Customer Reviews

Thï¿1/2rï¿1/2se of Lisieux: God's Gentle Warrior

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I originally purchased this book for a bit of pious reading. To be honest, I did not expect anything "new" could easily be found or said about our beloved Therese and her family. What I found was an outstanding study that looks at Therese with "new eyes," so to speak. And the conclusions are extremely powerful and spiritually very strong and nourishing. I especially appreciated Dr. Nevin's use of new sources (the circulaires read in the refrectory during St. Therese's life that would have been a source of inspiration to Therese), along with some photographs that I don't think had ever been published before. I recommend this book highly.

Having read much about her and visited her conventual home in Lisieux, I did not expect this book to be more than another take on the life and spirituality of this most beloved of modern saints. Yet, this book reveals much new biographical detail and sheds new light on the theological writings of this remarkable young woman. Dr. Nevin has also somehow retrieved photographs associated with St. Therese and her family that were not, it seems, available to the general public, including a previously unpublished photograph of the saint's mother. Here, the saint and her family emerge as people with practical problems, wrestling with poor financial investments, billeted soldiers, the death of loved ones and perplexing life choices. In this book, the struggles, character flaws and uncertainties are not airbrushed out. But neither does Dr. Nevin set out to find villains to slay among the Martins or the nuns with whom Therese shared her convent life. In the end, this book is about the love-centred, Jesus-focused path that Therese chartered at the end of her life. Eschewing excessive preoccupation with dogma and self, she dispensed with a mercantile approach to religion (if you're good to God, God will be good to you) and plunged head on into the abyss of love. Dr. Nevin discusses, with awesome command of the biographical facs and the primary sources, the still unfolding implications of Therese's writings. She died at 24, but not a moment of her life was wasted.

There is much that is good about Thomas Nevin's book on St. Therese. As the notes on the dust jacket report, he does offer new readings and even new material concerning the "little flower" (as Therese is known). He begins the book by offering the reader a glimpse into the France of Therese's time: the cultural situation and currents of thought during the late 19th century. He moves on, helpfully, to consider the correspondence of Therese's mother, Zelie Martin, and extrapolates from the letters many insights about Therese's family life and her own development. Another chapter places Therese in the context of the Carmelite tradition, and specifically how the French Carmelites supported and formed her. Nevin also brings Therese's plays and poems to the fore as few others have done (most biographers have preferred to consider only The Story of the Soul and Therese's correspondence), and he summarizes the major themes and ideas of her writings. Perhaps the most interesting chapter focuses on Therese's illnesses and the treatments she received. One gets a good sense of French medical practice in the 19th century, particularly in its treatment of tuberculosis, which allows one to appreciate what Therese suffered during the last year-and-a-half of her life. Indeed the reader begins to marvel at the fact that Therese was composing Manuscript C, letters, and poems during her final illness.

What is surprising about Nevin's book is that despite the evident scholarship employed in writing it, the book takes a decidedly acrimonious and polemical turn in the last two chapters. The catalyst for this change in mood is what Nevin calls Therese's "sense [of] the non-existence of heaven" which he says she experienced during her dark night (297). If he had stopped here, with the use of the word "sense," then he could have maintained an objective point of view. Anyone who has read The Story of a Soul or Therese's correspondence knows that she experienced the loss of any consolation or good feeling connected with belief in heaven. Nevin even quotes one of the sisters living with Therese, Sr. Teresa of St. Augustine, who reported Therese's "disbelief" in heaven. What Nevin fails to add is that Sr. Teresa also reported that Therese spoke of this "disbelief" as a temptation. In other words, Therese knew it was false, despite her very strong and very real temptation not to believe. Therese herself wrote on numerous occasions that although she did not have the feelings of faith, she did the works of faith (she said the same thing about love; there was a particular sister that Therese was not attracted to, but she chose to treat the sister with charity).

