P. Gorazd Cetkovský O.Carm.
In the time of St. Teresa of Avila – the founder of the Discalced Carmelites – it was customary in some religious orders to accept not only a religious name but also a predicate (nickname) – in the manner of nobles. While among nobles this indicated that the individual hailed from a famous or wealthy family, the nicknames of religious referred to the names of the Lord Jesus, the Virgin Mary, to the mysteries of their lives, to God's attributes or mysteries, or to the figures of individual saints: these are indeed the sources of true wealth and glory of Christ's disciples. This custom is preserved among Discalced Carmelites to this day and was alive during the time of St. Therese of Lisieux. Here we could pause and reflect: if I could choose such a name, such a predicate – would it bring me joy to express my relationship to some mystery of God's life or to a saint, my spiritual experience? Are there more pronounced features maturing in my piety, or would I have to 'just say something'?
Let us return to St. Teresa. She received her predicate, she did not choose it: Teresa of the Child Jesus. This is how she is officially referred to in the church's liturgical books today. Behind this predicate lies the living reverence of the reformed Carmel towards the mystery of the childhood of God's Son, associated with an artistic representation that is closely linked to our land: the Holy Infant of Prague, a statue preserved in the Church of Our Lady Victorious in Malá Strana, which was formerly and – thanks be to God – again is managed by the Discalced Carmelite friars. We could tell at length and interestingly about how this name 'fit' Teresa and how she grew more and more into it. If today we sometimes encounter the phenomenon of 'children raising children' and that a child is merely a toy for incompletely grown parents or even grandparents, whom they spoil instead of educating, for Teresa, the Child Jesus was not a toy; on the contrary, she wanted to be a toy in his hands, to make herself entirely available to him. When she felt she was unable to be an instrument of Jesus because she was useless, incapable, she wanted even more to be a pleasure for him, a joy. And to that end, she sought small opportunities and utilized them with tender attention and heroic tenacity. Her spiritual journey is rightly called the path of spiritual childhood.
However, Teresa was not satisfied with this predicate. On a note written to Sister Martha on the day of her profession, January 10, 1889, she adds for the first time a second predicate after her name: Teresa of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. This relationship of Teresa to the Holy Face of Jesus I would now like to choose as the theme of our reflection.
We can start our consideration quite generally – after all, we know that Teresa was not only a girl and a holy woman, but also a naturally very sensitive and perceptive person. The face is the mirror of a person's soul. We say: "The eye is the window to the soul," but we can extend this to the face of a person in general. Let us also realize: how unpleasant it is to us to have an injury on our face, something that would make our face ugly … We reproach children when they speak to us with their faces turned away, as this suggests insincerity, disrespect. All this we have 'under our skin', without being particularly aware of it. In Teresa’s case, there were additional experiences and influences, but we will mention those later.
Reverence for the Holy Face of Christ spread in the 19th century after the revelations of the Lord Jesus to Sister Marie of St. Peter from the convent of Carmelites in Tours. Teresa mentions in her memories that she was introduced to it by Sister Pauline already at home in the family and especially later in the convent. She writes to her:
“... Until then I had not probed the depths of the treasures hidden in the Holy Face. It was only through you, beloved mother, that I learned to know them. Just as you once led us all to Carmel, so you were the first to penetrate the mystery of love hidden in the face of our Bridegroom. Then you called me, and I understood ...” (AS 147).
It is important to point out that in our mindset, the Holy Face is almost exclusively associated with the photograph of the face from the so-called Shroud of Turin. However, this was photographed for the first time only a year after Teresa's death. The image of Christ's face, venerated by the sisters in Lisieux, depicts the Veil of Veronica, supposedly preserved in Rome at St. Peter's Basilica. Here, Jesus’s face is covered with blood, from his closed (as opposed to the now widespread reproductions!) eyes drip drops of tears. It is not Jesus's death mask, but an image of the face of the living, suffering Jesus. The prayers composed by Teresa are directly inspired by this depiction, it must not be overlooked, otherwise they will become incomprehensible to us. She says:
“How well our Lord did to lower his eyes when he gave us his image! After all, the eyes are the mirror of the soul; if we were to discern his soul, we would die of joy” (Vs 96).
Such an image of the Holy Face was placed by Teresa in her breviary, coming into her hands daily. During her illness, she had it pinned to a cord at her bed, so she could always keep it in sight. When the sisters brought her an image of the Holy Face from the chapel into the hospital before the Feast of the Transfiguration (which was associated with the reverence for the Holy Face), she did not take her eyes off it all night.
