THE SCIENCE OF LOVE
A Study in the Teachings of Therese of Lisieux
by John C. H. Wu
14. Life and Death
With a faith enlivened by such intense love and enlightened by such a transparent vision, it is no wonder that she even conquered death before she died. When a Sister asked her permission to weep upon her death, she said in tender reproach, "You will be bewailing my happiness"![65] When the Chaplain asked her, "Are you quite resigned to die?" she answered with a gentle retort, "Ah! my Father, I am even resigned to live! To die, that is the joy I would experience." She actually rose above life and death:
"What matters it then whether life or death? My only joy is to love Thee."[66]
This was possible because she had attained a spiritual state where her own will was merged into the Will of God. "I do not like one thing better than another; what the good God likes best and chooses for me, that it is which pleases me most."[67]
During the last months of her life she said something, which touches the very core of my heart: "Suppose that the good God should say to me, 'If you die now you shall have a very high degree of glory; if you die at eighty years of age your glory shall be much less, but the pleasure to Me far greater.' Oh, then I would not hesitate to reply, 'My God, I wish to die at eighty, for I do not seek my glory, but only Thy pleasure'." Her love for God is generous to such a degree that she is even willing to sacrifice Heaven for His sake, if this were indeed possible.
She would now be sixty-eight, if she had lived. She would be quite happy in remaining a hidden flower in the Carmel of Lisieux, unknown of men. But God wanted her to go back to Him at the age of twenty-four, and make a great saint of her. Is she resting in the arms of her Beloved now? No, for "souls on fire cannot remain inactive."[68] She wished to spend her heaven in doing good upon earth. Her mission is just beginning. "There can be no rest for me," she says, "until the end of the world. But when the angel shall have said: 'Time is no more!' then I shall rest, then I shall be able to rejoice, because the number of the elect will be complete."[69]
In heaven as on earth, the Little Flower of Jesus loves Him with such an abysmal love that she feels her own love is not enough. She wants millions and millions of other souls to love Him as she does. "I invite all the angels and saints to come and sing canticles of love." Even were the whole of creation to participate one day in the living concert of love, she would hardly think of it as more than a tiny drop of water lost in the Infinite Ocean of Divine Love. She would still feel as a little child towards its mother:
Who says that the heart of an inch-long grass
Can ever requite the full splendors of a whole
Spring?
ENDNOTES
1. One of China's most brilliant legal minds, Dr. Wu is also a noted scholar and the author of many well-known books, both legal and literary.
Although only 42, he has held among other, during a distinguished public career, the posts of President of the Provisional Court (1929); Adviser on Municipal Affairs to the Shanghai Municipal Council (1931)- and was Vice- Chairman of the Commission for Drafting a Permanent Constitution of China.
He has been a Member of the Legislative Yuan since 1933, and is, concurrently, the Chairman of the Law Codification Committee of the Legislative Yuan and Chief of the Editorial Department of the Sun Yat-sen Institute for the Advancement of Culture and Education.
He first studied law at the Comparative Law School of China at Shanghai, graduating with honors in 1921 with an L. B. Then he entered the University of Michigan, U.S.A., receiving his J. D. degree in 1922. His work was rewarded by a traveling fellowship in international law, given by the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace. This carried him to the University of the Sorbonne, and later, the University of Berlin.
He resigned the Presidency of the Provisional Court to prepare lectures to be delivered at Northwestern University Law School, Chicago, as a holder of the Rosenthal Foundation Lectureship. He also accepted an invitation to join the faculty of the Harvard Law School as a lecturer on comparative law. The illness of his wife prevented him from carrying it out and he returned to China in 1930.
2. Eckermann, "Conversations with Goethe" (Everyman's Library), p. 423.
3. "Saint Therese of Lisieux: An Autobiography," translated by Rev. Thomas N. Taylor (Burns, Oates and Washbourne, London), p. 268. In the notes to this essay, this book will be cited as "Autobiography".
4. "The First Epistle to the Corinthians," Chapter XIII.
5. This passage I have translated from "Sainte Therese de l'Enfant-Jesus: Histoire d'une Ame" (Imprimerie St. Paul, Bar-le-Duc), p. 208.
