A Confession and a Beginning

Today is Ash Wednesday, and so the first day of the Teresa Project.

I have to begin with a confession:

I am not a big fan of St. Therese.

Or, more correctly, she has never felt close to my soul. I think that is one of the beauties of the Catholic Church and her great collection of saints - there is someone there for everyone. Saints are people, too - some you meet and  immediately bond with, some you develop a relationship with over time, some you respect and admire but never grow close to, and some just irritate you right off the bat.

Ready for my really big confession? St. Therese has always really, really irritated me.

I KNOW! Everyone loves her! She is the darling of many young Catholic women. Trust me - I went to a very Catholic university, and the Little Flower was highly revered.

I do not have a good explanation for it - she and I just have very different personalities. I like my women saints big and bold - like St. Theresa of Avila, reformer, or St. Catherine of Sienna, challenger of popes, or St. Edith Stein, an intellectual bad-ass.

St. Theresa has always seemed too....fluffy for me.

Maybe it is "shy-girl syndrome". All my life I have felt chubby or shy or umpteen other kinds of social-awkwardness. Most of my pre-teen and teen years where spent being shut out of the "in" circle of my youth group (where I had to spend quite a bit of my time). After years of this kind of treatment, shy-girls like me can often take an instant dislike to those girls who are pretty, popular, and so, so 'in".

I am the shy girl in the spiritual corner and St. Therese is the 'it" girl of Catholic saints.

So, in all honesty, although I made myself buy Story of a Soul while in college, and actually read it, I have always kind of dismissed her from my inner spiritual circle.

Until recently.

I have been on a Great Search the past few years. A Great Search for my place in this world. Where doors have slammed shut on paths I thought I was on, where callings I thought I had have gone silent - I have become un-anchored, unsure of who I am, who I am called to be, and what I am supposed to be doing.

Over the past year, she began to call me. I have tried to ignore her, because I do not want to hear. I do not want to know.

You see, what I am afraid of is her message.

The main message of St. Terese of Lisieux is this - do small things with great love.

That is all fine and good, and not the least bit threatening, when your life is full of doing Important Things. Like, if you have a good job, or a Mission, or Life Work, or you are one of those people who did not mean to become a popular writer or a public speaker, or you found your Life's Calling through an accident - it is not so hard to offer those small things to God during the course of your busy, Important life.

But what if your life only consists of small things?

There just is not much to offer, anymore.  Nothing Important. Nothing news-worthy.

St. Therese says, "Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be."

If you are facing fame and/or fortune and/or a Public Mission, it may be frightening, but you can accept God may asks this of you. You see, while St. Therese lived this Small Way her whole life, she gained fame, albeit posthumously. She is a freaking Doctor of the Church.


But if God asks you to do nothing? Be "no one"?  If you live and die and are remembered in quiet obscurity

And what if he asks you to be quiet? To be hidden in a home, raising children, doing nothing in a spectacular fashion? What if He asks you to take those plans, dreams, and desires, and lay them to rest, even if just for the time being?

Can you truly give yourself to His Will, if it is His Will that you only watch others succeed where you have failed?

This is what I feel St Therese is challenging me to face. She has offered to take my hand and lead me to face these thoughts I have longed to ignore. She is offering me her friendship and companionship in this journey.

And I have accepted.

This is the basis for my Teresa Project.