Katka Lachmanová
Some time ago, we explored the so-called " grace of Christmas " in the life of Saint Therese of Lisieux,1 that is, the grace of her second conversion and internal transformation that allowed her to go beyond herself, open to love, and begin to love God and others in a completely new way. It is no surprise that immediately after this grace, in the "story of her soul," the awakening of an apostolic spirit followed, a great desire for the salvation of souls that manifested in intense intercessory prayer for those who do not know God.
Therese is only fourteen years old and is not yet at Carmel. However, the Lord sends her several impulses that strongly motivate her to intercessory prayer, which will soon become the main mission of her consecrated life. On one Sunday in July 1887, she gazes at a small image of the Crucified in church and receives an inner grace whose effect far exceeds its external banal cause. Therese recounts:
“I was deeply struck by the sight of the blood that flowed from one of his divine hands. A great pain surged through me at the thought that this blood falls to the ground and no one hurries to collect it. I resolved to linger in spirit under the cross and capture the divine dew that flows from it. I understood that then I would have to pour it out on souls... Jesus' cry on the cross also constantly resonated in my heart: 'I thirst!' These words ignited an unknown and burning fire in me... I wanted to give my Beloved something to drink, and I myself felt consumed by thirst for souls...”2
Above all, we are surprised by the biblical purity of the symbolism that Therese employs, which is far removed from the common understanding of intercessory prayer in her time as "penance for the salvation of souls." For Therese, the core of intercessory prayer is not her ascetic achievements, personal sacrifices, and merits; the essence is to receive in faith the saving work of Christ and – through faith – to call it upon all those who have not yet opened themselves to it. One must, in faith, "capture" the precious blood of Christ and "sprinkle" it on humanity like life-giving dew. In other words, “merits do not consist in giving much, but rather in the art of receiving much, loving much,” as she writes once to Celine.3 Both the saving will (desire to save all people) and the only saving remedy flow from the merciful heart of Christ. Therese does not play the savior with respect to anyone. Her beautifully biblical understanding of grace becomes even more pronounced when she later adds several scriptural quotations beside the image of the Crucified that spoke to her in this context.
Interpretation of Biblical Quotations Surrounding the Crucified
Therese uses Holy Scripture with great freedom; at first glance, it seems that she has selected and connected passages from the New Testament that have little in common. However, the choice of quotations must have been guided by the Holy Spirit, as their connection highlights the words of Scripture in a new light, opening up unimagined depths for us.
Above the image, Therese wrote Christ's cry on the cross: “I thirst” (Jn 19:28) and added Jesus' request to the Samaritan woman at the well: “Give me a drink!” (Jn 4:7). Below the image, we find Peter's declaration of love for the Lord, which occurred, as we know, in a somewhat dramatic context after their meeting following the resurrection (and thus after Peter's recent denial and abandonment of Christ during his suffering and crucifixion): “Lord, you know that I love you” (Jn 21:15). Therefore, immediately following this declaration of love is the penitent prayer of the tax collector in the temple: “... but be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Lk 18:13)
Vertically along both edges of the image, Christ's dialogue with the woman at the well continues with omissions. On the left, we read: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you, 'Give me a drink!', you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. (...) Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.” And on the right edge, the text continues: “... and the water I give him will become in him a spring welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14).
Let us now attempt to glimpse into the internal logic of these biblical statements and events. The vertical connection (of the quotations at the top and bottom edges) appears quite clear. Therese always understands Christ's thirst as “thirst for the salvation of souls,”4 in other words, Christ's “thirst for love,” or the desire to find souls that will understand his love, allow themselves to be loved by him, and will reciprocate his love.