But Nevin goes beyond Therese's words and says that she no longer had any faith or hope in heaven. He writes about St. Therese's "disbelief" so relentlessly (the last chapter never leaves the topic and is 39 pages long) that one begins to sense that Nevin has lost sight of Therese and is concerned only with his thesis. He begins to sound like a crazed defense attorney, anticipating objections and piling on evidence. He takes pot-shots at ecclesial authority figures, creedal formulations, and even works in a slam against President Bush for invading Iraq (if you can believe it). Not content with disbelief about heaven, Nevin also says that Therese did not believe in hell either, but he provides no citations for this claim.

The book began as a helpful guide to the times and seasons and idiosyncrasies of Therese's world, outside and inside the Carmel. It ends as a diatribe against dogma (even though Nevin himself can write dogmatically). Anyone who has read Therese's manuscripts or letters or poems knows intuitively that Therese had a deep, down faith (to borrow Gerard Manley Hopkins words). Nevin could have stopped with his notion that Therese rejected the common understanding of heaven at the time; one can readily agree to this. But to say that she no longer had any hope or faith in heaven seems obnoxious at best and subversive at worst. For example he never considers Therese's often indulgent use of exaggerations and exclamation points in her writing and how such a style might affect meaning.

Nevin says that what motivated Therese was the search for truth and love of God and neighbor; she was not satisfied with anything else. However, if Therese had discovered that heaven did not exist, then why would she continue to speak to her sisters and write to others about heaven? Is this love or respect for the truth: to allow the beloved to remain in ignorance? And why would Therese refrain from speaking about her dark secret in order not to blaspheme if she really believed heaven's non-existence to be the truth? To blaspheme is to say something contrary to the truth, is it not? (In other words, Therese knew deep down that her sense of the non-existence of heaven was blasphemous and, hence, false.) Why would Therese offer her last communion for the soul of a lost priest, if not to help him to heaven and to avoid hell? Finally, Nevin writes constantly of Therese's "testing." What testing? Was God testing Therese's love for him? Nevin says no; Therese's love for God was constant and was the very virtue that carried her through to the end. So what could the testing consist of if not faith and hope?

What's most disturbing about Nevin's strange turn at the end of God's Gentle Warrior is that he calls all writers who disagree with him whitewashers (300). They, Nevin contends, are trying to sanitize Therese's loss of faith and hope. On the contrary, they are not trying to use Therese to advance their own theses. A case in point: Joseph Schmidt's recently published meditation on St. Therese's life, Everything is Grace, is very much aware of Therese's dark night of the soul during which she lost the consolation of faith. Yet he reaches a very different conclusion from Nevin. Schmidt--basing his opinion on the same sources as Nevin--says this of Therese during her time of trial: "In love, with all the power and courage of her mighty will, she clung to faith" (279). He also supports his opinion with this quote from Therese herself: "[God] knows very well that while I do not have the joy of faith, I am trying to carry out its works at least. I believe I have made more acts of faith in this past year than all through my whole life" (279). And Schmidt, when he is writing about Therese's dark night, provides many other quotes from Therese to show that her will was engaged regarding the existence of heaven even when her feelings were not.

Whereas Nevin's book concentrates on the outside influences bearing upon Therese, Schmidt focuses on the heart and mind of Therese through a close reading of her words. Therese states at the beginning of Story of a Soul that she wants the reader to understand how the mercies of God have shaped and formed her, and Schmidt offers a compelling monograph in Everything is Grace that follows Therese's spiritual growth from birth to death. And Scmidt is no whitewasher or fawning admirer; he looks at Therese objectively and lovingly. In 46 chapters that are arranged chronologically to match Therese's maturation, Schmidt reveals her weaknesses and strengths, her obstacles and advantages. Schmidt argues convincingly that Therese took everything she was given--family, culture, personality, faults, and natural abilities--and learned over time how to filter all through God's grace and, thereby, become grace-filled herself. Another way of saying the same thing is that Schmidt uncovers for us through Therese's writings the development of her little way, a spirituality that depends on God's grace and is open to everyone to emulate.

