Francisco Hirohisa Saito

Suffering as Inestimable Treasure by St. Therese of Lisieux

The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux

1. The Purpose of This Site

The purpose of this site is to trace out the spiritual growth path of St. Therese of Lisieux from very early days to the end of her life in order to see how her Spirituality was shaped, which is described later on as “The Little Way” by her elder sister, Sr. Genevieve (Celine) (See 14-32).

2. The Methods to Trace out The Spiritual Growth Path

Key words are chosen from the three works which inlude her own writings and one work mainly written by her elder sister, Mother Jesus of Agnes (Pauline). These works are hereafter called the Original Sources and listed in the following section with their abbreviations and the List of key words (hereafter The List) are shown at the Table below.

Self-love is happened to be chosen as the first word in the List so it has the number 1. There are some 50 words or phrases chosen and listed.

In the Original Sources paragraphs and/or sentences which include these key words are chosen, grouped and listed as quotations, an example of which is shown in the following table:

Each quotation is listed according to her age, the Original Sources and their page numbers, dates of writing if available, the code number such as 1-16-2, the quotation itself, and relevant key words the same quotation contains and their code numbers.

With respect to age, in some cases it is not clear at what age she was when she wrote these quotations in the Original Souces so in these cases age of the quotations is based on guessing works. That is why the question mark (The question marks are also often used in the Original Sources when age or the dates were not clearly determined).

The code number such as 1-16-2 indicates as follows: the first number 1 indicates the key word number seen in The List, which is The List 1 Self-love, Nature. In other words this quotation contains a key word “self-love” so grouped under the List 1. The second number 16 means she was 16 years old. The last number 2 means that quotation is second in the same age.

Quoted quotations contain other key words also. These key words are listed such as 17-16-7 which means the key word to be The List 17:Love Jesus, The Love of God, Charity, at the age of 16, and seventh quotation among that age.

In the quotations paragraphs or sentences are sometimes marked in red for emphasis (which are done by the editor of this HP) while quotations from the Bible, which are indicated by the footnotes of the Original Sources, in blue.

Italics are used in the Original Sources and the usage of italics are different from Souces to Souces. Also, the Original Sources are handtyped by the editor as carefully as possible but mistypes are unavoidable.

3. The Original Souces Used

The Original Souces and their abbreviations used are as follows:

1. SS: The Story of The Soul, The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisiuex,
   a new translation from the original manuscript by John Clarke, O.C.D.
   (Washington, D.C.:ICS Publications, 2nd ed.1975)
2. GCI: Saint Therese of Lisieux, General Correspondence, volume I,
   trans. by John Clarke, O.C.D. (Washington, D.C.:ICS Publications, 1982)
3. GCII: Saint Therese of Lisieux, General Correspondence, volume II,
   trans. by John Clarke, O.C.D. (Washington, D.C.:ICS Publications, 1988)
4. LC: The Last Conversations St. Therese of Lisieux,
   Her Last Conversations, trans. by John Clark, O.C.D.
   (Washington, D.C.:ICS Publications, 1975)

While SS was written by St. Therese, GCI and GCII include letters to and from St. Therese and letters among her correspondents. Finally, LC was mainly written by her elder sister, Mother Agnes of Jesus (Pauline). In the GCI and GCII letters are grouped as follows in the Original Souces:

1. LT :Letters from Therese.
2. LC: Letters from Therese's correspondents.
3. LD: Diverse letters from the correspondents.

The order of the quotations from these Original Sources in the List are SS, GCI, GCII, and LC in that order.

Although a work is not included in the above list of the sources, The Imitation of Christ (TIC hereafter : Thomas. a. K. The Imitation of Christ. trans. by Robert D. Wheathampstead:Anthony Clarke, 1980) should be added here since it had very significant influences on her.

4. The Little Way

Two months before her death she left the following message:

“ I have found happiness and joy on earth, but soley in suffering, for I've suffered very much here below; you must make it known to souls…. (2-24-51).

Well before the above statement, at the age of 16, she stated as follows:

 …Yes, Papa's three years of martyrdom appear to me as the most lovable, the most fruitful of my life; I wouldn't exchange them for all the ecstasies and revelations of the saints. My heart overflows with gratitude when I think of this inestimable treasure which must cause a holy jealousy to the angels of the heavenly court ( 2-16-3).

Her aspiration for sufferings started when she was 11 years old:

 The day after my communion, the words of Marie came to my mind. I felt born within my heart a great desire to suffer, and at the same time the interior assurance that Jesus reserved a great number of crosses for me. I felt myself flooded with consolations so great that I look upon them as one of the greatest graces of my life. Suffering became my attraction; it had charms about it which ravished me without my understanding them very well. Up until this time, I had suffered without loving suffering, but since this day I felt a real love for it. I also felt the desire of loving only God, of finding my joy only in Him. Often during my Communions, I repeated these words of the Imitation: “O Jesus, unspeakable sweetness, change all the consolations of this earth into bitterness for me.” This prayer fell from my lips without effort, without constraint; it seemed I repeated it not with my will but like a child who repeats the words a person he loves has inspired in him (2-11-2).

Sufferings had been placed in the center of her Spirituality throughout her life so it is most important to understand the roles of sufferings.

We hate sufferings, all kind of sufferings (2-9-1). Suppose your friend accused you of your behavior because of his misunderstanding. As soon as you heard this, you are urged to tell your friend that he is wrong. You want to prove you are right. This strong feeling is due to your egos, your nature.

The Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux tells us to accept these sufferings with silence (3-16-3). Silence means that we should react these sufferings with neither words nor behaviors (3-24-2).

