Madonna - November/December 2008

Touched by Thérèse - Chris Gleeson SJ

As we move towards a new year, the former ‘Cenacle’ retreat house in Ormiston, Brisbane, is gradually taking on a new life. Its former owners and spiritual directors, the Cenacle Sisters, returned to New Zealand in 2006 after 22 years of splendid service in this ministry. Great patrons of Madonna, they laid strong foundations for the next chapter in the story of this site, once beautifully named ‘St Joseph’s Field’ by the original owners and close neighbours, the Carmelite Sisters.

Always one to promote the importance of prayer, Archbishop John Bathersby persuaded his advisors to purchase the property for the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane. Since that time, in mid-2006, a working party has articulated a vision for the property, and recently completed building has seen the doubling of residential accommodation, the erection of two new chapels with line of sight panoramic views of Moreton Bay, and significant renovations and extensions generally. The archdiocese chose this author to be the Director, and with fellow Jesuit and experienced spiritual director, John Reilly, at his side, they have welcomed a good number of retreatants already.

‘Santa Teresa’ looks across Moreton Bay to Stradbroke Island where Queensland’s first Catholic mission to indigenous people began in 1843. In naming the centre Santa Teresa, Archbishop John Bathersby wanted not only to honour St Thérèse of Lisieux, but sought also to keep alive the connection with our indigenous brothers and sisters and link us to the Santa Teresa mission outside Alice Springs, famous for its art work amongst other achievements.

I was a little bemused when the Archbishop first told me of his decision to name the centre after St Thérèse. My own preference had been for someone like Pope John XXIII, but subsequent reading and reflection has pointed to the wisdom of the Archbishop’s choice. After all, St Thérèse of Lisieux continues to hold great interest for people of all ages. This is what the editor of the well respected Tablet wrote in their October 17 edition last year:

‘Revelations of popular devotion always seem to take the media and their social commentators by surprise. These phenomena fly in under the radar. So it was with the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the Queen Mother; so it was again this week with the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, probably more than a quarter of a million, turned out at various times to show their respect for the relics of an obscure nineteenth-century French nun—obscure during her lifetime, now one of the most famous women in the world. Undaunted by the cynicism of the secular columnists, St Thérèse’s fans were by no means all Catholics …

‘St Thérèse said, before she died aged 24, that her ambition was to spend her time in heaven doing good on earth. Yet her legacy was modest to say the least—one book, L’Histoire d’une Ame (‘The Story of a Soul’) and many letters … Her way was through what she called the Science of Love.’

Reflecting on the arrival of Thérèse’s relics in England and Wales, John Udris, Dean of Northampton Cathedral, relates a story of her pilgrimage to Rome as a teenager. It happened in the church of Santa Croce, home of the relics of the true cross. She found that she could slip her little finger through a gap in the reliquary in such a way that she could actually touch its contents. Thérèse herself explained: ‘I always had to find a way of touching everything.’ In another episode, she herself described how her hand was small enough to push through the grille so that other pilgrims could pass their rosaries for her to touch them to the tomb of a saint. Who would have thought that, a little over a century later, thousands of people would be queuing up to honour her in the same way?

In late October I received an email from one of my former students, Daniel Street, who is now studying for a Master’s Degree in Development Studies at Cambridge. Dan is a remarkable young man from the St Ignatius College Riverview class of 1998, certainly no pious pill, and this was his take on visiting the relics of St Thérèse in England:

‘Interestingly last week I journeyed to London for the night and visited the relics of St Thérèse at Westminster Cathedral. They have been touring England and Wales for the past month. I went there with a good friend of mine, Toby Lees, who was in his final year at Stonyhurst during my Grumitt year of 99. Nearly a thousand people were packed into the church at the time and I was told the number of visitors was so great the church was open 24-hours for three days to accommodate everyone, including the all-night vigils. Toby and I both remarked what a spiritually uplifting experience the evening was—to be that close to the remains of a saint, with her ‘Story of a Soul’ and message of offering God ‘very little things’ as deeply moving today as it was when she penned her story before anchoring in the harbour of eternity. I’ll be sure to post you the booklet I kept from the night.’

Returning to the importance of touch, modern spiritual writers like Joan Chittister and Ronald Rolheiser invite us to reflect on what touches us in life. Joan Chittister can write: ‘I have a theory that only what touches the heart is lodged in the mind. Memory is made up of what has touched our lives.’ (Called to Question, p.152) Similarly, Ron Rolheiser can provoke us with statements like ‘passion is God’s fire in us’. To have a tender moment, a touching moment, is to pray: ‘We need to pray by picking up the tender moment and letting its grace soften us’ (Forgotten Among the Lilies, p.123). The prayer of all prayers, the Eucharist, is God’s physical embrace of us, God’s touch.

St Thérèse of Lisieux had said similar things a little over a hundred years ago. Little wonder that she was created a Doctor of the Church in 1997! Santa Teresa is truly ‘a saint for everyone’. There is no magic here, no superstition. As the Tablet editor concludes: ‘The cult of Thérèse is so popular not because it is about visible miracles, signs and portents, but because it tells us that the simple goodness of the saint is open to everyone.’ Let us not forget that we become those who touch us.