Little flower

Baby E did well for the first half-hour of the funeral service, but then he just couldn't keep quiet, so I headed out to the lobby and front of the church. I let him walk around, explore, be a toddler. What I discovered amidst the holy water and pamphlets were two lovely, handmade quilted standards. I hadn't noticed them amidst the crush of people entering the church. One portrayed St. Francis Xavier (appropriately enough) and the other was emblazoned with the message: "Receive Christ as a Little Child."

That seemed incredible, considering my thoughts of the last week. I read it as meaning that Christ is a little child, but some Googling has led me to realize that it usually means I should be like a little child.

You can also see that it represents a nun with a handful of roses and says "Saint Therese." Being ignorant of Christian saints, I had to look this up.

St. Therese of Lisieux lived in 19th century France, where she became a Carmelite nun at the age of 14. Before dying at 24, she wrote an autobiography that lays out her spiritual ideas, her "little way." This is also called spiritual childhood, a "spirit of childhood in all our dealings with God," according to Pope Pius XI.

John F. Russell, O.Carm., S.T.D. writes that "Relationship to the child Jesus emphasizes the humanity of Christ and suggests a sense of dependence, poverty, trust, and wonder. The child Jesus theme is found in the sermons of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and in writings of the Franciscan tradition."

Called the Little Flower, St. Therese used nature as a metaphor for the relationship with the Divine. She promised that, after her death, "I will let fall a shower of roses," and since then, many have seen her blessings in the form of roses. She wrote of flowers and nature:

"I still feel the profound and poetic impressions which were born in my soul at the sight of fields enameled with corn-flowers and all types of wild flowers. Already I was in love with the wide-open spaces. Space and the gigantic fir trees, the branches sweeping down to the ground, left in my heart an impression similar to the one I experience still today at the sight of nature."

"Jesus deigned to teach me this mystery. He set before me the book of nature; I understood how all the flowers He has created are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the Lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers. And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus' garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God's glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be."

"Consider the oaks of our countryside, how crooked they are; they thrust their branches to right and left, nothing checks them so they never reach a great height. On the other hand, consider the oaks of the forest, which are hemmed in on all sides, they see light only up above, so their trunk is free of all those shapeless branches which rob it of the sap needed to lift it aloft. It sees only heaven, so all its strength is turned in that direction, and soon it attains a prodigious height. In the religious life the soul like the young oak is hemmed in on all sides by its rule. All its movements are hampered, interfered with by the other trees.... But it has light when it looks toward heaven, there alone it can rest its gaze, never upon anything below, it need not be afraid of rising too high."

"And just as in nature all the seasons are arranged in such a way as to make the humblest daisy bloom on a set day, in the same way, everything works out for the good of each soul."

As a pagan and nature-lover (the same thing?), I find those writing to be beautiful and inspiring. But most meaningful to me is her focus on love. "What matters in life," St. Therese wrote, "is not great deeds, but great love."

That's an idea I can definitely appreciate. I was never and still am not a career-first woman. From childhood on, I was much more concerned with the relationships in my life, and I have long said that I wanted my legacy to be my family, not some external achievements.

Isn't it interesting how our paths present us with the messages that we need to hear? Thank you, Baby E, for taking me into the lobby of the church. Your restlessness is a blessing to me.

A prayer

For some reason, I remembered my favorite prayer today, the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

I used to have this as a little prayer card. I think I bought it at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. I chose St. Francis because I knew my mother loved him. She was the kindest, most compassionate person and prized kindness above all - so it's no surprise that Francis would appeal to her.

I probably meant to give the card to my mother, but never did. It became very important to me after September 11th. I recited this prayer every day and it helped me feel as if I were somehow responding to the terrible violence.

Of course, I can't forget that I'm from his city, San Francisco, California.