However, it is extremely difficult for us to accept sufferings with silence because it is our nature to react against sufferings. If we try to accept sufferings with silence, we are to deny our nature itself; we are to deny ourselves.

Since it is impossible to deny our nature by ourselves, we must depend on some power to fight against our nature. That should be Jesus, our Lord. We pray hard to Jesus to come to our souls and fight against our nature and egos.

If Jesus comes to our souls to fight against our egos, we must keep our trust and confidence to the Wills of Jesus. It should be unconditional. After we pray to Jesus and if we keep our silence, that is the proof that Jesus is fighting against our egos in our souls.

However, as we cannot know in advance what would be the Wills of Jesus, we are not sure what would be the results of our trust and confidence to the Wills of Jesus even if we may have started to accept sufferings with silence at first. Our trust and confidence may not be so strong as we hope.

Moreover, if we meet sufferings with silence, we may feel excruciating pains in our souls because our egos would be renounced. The stronger our egos are, the harder we have to pray to Jesus until the end of sufferings, which would be decided by Jesus Himself.

You may notice now that if you meet sufferings with silence, Jesus, the Love of God, will be in your souls while your egos will be stripped away little by little and your unconditional trust and confidence to the Wills of Jesus is offered to Him.

Jesus came to the earth for the salvation of souls. In order to save souls St. Therese of Lisieux tells us that Jesus needs our love to Him; without our love to Jesus He would not do anything (22-19-1). How could we give our love to Jesus?

Sacrifices offered to Jesus due to renunciation are our proof of love to Him, so says St. Therese of Lisieux (1-23-1). If we keep unconditional trust and confidence to the Wills of Jesus when we meet sufferings with silence, renunciation will be carried out. With our love given to Jesus, He will use it to the salvation of souls of others (2-23-2).

These are the reasons why St. Therese of Lisieux placed such importance to sufferings we meet in our daily life; sufferings expose our nature or egos very simply and clearly and invite Jesus, the Love of God, to our souls to erase our egos while dedicating unconditional trust and confidence to the Wills of Jesus, which will be utilized by Jesus to save souls of others (2-16-22).

Mother Agnes of Jesus wrote as follows in the LC:
 I was asking her about the “way” she wanted to teach to souls after her death:
 “Mother, it's the way of spiritual childhood, it's the way of confidence and total abandon. I want to teach them the little means that have so perfectly succeeded with me, to tell them there is only one thing to do here on earth: to cast at Jesus the flowers of little sacrifices, to take Him by caresses; this is the way I've taken Him, and it's for this that I shall be so well received.” (14-24-30).

She knew clearly that every suffering is chosen and given to us by Jesus Himself (2-16-18).

This process to believe Jesus' Wills unconditionally while we endure our sufferings was described by St. Therese of Lisieux as “to cast at Jesus the flowers of little sacrifices, to take Him by caresses.” By doing so we are able to renounce our own egos in our souls by the power of Jesus and filled with God's Love.

To keep giving many proofs of our love to Jesus is really The Little Way, by renoucing our personal desires and wishes through bearing our own crosses in our daily life. If you follow The Little Way even if you keep failing, you will be amply rewarded by Jesus if you succeed even once and a little. As you keep walking The Little Way, you start to feel that immediately after you face your new suffering you know that you are loved by Jesus. Eventually you start to love your sufferings. This is the reason why St. Therese of Lisieux called our sufferings as “Inestimable Tresure”. TIC tells us: When you come to the point that affliction tastes sweet to you for Christ's sake; then reckon it is well with you, for you have found paradise on earth (TIC 51, Book II, Section 12).

The Little Way is not the way to walk for your own happiness or goodness or even for your own salvation at all (2-18-2). Your sufferings which are offered to Jesus are the proof of your love. This love will be delivered to unknown souls on earth after your love is sanctified by the touch of Jesus.

There is one thing we have to be very careful about enduring our sufferings; that is, it is necessary for us to keep silence (3-8-1) because these sufferings are chosen and given to us to make our soul filled with the love of God by Jesus Himself. The issue is only between Jesus and ourselves. Showing our total trust and confidence to His Wills really means we should not have anyone to consult, anyone other than Jesus. If we fail to keep silence and tell someone our sufferings, that means we do not have total confidence and trust to the Wills of Jesus.

5. A Brief Background of the Editor

My name is Francisco Hirohisa Saito and born in 1942 in Tokyo, Japan. I was baptized as a Roman Catholic in 1988. In early 1990's I happened to meet the Last Conversations in Japanese which captivated my soul and ever since then I followed her and published a book titled The Little Way in Japanese in 1997, the year commemorating the two hundredth year of St. Therese of Lisieux.

When I published the first book, I thought I understood The Little Way to some extent. Not really so, I later found out. That pushed me to present The Little Way, from a different way which is this site. Neither am I a theologian nor received any formal training in theology.

I seriously doubt whether I am qualified to present this material but the only reason I have made this site is due to the statement of St. Therese of Lisieux cited above.

I do hope many will follow The Little Way and keep sending their proof of love to Jesus each day. If you follow The Little Way you understand not only that the suffering is “inestimable treasure” but also that you are walking the way Jesus laid down.

Finally, I strongly urge anyone who might be interested in the “The Little Way” of St. Therese of Lisieux to read the Original Sources listed above.

6. The List of Key Words and Phrases

The following is the list of key words or phrases to understand the Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux in a form of a table. The way you use this table is to choose key word you may be interested in; then click a search code attached to the key word on the right hand of the table. It will take you to the relevant site immediately.

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Proceed to the next List 1: Self-love, Nature.

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