Thérèse: Patron of Millennials by Reverb Culture

Thérèse Pat$on Saint of Millennials

St. Thérèse Pat$on Saint of Millennials Wri1en By: Tim Glemkowsi

Love!… that is what I ask… I know but one thing now - to love Thee, O Jesus! Glorious deeds are not for me, I cannot preach the Gospel, shed my blood...what does it matter? My brothers toil instead of me, and I, the little child, I keep quite close to the royal throne, I love for those who fight. St. Therése of Lisieux  Story of A Soul, Chapter XI

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PATRON OF MILLENNIALS

FOR MILLENNIALS

Who else wants one more writing about why Millennials are the worst/best/most worthless/super creative/impossible to work with/so authentic/Ben Franklin generation? I know I do! Honestly, though, has any generation ever been so thoroughly analyzed and complained about? I don’t know exactly what makes “those Millennials” such a fascinating topic to journalists, but they certainly seem to find something particularly confusing or compelling about our generation. Either way, it’s impossible to avoid the fact that there do seem to be universally recognizable Millennial traits: our love for 5

Her message of utter love and trust in God’s love and plan for her was something I crave for myself.

community, work/life balance, desire for fulfillment et al., in the same way that Gen-Xers were known for their love of rebellion and Kurt Cobain. Recently, I had a realization. St. Therese is the ultimate patron saint for millennials. For your reading pleasure, I’ve compiled a little listicle here on why St. Therese is the perfect patron saint for the millennial soul. Only by an act of heroic virtue did I resist the temptation to title it in a click-baity fashion: “4 things about Millennials and St. Therese that will blow your mind!!!&#*!!!!*” is soooo optimized for search engines, but this is Reverb Culture and we’re way too cool for that. Who needs website traffic anyway? On a personal note, Therese has been one of my favorite saints for as long as I can remember. I don’t quite know why I found her autobiography Story of a Soul so impactful, but it really was. Truthfully, I don’t even really *get* her personality all the way. I have a feeling that if we met each other in person; we wouldn’t have even gotten along super well. Pretty sure I would have unwittingly hurt her feelings in the first 10 minutes with some untimely joke and then spent the next hour trying to figure out what I had done to offend her. As a saint friend goes, though, I’ve always felt a strange connection to her. I think, for me, her message of utter love and trust (she calls it “confidence”) in God’s love and plan for her was something that I crave for myself. Either way, let’s embark. Four things that make St. Therese the perfect patron saint for Millennials.

“I know of no other means to reach perfection than by love. To love: how perfectly our hearCs are made for this! Sometimes I look for another word to use, but, in this land of exile, no other word so well exHresses the vibrations of our soul. Hence we must keep to that one word: love.” ― Thérèse de Lisieux 7

#1 HER LITTLE WAY

1. Her Little Way perfectly combats our tendency toward perfectionism and hyper-activity.

BE PERFECT

What’s more Millennial than trying to be perfect at all times? What’s more Millennial than considering yourself an utter failure if you’re not the boss of your company and a Broadway star on nights and weekends by age twenty-five? Guys, we NEED Therese’s Little Way of love and trust. Her conviction was simple. Wherever you are, in whatever situation you find yourself in, even the most mundane job or task, can be a place where real greatness and holiness is found. Our tendency to take our grandiose plans and apply them to our spiritual life (if I haven’t founded an orphanage by 30, I’m basically never going to be canonized) needs that gentle reminder from Therese that God’s plan for us is to be right where we are, and greatness can be found in the little sacrifices and joys of life.

The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritPal ba1le. SpiritPal prog$ess entails the ascesis and morCiďŹ cation that g$adually lead to living in the peace and joy of the BeatitPdes: He who climbs never stops going Tom beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows. CCC 2015 10

#2 WANDERLUST

2. Therese had a restless soul that wanted to be everywhere and do everything.

RESTLESS SOUL

My first daughter was born two months ago. She’s a little girl and her name’s Eva and she’s the greatest thing you’ve never seen. Trust me. I can never adequately express the joy I felt holding her in my arms for the first time. However, my greatest struggle in adapting to the life of being “Dad” hasn’t been the lack of sleep or the inability to go on dates with my wife with ease anymore. My wife could tell you, the biggest difficulty for me was that I can’t go to Africa. This was weirdly difficult for me. I’ve always had this thing where I want to do everything, a trait I believe many of you share with me. Right now, I’d love to be serving as a missionary in Cameroon, studying theology in Rome, and traveling the rest of Europe, while living in Hawaii. At the same time.

Right now, I’d love to be serving as a missionary in Cameroon, studying theology in Rome, and traveling the rest of Europe, while living in Hawaii.

This latent restlessness has become one of the defining traits of Millennials. Companies have started complaining because they can’t hold on to young employees for more than a year. There’s always a bigger, better something out there and we can’t be stuck here while we could be over there! Therese had great and manifold desires as well, even ones that she knew were impossible to be fulfilled! She famously said, “I feel as if I were called to be a fighter, a priest, an apostle, a doctor, a martyr; as if I could never satisfy the needs of my nature without performing, for Your sake, every kind of heroic action at once. I feel as if I'd got the courage to be a Crusader, a Pontifical Zouave, dying on the battlefield in defense of the Church. And at the same time I want to be a priest; how lovingly I'd carry You in my hands when you came down from heaven at my call; how lovingly I'd bestow You on men's souls! And yet, with all this desire to be a priest, I've nothing but admiration and envy for the humility of St. Francis; I'd willingly imitate him in refusing the honour of the priesthood.” I feel a great solidarity in her struggle. Therese’s great desires to do something impactful with her life were often frustrated. She died at 24 as a cloistered nun. That’s why I love that she is now the patron saint of missionaries. Her desires to do great things were fulfilled, just not in the way that she expected or even wanted them to be. I remember this when I just want to be on that plane to Cameroon by tomorrow.

