An Appreciation of the Little Flower

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 39, 14 October 1925, Page 57

An Appreciation of the Little Flower

There is a. little trait not any too common amongst us, and its absence exposes a disposition of childhood that many parents if they do not openly connive at, at least complacently accept. Children usually are no holier than their mothers hope them to — if the mother's ideal of conduct is not high the child’s will not be high. It is recorded in the lives of some of the saints as wholly extraordinary that their mothers said they would rather see them dead than that they commit one mortal sin. Why should this attitude be confined to the mothers of some canonised saints? Doesn’t it seem it would be the state of mind of every mother who really loves her child and who realises what a dreadful thing in itself death is? Anent our little saint’s success in retaining her baptismal innocence her confessor said to her at the conclusion of a general confession two months after she entered the convent. “Before God. the Blessed Virgin, the Angels and all the Saints, 1 declare that you have never committed a mortal sin." The Little .Flower was still little when she resolved to become a nun and was so little when she determined to put her resolution into effect that even the Supreme Pontiff to whom she spoke of her pious intention during the course of a pilgrimage to the Eternal City hesitated to sanction her taking the step. She was then not quite fifteen years of age. \ The future to children, even the most abject, forlorn, and unfortunate, is something overflowing with promise. Great prospects loom brightly before them as they gaze down the vista of life. Wherefore, for the Little Flower to volunteer to spend her life in the obscurity of the cloister —where her identity would be hidden and her name unknown — was a sign of her littleness when she was very little. And of all places to retreat to —the Cloister of the Carmelites. What renunciation! She surely followed her little way all the way to its logical conclusion. Reverently playing on the words Our Lord used in expressing the magnitude of His munificence to His chosen but ungrateful people she could say: “What is there that I could have done in a little way that I have not done? . And she continued little. After enteringreligion she showed her littleness on count-

less occasions. As we learn from every page of her blessed biography she had an inimitable knack of inventing subterfuges for humbling herself. To be appointed to assist the Mistress of Novices in training future Carmelites was quite a distinctionespecially for one so young. Hut as usual she minimised her qualifications for the position. In her autobiography discussing the appointment she says; “Dear mother, I am the little brush that Jesus has chosen to paint 11 is likeness in the souls you have confided to my care. Now an artist has several brushes —two at least: the first which is more useful, gives the ground tints and rapidly covers the whole canvas: the other and smaller one, puts in the lesser touches. Mother, you represent the big brush which Our Lord holds lovingly in His hand when He wishes to do so great work in the souls of your children: and 1 am the little one he deigns, to use afterwards, to fill in the minor details." A few pages further, addressing her Divine Master she takes the same little view of herself: "Dear Lord, Thou seest that 1 am too small to feed these little ones, but if through me Thou wilt give to each what is suitable, then fill my bands, and without leaving the shelter of thine arms, or even turning away, 1. will distribute Thy treasures to the souls who come to me asking for food. Should they find it to their taste 1 shall know that this is due not to me, but to Thee." Later she sums herself up in these words: "Dear Mother, you see that I am a very little soul who can only offer very little things to Our Lord." One of her favorite and most remarkable littlenesses worthy of more than passing notice —was her silence about herself with all but her superiors, and what we know of her through them was neither intended nor forseen by her. She says she would not care if the manuscript of her autobiography, which she wrote under obedience, were burned unread. Yet while she considered as little what she did for God she could not similarly estimate what God did for her. She had received favors from heaven sufficient to make her the centre of admiration if she would have advertised them ; but like tin’ Blessed Virgin Mary she “kept all these words, pondering them in her heart." — Rev. X. D. P.. in The Little Flower Magazine.

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