The value of Schmidt's Everything is Grace is that the reader is better able to see Therese as a real, flesh and blood, human being. Therese had to acknowledge, accept, and assimilate personal, familial, and cultural influences, and she did so thoughtfully, prayerfully, and most importantly, through God's grace. The influences were both positive and negative, but Therese was able to integrate them all through her relationship with God. For example, the positive influence of an intimate and loving family gave her the stability and foundation to develop her relationship with God. At the same time, her close-knit family life meant she had to struggle to leave the safety and comfort of home and open herself to new relationships in the convent, even to other women for whom on a natural level she had no attraction whatsoever. Part of Schmidt's objective is to show that Therese really had an ordinary life, full of the same kind of feelings, activities, fears, and hopes that all men and women have. She had her daily chores; she had to persevere in prayer; she struggled in getting along with others--and during her ordinary life she was trying to yield more and more to God. In other words, Therese is like us. And as Schmidt details the development of Therese's life, the reader gains many valuable insights about living with God. Therese is an ordinary woman, who accepted God's grace in an extraordinary way. Schmidt says that we should not be awed by this achievement of Therese, but heartened because--as Therese knew--her way is open to all.

Both books are very helpful in appreciating St. Therese (with the exception, in my opinion, of Nevin's last two chapters). If the reader wants to know about Therese, then read Nevin's God's Gentle Warrior. If the reader wants to know Therese, then read Everything is Grace. Or better yet, read both, because coming to know Therese better will lead to her stated goal in life: to desire and to love God more and more, and to live only by his grace.

THERESE OF LISIEUX: GOD'S GENTLE WARRIOR, by Thomas R. Nevin provides an intersting and enlightening look at the person we know as Saint Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower. --(First, I love the cover photo of Therese - in her costume as Joan Of Ark - i call it Therese's "XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS" photograph. ha!) -- Reading this study of Therese is a little like rummaging through grandmom's (or mom's & dad's) attic and discovering so many long forgotten things with so many memories and nostalgic connotations atached to them . . .and rediscovering or first-time discovering of what their life was like at a period of time "before we knew them" . . . all the stored memories that somehow taken together are a part of the history that made them (and so ourselves) what and who we were and are . . .

The author digs back to Zelie Martin's (Therese's mother) diary notes for insights into how SHE thought and believed and formed the foundation and environment of the Martin family in which Therese grew. And of her father Louis. And then to the experiences of her sisters and cousins and the few priests whom she knew. And the Carmelite Order - it's history and spirituality and practice and how THAT contributed to the making of this saint.

Each small thread which went into the formation and making of the tapestry which became Saint Therese of Lisieux is brought to light . . .yet, as real a part as each thread is, whatever color or hue, however long or short, however prominent or hidden, none taken by themselves produce the icon of the saint . . . not even all of these threads taken together for the tapestry - there is that extra artistry which is at work here" the interplay between Therese and God. And that interplay, that relationship is one of "LOVE". And so it is "love" that ultimately created the total picture which is Saint Therese of Lisieux. It is love which wove all the diverse threads and colors together into a totally new and unique individual and "new theological way of living". (Not "new" in that it isn't as old as Jesus and The New Testament (or The Old Testament), but new in that Therese herself broke from the restricting limits of the established and radically returned to the "establisher" - God and His love.

So, as Thomas Nevins wallks us through "the attics of Saint Therese" and we begin to see and experience her as a real person (before she became the canonized image), we see a little of our own selves in her . . . and our own hopes for sanctification become more attainable and hopeful.

Thank you Thomas Nevins for allowing us to share with you your visit and walk with Saint Therese . . . Therese is always good company and a good traveling companion . . . and on this walk, her conversation shared so many details of her own life with us. It was as if she were telling us that in our own lives, as in hers, everything is grace . . . everything matters . . . every person, place and thing and experience will contribute to the final picture of who we are before God . . . and in God.