And behold, one came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eterZal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which?” And Jesus said, “You shall not kill, You shall not commit adulter_, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witZess, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have obser`ed; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have t$easure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sor$owfPl; for he had g$eat possessions. Ma1hew 19:16-22 14

#3 SKEPTICISM

3. Therese had struggles with faith. Therese’s famous Dark Night of the Soul in the weeks leading up to her death led to some shocking moments of temptations against faith.

FACING DOUBT

“I get tired of the darkness all around me. The darkness itself seems to borrow, from the sinners who live in it, the gift of speech. I hear its mocking accents: ‘It’s all a dream, this talk of a heavenly country, of a God who made it all, who is to be your possession in eternity! All right, go on longing for death! But death will make nonsense of your hopes; it will only mean a night darker than ever, the night of mere non-existence!' Though this is scandalous to some, and especially to those who don’t understand the spiritual life, these temptations are not uncommon in the lives of the saints. Really, they are not even uncommon in the lives of many Christians who experience the normal struggles with faith that come from the natural ebb and flow

I think it’s important to see skepticism or lack of belief in the human heart as a kind of suffering.

of spiritual consolation and desolation. The holiness of a person doesn’t depend on their ability to keep absolute psychological confidence in God’s existence at all times. Everyone has moments where, as Pope Benedict remarked, they taste the “saltwater” of doubt. For Millennials, a consistent difficulty in life as a disciple of Christ is having so many our age identify as “Nones.” Skepticism seems to be the flavor of the day, and what a painful thing that can be! When we crave community and support in our walk with Christ, often we find outright hostility and misunderstanding or even just that kind of lowlevel ridicule of, “For real? You actually believe that?” Even in our most fervent attempts to believe, we are not immune to the mocking, scoffing voice forbidding us any hope of seeing our Heavenly homeland. I think it’s important to see skepticism or lack of belief in the human heart as a kind of suffering. What greater loss could there be than the absence of an awareness of God? Too often, we see the atheist as only a sparring opponent. How about a human person suffering from the experience of abandonment? As far as Therese’s own temptations, what more perfect attribute could there be for a patron saint than one who shares our struggles? God allowed Therese to suffer the loss of the supernatural help of faith in her heart, to enter into communion with those who experience that same pain of the loss of awareness of God in the coming centuries.

Even when faced with the realit_ of the risen Jesus the disciples are still doubtfPl, so impossible did the thing seem: they thought they were seeing a ghost. "In their joy they were still disbelieving and still wondering." Thomas will also exHerience the test of doubt and St. Ma1hew relates that during the risen Lord's last appearance in Galilee "some doubted." Therefore the hyHothesis that the Resur$ection was produced by the apostles' faith (or credulit_) will not hold up. On the cont$ar_ their faith in the Resur$ection was borZ, under the action of divine g$ace, Tom their direct exHerience of the realit_ of the risen Jesus. CCC 644

#4 OUR WEAKNESS

4. And, finally, she was a little bit selfish.

THE SELF BATTLE

Therese’s great conversion moment came as a kid when she decided not to throw a tantrum after her dad made a slightly exasperated comment about her childishness. I remember reading this the first time and being like, “That’s so beautiful; what a special moment.” When I came back to the Story of a Soul later, my reaction was more like, “Seriously? That was the big moment?” But for her it was. Therese’s main spiritual battle was not against drunkenness or sexual sin, but against the inner tendency toward over-sensitivity because she viewed life and reality in terms of how it made her feel. Come on, we can all admit it: those articles about Millennials’ selfabsorption are at least a little true, aren’t they? Maybe I’m the only one. 20

“I understood that ever_ ﬂower created by Him is beautifPl, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfPme of the violet or the sweet simplicit_ of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly ﬂowers wished to be roses, natPre would no longer be enamelled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, Our lord's living garden.” ― Thérèse de Lisieux

Therese’s main spiritual battle was not against drunkenness or sexual sin, but against the inner tendency toward over-sensitivity because she viewed life and reality in terms of how it made her feel.

Probably. Either way, Therese’s main struggle was against seeing her own life through what Father Mike Schmitz calls the “Luke Skywalker mentality.” The original Star Wars movies have a lot of different characters and events, but really, at the end of the day, it’s all centered on Luke. This can often be the isolationist mentality found in many millennials. Sure, there are a lot of persons/places/things/happenings going on around me, but it’s all received through the lens of how it affects me. Therese battled against the same tendency and temptation.

ST. THÉRÈSE, PRAY FOR US. 23

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Glemkowski teaches theology at a Catholic high school in Ann Arbor but originally hails from the suburbs of Chicago. He prefers college football to the NFL and spends most of his time with his wife and daughter. You can find out more about him at timglemkowski.com.

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