A Book Review . . . Learning From St. Therese’s Spiritual Childhood
By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
Trusting God With St. Therese, by Connie Rossini (Four Waters Press: 2014); 249 pages; $14.55 print, $4.12 e-book. Visit http://contemplativehomeschool.com.
Trusting God With St. Therese comprises 13 chapters and various appendices on the life and teachings of St. Therese of Lisieux, and how these can be applied in our lives so as to deepen our trust in God. It moves from a general focus on why it is important to trust God — including topics such as his universal Fatherhood — to give advice on how to deal with negative emotions, fears, and spiritual darkness. It then looks at the idea of self-acceptance and how we really can live a life of hope and trust in God, in the company of St. Therese.
This book is meant for people who want to take the spiritual life more seriously, but perhaps find themselves in something of a rut although they really want to move forward — which probably is a good description of most of us!
Connie Rossini’s aim is to encourage believers in a practical way, based on her own experience of being disappointed — in the midst of a busy life — at not making more spiritual progress. The answer she found was to focus on a much greater trust in God, as exemplified in the life of St. Therese, and her “little way” of spiritual childhood.
Thus this book has come out of the author’s own lived experience, and what she tries to do is show how even though St. Therese led a secluded and unknown life as a cloistered Carmelite, ordinary Catholics can, by reflecting on the different stages in her life, find help and support for their own struggles and problems.
Rossini argues that by focusing on trust, we are not neglecting other aspects of our Christian life, but rather boosting it, since the struggle against the prevailing “culture of death” which surrounds us can be a very dispiriting thing. We need a deep trust in order to fight against the temptation to give up and just “go with the flow.” In fact, the author describes St. Therese as an “apostle of trust,” whose role was to teach believers what it really means to trust God.
Rossini includes stories from the life of St. Therese in each chapter, and also stories from her own life, which certainly make the book more vivid, as well as practical and relevant — whereas, quite often, spiritual texts can be rather dry and uninspiring.
But Trusting God With St. Therese is quite a long book, and some of the material does need to be read carefully if the reader is to properly understand the points the author is making, as for example in the section which discusses the three stages or “ways” of the spiritual life, the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways.
The reality is that most of us are very firmly stuck in the first of these stages, the purgative, in which we are being purified of our sinfulness and selfishness, and until we get past that stage, we will not be able to live the illuminative or contemplative life, or aspire to genuine union with God.
Probably deep down we realize that we should be making more spiritual progress, but lack the conviction and inspiration to do something about it, and so in that sense this book would be a very useful companion in the struggle to deepen our spiritual lives. The fact is that we are made for union with God in Heaven, and that if we don’t complete the above progression through the three ways or stages on Earth, then we will have to do so in Purgatory.
The book is also practical in that Rossini outlines some of the ways in which a lack of trust in our lives can manifest itself, including anger, anxiety, discouragement, envy, fear, overeating, low self-esteem, and so on. She makes a very pertinent point in saying: “Distrust keeps us focused on ourselves, rather than God and others,” and points out that this in turn prevents us from fulfilling the basic commandments of love of God and neighbor. As she says, if we are self-absorbed, then holiness is impossible.
The book also includes psychological material which shows how our early experiences can shape our ability to trust others, and how this also might affect a person’s ability to really trust in God. Rossini argues though, that if a person has had a less than ideal start in life, which leads him to mistrust people, this doesn’t have to define his whole life. Citing her own experiences, she says that she found answers not in psychological works or self-help texts, but rather in the example of St. Therese in her little way of spiritual childhood.
As she says, “We can renegotiate trust by learning to trust God as our Father,” and if we do that, we will be freed from fear, anxiety, presumption, and despair, and gain a deep sense of inner peace.
Although this book was written by a wife and mother, and recounts some of her own personal experiences as a woman, and focuses on the experiences of St. Therese, that doesn’t mean that it is not also likely to be useful for men; in many respects, the sort of things the author discusses can be applied to everyone — for example, we have all had experiences when people we trusted have let us down.
Helpful Questions
When we see the world around us beset by so many problems, to which, in a human sense there seems to be no solution, to say nothing of problems in our own lives, and perhaps our own lack of spiritual progress, then there is certainly a need for us to deepen our trust in God; to believe that, despite appearances, He is still in control of the universe, and lovingly directs everything toward its appointed end.
That is the core message of this book, that we ought to have unlimited confidence in God, as St. Therese did.
Trusting God With St. Therese has very helpful questions for reflection and practical suggestions at the end of each chapter. The bibliography is very complete and it is clear that the author has made a deep study of St. Therese, her writings, and works written about her, and so it is no surprise to discover that she spent many years as member of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites.
In short, this is a book which is sure to be a great help for anyone wanting to deepen his spiritual life and develop a greater trust in God.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk.)