I would now like to present several testimonies regarding the extraordinary significance of the reverence for the Holy Face in Teresa's spiritual life and its growth. Thus, Teresa's novice Marie of the Holy Trinity testified during the canonization process that Teresa had a particular reverence for the Holy Face, that the sight of the Holy Face within her ignited a fervent desire to resemble it. The words of Mother Agnes during the same process are eloquent:
“In a particular way, the servant of God revered the Holy Face. Her reverence for the childhood of Jesus was also deep, but still – it cannot be compared at all with her piety towards the Holy Face…” (PA 580).
Teresa's words preserved in Last Conversations show us where her fervent reverence for the Holy Face stemmed from, what confirmed her in it: the words of the prophet Isaiah from the so-called fourth song about the servant of God, verses describing the humiliation of God's servant:
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain,
like one from whom people hide their faces.
(Isaiah 53:2-3)
She confessed: “These words of Isaiah ... formed the entire foundation of my devotion to the Holy Face, or rather the foundation of my whole piety. I too wished to be without beauty, myself ... unknown to all creation ...” (Vs 96)
It should be noted that Isaiah's mention of the face is obscure and difficult to interpret in the original Hebrew text. Whereas today's translations tend to prefer the understanding that others cover their faces before the humbled Servant, translations at the time of Teresa presented the text in such a way that the Servant’s face is hidden, obscured to those around him. This is how Teresa also meditated on the text.
I have already hinted that Teresa had a particular sensitivity compared to us regarding the gesture of covering the face. For various reasons. Until the Second Vatican Council, Carmelites still used a veil in their interactions with the world. They covered their faces even in the convent parlor before visitors (except for parents and siblings.)
Let us also recall Teresa’s vision of Anne of Jesus:
“... I saw three Carmelites dressed in their cloaks and large veils ... it was clear to me that they came from heaven. In the depths of my heart, I cried out: How happy I would be if I could see the face of one of these Carmelite sisters! ... The Carmelite lifted her veil – or rather, raised it – and covered me with it ... Her face was beautiful in a non-material manner ... illuminated by an unspeakably sweet light” (AS 184). But the greatest significance for Teresa's sensitivity regarding the covering of the face had the vision she experienced at the age of six or seven in the garden of the house in Buissonnet during her father's several-day absence:
“... I saw a man dressed just like my father. He had the same figure and walk, he was just much more hunched over ... His head was covered with some kind of apron of an indefinite color, so that I could not see his face. I saw him walking with a regular step along my little garden ... Immediately, a feeling of supernatural dread seized my soul ...” (AS 48).
Teresa called out: ‘Father!’ but the figure walked away without looking back. No one else noticed anything, Sister Marie advised her not to think about it. She herself writes further that it was beyond her strength; even after years she saw it vividly before her. Only after fourteen years, when they discussed it again, both understood: it was a premonition of the trial that would later so painfully strike the family – the darkening of her father's mind in his old age.
It truly was he, on his venerable face, on his white head, bore the mark of his glorious trial. As the venerable face of Jesus was veiled during his passion, so too was the face of his faithful servant to be veiled in the days of his suffering – so it could shine in the heavenly homeland with his Lord, the eternal Word!..” (AS 50).
All this created in Teresa's heart the soil from which her reverence for the Holy Face grew. Let us recall once again that Teresa speaks of the "foundation of all her piety." Bishop Guy Gaucher emphasizes the importance of these words and advocates that we use both her predicates when referring to Teresa: “If we shorten her name, we shorten her message...”
Thus, we are confronted with the most serious question: what was the content of Teresa's intense relationship with the Holy Face? The answer is: Her "spiritual guide" was Jesus.
“He himself taught me the science that is hidden from the learned and wise and which he reveals to the little … The little flower, transplanted on Mount Carmel, was to develop in the shadow of the cross. The tears and blood of Jesus became her dew, and his venerable Face, shrouded in sorrow, was her sun …” (AS 147)
The Holy Face for Teresa “hides the depth of treasures, conceals the 'mystery of love'. She further writes:
“I understood what true glory is. He whose kingdom is not of this world showed me that true wisdom consists in being 'willing to be unknown and regarded as nothing', in 'placing my joy in being despised'. I wished that ‘my face would be’ like Jesus’s 'truly hidden, so that no one on earth would recognize me'. I thirsted to suffer and be forgotten …” (ibid.). (Here Teresa quotes her beloved book The Imitation of Christ.)
