?The Context of Holiness'

St. Thérèse of Lisieux did not live an easy life. She was the youngest of nine children of Blessed Louis Martin, a watchmaker, and Blessed Marie Azélie Guérin, a lacemaker.

"Thèrése’s life was a real life. As it unfolds before us on the pages of "Story of a soul," we see a pilgrim soul who made its way home to God through many raging storms and dark nights. The specific nature of Thérèse’s trials may differ from our own, but their psychological and emotional sufferings we all share. For example, we many not have known the pain of our mother dying when we were four years old, but we all have known the pain of the loss of a loved one. The sufferings that we share with Thérèse are universal – physical pain, anxiety, anger, sadness, depression, loneliness, doubts of faith, to name a few. These sufferings make doing the will of God difficult, but they are the context of our choices. They are the context of holiness." (Chapter 1 page 2)

The author says a few words about the use of modern psychology. "In our day, psychology has often been misused to reduce the spiritual to the psychological. Such abuses, however, should not blind us to the help the modern science can provide in the investigation of matters of faith. Both faith and reason are lights given by God."

"Psychology," Foley writes, "can be a helpful tool in understanding the dynamics of human growth and the spiritual life, provided we do not make it a touchstone."

Thérèse suffered a great deal as a child. She not only lost her mother at the age of four, her family also lost four children, leaving them grieving as a family. Her mother worried about little Thérèse, wondering if this child would be taken from her, too. At the loss of her mother, Thérèse grasped on to her older sister, Pauline, who did much to raise the little girl, but Pauline caused great heartache for Thérèse when she entered the cloistered convent. Thérèse was already unhappy in a boarding school. Now, with Pauline seemingly lost forever Thérèse was overcome with sadness.

It took time for Thérèse to begin to see herself as a potential nun, but even that had its hardship, as she was seen first as too young, and her response to God was one of disappointment.

But that was not all. From the age of 10 Thérèse suffered from debilitating scruples. She doubted her own worth as a child of God, and even when her day to enter the convent came, she had her doubts.

Spiritually, Thérèse had many struggles. She wrote: " At that time I was having great interior trials of all kinds, even to the point of asking myself whether heaven really existed." (Soul 173) "In the same vein, Thérèse tells us that the night before her profession of vows in 1890, ‘the darkness was so great that I could see and understand one thing only - I didn’t have a vocation." (S166)

Foley writes: "These two incidences of doubt may be regarded as illustrative of periods of doubt that are not recorded. In short, we should view Thérèse’s trial of faith as an intensification and prolongation of what she had suffered may times throughout her life."

So St. Thérèse’s spiritual struggles might not have been so very different from our own. In the 13th chapter of "The Context of Holiness," The Uncertain Certainty, Thérèse is not only struggling with her own deep spiritual problems, she is also dealing with the very real stressors that eventually led to her death at the early age of 24. Thérèse developed a sore throat and a nagging cough (the precursor to tuberculosis), her father, Louis had become mentally unstable and eventually died, life in the cloister became more complicated, and Thérèse, despite her illness, was named novice mistress. Then she was assigned the difficult task of working with Sr. Marie of St. Joseph. Still she persevered in prayer, in spirituality, and in the love of God. Still she remained a role model for her sisters in the convent.