just the gospel. The radical call to embrace our own “littleness” before God; our complete dependance on Him. In the words of the Little Flower herself, “remaining little before God” means “to recognize our nothingness, to expect everything from God, as a little child expects everything from his or her father; it is not getting worried or upset about anything.”1 I realized that every setback I’ve had in the spiritual life has, in some way, been a result of not truly living this out.
Soon enough I also found the Novena prayers to St. Thérèse, which describe her as one who embodied “wholehearted abandonment to God.” This line particularly struck me. To be abandoned to the Lord God. To surrender completely to His will. This is hard enough to do in the order of nature—leaving all of my temporal and worldly concerns up to divine providence. Yet the Little Thérèse calls us to something even more radical. We are to surrender everything to God even in the supernatural order. The grace we receive to pray, to stop sinning, to increase in virtue, and yes, even to be saved, is given by Christ unconditionally. It’s not our initiative that “attracts” His grace, rather it’s His grace that begins any of our initiatives towards Him in the first place. It’s not our “cooperation” with the Lord’s grace that entails our salvation, rather it’s His gratuitous gift of salvation that entails our free cooperation with His grace. “We cannot be saved by what we do; we can only be saved by grace, when God’s freely given love comes, takes hold of us, and transforms us.”2
This was the central spiritual lesson I learned from St. Thérèse. I cannot save myself. I can either completely abandon myself to the Lord, placing my interior life solely in His hands, or I can end up abandoned to death and darkness. Only by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ can I have the humility to accept our Father’s gift of salvation as just that—a gift. Not something I can boast about (cf. Eph 2:8). “God chose to save me because He knew that I would cooperate with His grace while others wouldn’t!” No. Even my cooperation is a gift. “All is gift.” For this reason, our spirituality must be one of childlike dependence on our loving Father.
This simple, “little,” spirituality appealed to me in a way that nothing I had read or heard in the Eastern Orthodox tradition up to that point ever did. Though funnily enough, since encountering and trying to live out “the little way” of St. Thérèse, I’ve been able to appreciate Eastern Christianity’s spiritual tradition more than I ever could before. By God’s grace, the Little Flower proved to be the bridge between monastic and non-monastic spirituality that I was lacking.
In a certain sense, Little Thérèse is the one who reintroduced me to the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s for this reason and more that, two years ago, I chose today, the feast of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, to be the day on which I received Holy Communion in the Catholic Church for the very first time. A few weeks after making this decision, I would even come to learn something quite providential about my conversion. Long before I decided to become Catholic, the friend who gave me Fr. Jacques’ book had prayerfully consecrated me to St. Thérèse with the intention that I would enter full communion with the Catholic Church. I had no knowledge of this when I chose her feast day to be my “First Catholic Communion.” I also didn’t realize that the day before St. Thérèse’s feast, when I did my general confession and profession of faith, was this friend of mine’s birthday. I suppose the Little Flower didn’t mind sharing the credit for my conversion!
This year I also learned something rather providential about my own birthday. I was born on May 17th, 2001. Not only does this mean that my birthday is the day on which, in 1925, Pope Pius XI canonized Thérèse as a Saint. Not only does this mean that my birthday, May 17th, is the day on which many Byzantine Catholics liturgically celebrate the feast of St. Thérèse. But this also means that this year, May 17th, 2025, the 100th anniversary of St. Thérèse’s canonization, was the same day and year as my 24th birthday—the very age St. Thérèse was when she fell asleep in the Lord.
As someone who firmly believes in divine providence, it’s hard for me to look at all of this and dismiss it as a mere coincidence, or worse, “the trickery of the devil.” No, this is true providence. The teachings of St. Thérèse, and indeed the teachings of the Catholic Church, have done nothing but strengthen and deepen my relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. Within the Church, I have grown more in my interior life than I ever could have dreamed of while I was outside the Church. And it was all possible because the Little Flower of Jesus decided to send me a rose.
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, pray for us!
Preserved from the thorns of vanity, * you blossomed like a lily in Carmel, O venerable Thérèse, * following the God-child in your life, * as a sacrifice of the merciful love of God, * you prayed for the world and revealed the way to what is higher, to be a child in Christ. * Therefore, your spirit rejoices now with the angels.
—Troparion for the Byzantine Feast of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus.
Quoted in Fr. Jacques, The Way of Trust and Love, pp. 37-8.
Fr. Jacques, The Way of Trust and Love, p. 35.
Sainte Thérèse de l'enfant Jésus, priez pour nous
Amen