Heroines of Faith - Part 1

DAILY BYTE

Last week our theme was ‘Faithful Companions’. We reflected on the people who join us along the journey of life, offering to us strength, encouragement and inspiration to live faithful lives of our own. This week we continue with that broad theme, but in a different way. Over the next five days we will simply hear the stories of five people who, in quite varied ways, have demonstrated a remarkable faithfulness in the living of their lives.

All the stories that have been chosen are of women. Some died very young, others lived long lives. Some lived a long time ago in circumstances vastly different from ours today, others were virtually contemporaries of this generation. But all of them have something significant to say to us today. The invitation this week is for you to simply read and enjoy the stories of these five remarkable women, and then to ask yourself what you can take from the testimony of their lives.

I need to acknowledge a huge debt of gratitude to Robert Ellsberg for many of the biographical details of these women, contained in his outstanding book entitled, ‘All Saints: Daily reflections on saints, prophets and witnesses for our time.’

THERESE OF LISIEUX (1873 – 1897)

The story of Therese would probably never be made into a Hollywood blockbuster, because it is completely lacking in outward drama. When she was 15 years old she entered the convent of Lisieux, a small town in Normandy where she was born. There she remained, cloistered in the convent, until she died of tuberculosis at the young age of 24. One would think that the memory of such a brief and uneventful life would have remained within the walls of the convent. Instead, her name and reputation quickly circled around the world, and within 30 years of her death she was declared a saint by the Catholic Church.

The reason for this remarkable rise to prominence of this obscure young woman lay in the posthumous publication of her autobiography, ‘The Story of a Soul’. It is a compelling account of the path to holiness in everyday life, which immediately struck a responsive chord with the “simple faithful”. In her writings Therese considered herself to be of little account – literally a “Little Flower” – though for this reason no less precious in the eyes of God. She referred to her spiritual path as the Little Way, requiring the continuous offering of simple, childlike acts of faithfulness that were possible for all of God’s “little ones”. But Therese believed that this simple way might transform any situation into a profound arena for holiness, and that through the effect of the subtle ripples of faithful devotion, one might make a significant contribution to transforming the world.

The last years of her short life were filled with great physical suffering as her health deteriorated dramatically. Yet she embraced her condition with joyful grace, demonstrating her conviction that every moment in life, if accepted and lived in a spirit of gratitude and love, is an occasion for heroism and a potential step along the path of holiness. When she died, surrounded by the Sisters of her convent, her last words were, “Oh, I love Him! … My God…I love you.”

PRAY AS YOU GO

Loving and gracious God, thank you for the testimony of Therese’s life. Thank you for the reminder that she brings that our faithfulness and love in the small things of life really matter. Thank you that our devotion to you in the relative obscurity of our ordinary, everyday lives can truly become a significant part of your transforming power at work within the world. Like Therese we may simply be “Little Flowers”, but may our lives reflect your beauty and the fragrance of your love, today and every day. Amen.

FOCUS READING

2 Cor 3:3

Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it - not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives - and we publish it.