If we connect these words with the testimony of prayers to the Holy Face written by Teresa, we can attempt a summary:
- Jesus’s face is hidden – veiled: by humiliation and sorrow;
- it is not veiled to all; Teresa says: “we understand” the mystery of this Face. Faith in Jesus as Savior and the desire to resemble the suffering Christ reveal it to us;
- the mystery of Christ's face is closely and inseparably linked to faith in the temporariness of this humiliation and in faith in Christ's Easter victory and in his eternal kingdom, “which is not of this world”, to which we travel through earthly trials: Teresa herself considered earthly life unbearable without faith in God's kingdom and – despite all the beauties of the world – an exile. The longed-for heaven then meant for her to “assure Jesus of her love in the eternal meeting face to face” … (Act of Offering to Merciful Love, AS 258). How much more terrible it must have been for her when her faith in heaven was subjected to great trial … (cf. AS 205 and following),
- God's “humbling himself” for our salvation is, in fact, the common mystery of both Teresa's predicates: God became a little child for us and became for us the 'discarded' condemned one. The Holy Face is the drastic manifestation of what is already hinted at by the birth of Jesus in the stable;
- the thirst of the suffering Jesus is a thirst for love, and human hearts, which he came to warm with his love, remain cold…
However, Teresa was not only a sensitive person, but also temperamental, lively. She does not approach the mystery of the Holy Face as merely a gazing spectator, but strives to respond to it vividly, especially as a Carmelite and together with her companions. Her response is:
to comfort Jesus's thirst with love and to resemble him:
- in abandonment and in humiliation,
- in suffering.
“To suffer and to be forgotten…”
There is nothing spiritually or mentally unhealthy behind this, but Teresa's experience: in the midst of humiliation and pain, the soul is most protected from the danger of loving – without being aware of it – only 'oneself' (cf. AS 228).
“Love feeds on sacrifices. The more natural satisfactions the soul denies itself, the more its love grows stronger and more unselfish” (ibid.).
I dare say that similar words are not welcomed today even in the Church. They seem harsh to us. But it is enough to consider: will I believe that someone truly loves me, who I see does not surrender his comfort and is also concerned about his own glory? …
Teresa certainly was not a person who had not come to terms with life, who wanted somehow to 'commit suicide', to destroy herself. She loved life; she wanted to live fully; she wanted others to live fully too – all, even sinners – she wanted God's love not to remain unanswered. Her lifelong experience confirmed to her that the path of humiliation and suffering is a protection against the intoxicating delusion of self-love, that the path of sacrifice is the most precious and assured way … And in the Holy Face, she read that her inner knowledge was correct, that it is the path of Jesus.
Should I attempt to suggest what we can draw for ourselves from this? Perhaps we could say:
- let us learn to look into the faces of the people around us, to read and especially to honor their mystery;
- let us renew our sensitivity to the quiet language of the crosses and images of Christ, saints;
- let us discard our cheap conception of following the Lord; let us read in his face;
- let us penetrate with faith the veil of sorrow on Jesus’s insulted face, so that we perceive its beauty – his love;
- let us reflect on our inner experiences regarding what is true life wisdom and true glory, comparing them with what we read in the Holy Face, in the Gospel;
but above all:
- let us grow with Teresa in the desire to suffer and be forgotten, to love with uncompromising unselfish and sacrificial love.
Isn't Teresa's devotion to the Holy Face a prophecy for our world? A healing 'cold compress' on the fever of ambition, selfishness, and comfort, of which our world is sick and which – it seems – is rising? When Teresa wanted to see the face of Anne of Jesus, the Carmelite placed her under her veil. Is it possible to gaze upon the mystery of Jesus’s face without entering under the veil of humiliation
and suffering?
Let us cast aside fear for ourselves. In Teresa we see: God does not want to break us, but to fill us with his power, his life.
“Oh, how much good this Holy Face has done for me in my life! …” (Vs 96).
And in the Explanation of her arms, Teresa herself wrote:
“Teresa Martin became ‘Teresa of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face’. These are her noble titles, her wealth and hope …” (AS 177).
(Abbreviations: AS – Autobiographical Writings, Karmelitánská spiritualita edition,
published by Tiskárna Vimperk, 1991;
Vs – Entering into Life, Karmelitánské nakladatelství, Kostelní Vydří 1992.)