This book attempts to deconstruct Therese Martin (1873-1897), better known as St. Therese of Lisieux. It is not, as the author states at the outset, a biography; rather, it is an interesting window on what "biography" means in the 21st century.

Therese entered a Carmelite convent at the age of fifteen and died of tuberculosis at the age of 24. She had very little education, even by the standards of the time, and except for a pilgrimage to Rome at age 14 had almost no contact with the world outside her small provincial town. Yet she was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1925 and declared a "Doctor of the Church" in 1997-a distinction traditionally reserved for those who make major contributions to the teachings of the Church, and accorded to only two other women in history. For more than a century, she has been one of the most popular saints of the Roman canon, and the subject of a vast literature, both popular and scholarly. Much of the biographical material is based, directly or indirectly, on the manuscript she wrote in the last year of her life at the direction of her religious superior, later published as "Story of a Soul." Her theory and practice of the spiritual life are there set out in very simple language, but have been interpreted as a profound exposition of Christian mysticism.

Nevin devotes only a chapter to these well-known facts. The main thrust of his book is the creation of a context for Therese's life. He begins with a formidable chapter on the development of religious thinking in the century following the French Revolution. In Therese's lifetime, the Church had not yet come to terms with the new relationship of church and state in secular society, and was struggling to respond to new ideologies in ways for which its traditional vocabulary and conceptual framework were ill-suited. The intellectual conflicts that Nevin summarizes are not always easy to follow, but clearly had an influence on Therese's upbringing, as well as the originality of her thought. There are, among others, chapters on Therese's mother (herself a current candidate for sainthood); life in a Carmelite convent in the 19th century; the horrific ways tuberculosis was treated at the time; and how all of these things cast Therese's own writings in a new light, not always consistent with the vast uncritical literature about her. There are, at the heart of the matter, two chapters of intense analysis of Therese's writings and her theology. Nevin analyzes Therese's letters and fragmentary autobiography with an inquiring mind, exploring the image of herself she was creating by the choice of particular anecdotes from her pre-convent life. This is useful and interesting, but I think his interpretation of her theology is much too dark. His assertion that "she did not believe in Heaven" greatly overstates the spiritual darkness that she experienced at the end of her life, and his likening her "ontology of nothingness" to "the Buddhist nirvana" is too much of a stretch.

In sum, this is a useful contribution to Therese studies, but it should not be the reader's introduction to this field. "Story of a Soul" is a prerequisite, and even those who have read it may find Nevin's prose a bit too dense. Readers already familiar with Therese's "little way" may find their own answers to some of the interesting questions Nevin raises.

I am the third customer to review the book and the third to give it five stars. Nevin is an incredibly talented writer and in him Therese finds a worthy biographer, student, expositor. I would say he is the brother Therese wanted in her life...I wish that they could have corresponded. Therese would have found someone who knew how to really read her, question her, and trace the complexities of a life that was far from simple. He invites us into her solitude with love and understanding.

Like other reviews mentioned, there is a lot of background information in this book and that's great. However, I found it very obtuse and hard to understand. I have a decent vocabulary but I frequently have to use a dictionary to find the words the author uses, and sometimes the word isn't even in my dictionary (one example: "bulimic," NOT bulimia but bulimic, and it's not in a context that has anything to do with food). Also, I understand why he put the French in the text, but to me it is very distracting. I think it would have been better to put the English first and then the French, or put the French in the footnotes, for those who really wanted to verify his translations (how many of us does that include??). In addition, there are some French phrases that he never translates, as though we all spoke French.

The author includes a lot of information that seems irrelevant (for example, he discusses how many periods Therese's mother must have had with all her children--and why that is relevant is beyond me). This unnecessarily clutters and lengthens the book, and makes it hard to remember the point the author was trying to make in the first place.

I give it 3 stars because it does have a lot of cultural information in it, which does shed light on the Therese's life. If you are already a history and theology buff, it will be easier for you to read than for most of us.