Posted on 18 June 2024

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Thérèse is not a theoretician of the Holy Spirit but a practitioner. The few passages where she speaks of the Holy Spirit are wisely consistent with the catechism. But in the thread of his life, the Spirit is powerfully at work!

“The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will make you remember everything that I have said to you. » (Jn 14,26)

Thérèse reads and meditates on the Holy Scriptures. His memory allows him to retain many verses in his heart, to know them “by heart”. In her long and last poem “Why I love you, O Mary”, she writes:

“The Gospel teaches me that increasing in wisdom
To Joseph, to Mary, Jesus remains submissive
And my heart reveals to me with what tenderness
He always obeys his dear parents. » (PN 54,15)

The Gospel teaches me…and my heart reveals to me. Everything is said here about the action of the Holy Spirit. Thérèse could have written: The Gospel teaches me… and the Holy Spirit reveals in my heart… But she takes a shortcut. The experience of the Holy Spirit who makes us remember everything Jesus said often goes unnoticed; we will only say: I remembered…

“The charity of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. » (Rm 5,5)

When Thérèse offers to lead Sister Saint-Pierre, aged and difficult, to the refectory (Cf. MsC 29), it is out of pure charity, this charity which leads Thérèse to give him your most beautiful smile before leaving. It is again this charity that she discovers during her last year: « meditating on these words of Jesus (as I have loved you, love one another), I understood how imperfect my love for my sisters was, I saw that I did not love them the way the Good Lord loves them. » (MSC 12r). And Thérèse chooses the Sister who displeases her the most to love her thus “as Jesus loved us”. “There is a sister in the community who has the talent to displease me in everything, her manners, her words, her character seemed very unpleasant to me. […] I told myself that charity should not consist of feelings, but of works; so I applied myself to doing for this sister what I would have done for the person I love most. » (MSC 13v-14r). Here again, the Holy Spirit remains discreet, invisible like the wind. We only know the wind by its effects. We only recognize the Holy Spirit by its effects.

Through her docility and determination, Thérèse allows the Holy Spirit to manifest many effects!

Father Emmanuel Schwab

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