6. See "Matthew, XII. 48-50 (Vulgate)
7. The Gospel According to St. Luke, 10:38-42.
8. Ibid. 7: 36-47.
9. "Autobiography," p. 194.
10. Ibid. p. 137.
11. "The Spirit of St. Therese de l'Enfant-Jesus" (Burns, Oates and Washbourne, London), p. 93-4. This book will be cited in this essay as "Spirit". (3)
12. Ibid. p. 9.
13. From "The Two Lovers."
14. From "The Widow in the Bye Street."
15. "Novissima Verba: The last Conversations of St. Therese of the Child Jesus" (Burns, Oates and Washbourne, London) p. 112.
16. "Spirit;" p. 24
17.) "Library of St. Francis de Sales: Works of this Doctor of the Church" translated into English by Rev. Henry Benedict Mackey. II. "Treatise on the Love of God" (Burns, Oates and Washbourne, London), p. 211.
18. Novissima Verba, p. 139.
19. Shakespeare, "Hamlet" (Act 1, Scene 3):
"Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel."
Lao Tzu would say:
"Good tying makes no use of rope and knot, And yet nobody can untie it."
This comes nearer to Therese's philosophy than Shakespeare does.
20. "Spirit." p. 36.
21. "Histoire d'une Ame" (cited in note 4), p. 429
22. "Spirit," p. 37
23. "Autobiography," p. 297.
24. Ibid., p. 353.
25. "Spirit," p. 200.
26. "Autobiography," pp. 220-1.
27. "The Analects," Book I.
28. "Autobiography," pp. 222-3.
29. "Spirit," p. 150
30. See "China in Peace and War" (Kelly and Walsh. Shanghai). p. 73.
31. See Petitot, "Saint Therese of Lisieux" (Burns, Oates and Washbourne, London), p. 156.
32. "Autobiography," pp. 294-5.
33. "Spirit," p. 196.
34. "Toa Teh Ching," Chapter 44.
35. II. Corinthians, VI, 8 (Vulgate).
36. "Novissima Verba," p. 54.
37. Lao Tzu said:
Know the masculine,
Keep to the feminine
And be the Brook of the world.
To be the Brook of the world is
To move constantly in the path of Virtue
Without swerving from it
And to return again to Infancy.
Tao Teh Ching, Chapter 29.
The idea is that one should know how to be manly but act always gently like a woman. Therese could be a man if she wanted to. "Kindness must not degenerate into weakness." But most of the time, she was a woman.
38. "Spirit," p- 55
39. "Autobiography," p. 103.
40. "Novissima Verba," p. 62.
41. Ibid. pp. 82-3.
42. Autobiography, p. 316.
43. Ibid. p. 310.
44. Ibid. p. 313.
45. "Spirit," p. 34.
46. "Novissima Verba."
47. "Autobiography," p. 268.
48. See Alice Lady Lovat, "The Love of Saint Teresa."
Fr. P. Hernandez, after an interview with St. Teresa of Avila, said:
"They told me she was a remarkable woman; it is nothing of the sort. She is a man, and a man such as I have never seen before". (p. 311.)
I have often thought that Therese of Lisieux is to Teresa of Avila what Einstein is to Newton.
49. "Autobiography," p. 107.
50. See Mr. Justice Holmes, edited by Frankfurter, p. 116.
51. Letter dated Oct. 7, 1924.
52. Chapter XXV.
53. See Petitot, "St. Teresa of Lisieux," p. 263.
54. See "Jesus, The King of Love," p. 200.
55. "Autobiography," p. 205.
56. Ibid., pp. 221-2.
57. Petitot. p. 273.
58. "Spirit," p. 195.
59. "Autobiography," pp. 317-8.
60. "Spirit," p. 115.
61. Ibid., p. 115.
62. Thomas Aquinas, "Selected Writings" (Everyman's Library), p. 3.
63. See Ibid., p. 3.
64. "Autobiography," p 79
65. Ibid., p. 321
66. "Spirit," p. 141.
67. Ibid.. p. 142.
68. Ibid., p. 13.
69. "Autobiography," p. 231.
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