In the poem "Angels at Jesus' Cradle," Therese puts this confession into the mouth of the divine Child: “I thirst to be able to give myself to souls, but there are so many languid hearts; bring them your fire, seraph, and draw them to you with your songs.” In the opening part of a letter to her sister Marie of the Sacred Heart,5 Therese explains: “He does not need our deeds, only our love. The same God who declares that he does not need to tell us if he is hungry,6 did not hesitate to beg the Samaritan for a little water. He was thirsty... But when he said, 'Give me a drink,' the Creator of the universe was asking for the love of his poor creature. He thirsted for love!... I feel this more than ever; Jesus is thirsty, dealing only with ungrateful and indifferent hearts. Unfortunately, ... he finds only a few hearts that surrender unreservedly to him, that understand all the tenderness of his infinite love!”7
The thirst for love and the thirst for souls is for Therese one and the same, even when she speaks of her own thirst. Her thirst comes from Christ; it is his gift; one could say that it is a deep resonance with his heart full of mercy. Soon Therese will experience a powerful answer to her prayers in the form of the conversion of the murderer Pranzini, who, at the last moment on the scaffold, takes hold of the cross and kisses Christ's holy wounds. For Therese, this gesture is a great sign that her recent spiritual intuition before the image of the Crucified was correct and that the thirst she feels in her heart is indeed a share in the thirst of Jesus' heart:
“Did not thirst for souls arise in my heart just at the sight of Jesus' wounds when I saw his divine blood flowing? I wanted to give souls to drink of this immaculate blood, which was to cleanse them from all stains, and the lips of my 'first child' were pressed against the holy wounds!!!... From this unique grace, my desire to save souls grew every day; it seemed to me that I heard Jesus say to me as he did to the Samaritan: 'Give me a drink!' It was a true exchange of love; I gave souls the blood of Jesus, and I offered Jesus these souls, refreshed by his divine dew.”8
Thus, there is only one response to Jesus' thirst, a confession of love: “Lord, you know that I love you...!” Not coincidentally does Therese remind us with this statement of the episode of the revelation of the risen Jesus on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias, when he again manifested himself as the Almighty Lord through a miraculous catch of fish. The miraculous catch contains a double symbol:
1) It recalls to Therese the grace of Christmas 1886, when, after ten years of effort and simultaneous recognition of her own powerlessness, she experienced a divine intervention that profoundly transformed her: “Jesus accomplished in a single moment the work I could not achieve in ten years, and was satisfied only with my good will,” wrote Therese.
2) Her personal experience, confirmed by the word of God regarding the miraculous catch, gives her the courage to hope not only for herself but also for others who need to experience the intervention of God's power. Thus, she becomes a “fisher of men,” even though she is aware that fundamentally, the Fisher remains Jesus. He guarantees the abundance of the catch: “To me, Jesus was even more merciful than to the disciples; he himself took the net, threw it, and pulled up a full catch of fish...”9
Finally, it is not coincidental that the confession of love to which Therese responds to Jesus' thirst is precisely Peter's confession, which followed the triple question from Jesus and Peter's triple denial! Therefore, Therese quickly adds the tax collector's “be merciful to me, a sinner.” She evidently wants to emphasize the enormous disproportion between Jesus' claim and the possibilities of a weak and sinful person (who nonetheless does not lack good will). Surely, this reminds us of a similar “disproportion” that arose during Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” If we were to set aside the language of parables, we could likely express Therese's thought like this: “How is it possible that you, Almighty God, want to drink from me, who am but a poor sinner like all the others, relying solely on your mercy; who am not able to love as you love?"
Therese sees the solution to the riddle in the “gift of God” that Jesus promises, or in the light of Jesus' words to the Samaritan woman. This image forms a kind of bridge over the chasm between the statements at the top and bottom edges: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you to give him a drink, you would ask him...“ (Jn 4:10). Shortly before her death, Therese expresses herself quite clearly:
“You know, my God, that I have never desired anything but to love you... Your love has preceded me since my childhood, growing with me, and now it is a chasm whose depth I cannot fathom... My Jesus, my love rushes to you, wanting to fill the chasm that calls me, but alas! It is not even a drop of dew, lost in the ocean!... To love you as you love me, I must take possession of your own love; only then will I find rest.”10
From the meditation on the image of the Crucified (with Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross), it is clear that Therese does not envision the intercessor with God as a "righteous" one who pays off the debts of sinners around him with his merits. Therefore, Therese does not at all concern herself with examining whether her prayer is worthy or unworthy, powerful or weak. She relies exclusively on God's infinite mercy and on the merits of the one who laid down his life for all of us: “... for we offer to the Father in heaven not our merits, but the merits of our Bridegroom, which are also our merits...,” she writes once to Celine.11
Ultimately, this is a purely biblical attitude, because in this spirit the Old Testament prophets already called upon the Lord: “For we do not present our pleas for mercy before you because of our righteous deeds, but because of your great mercy” (Dn 9:18).
