Little Flower & The Blessed Sacrament- Chapter I, Part 1

As promised, here is the first in a long series of some meditations on St. Therese and the Blessed Sacrament, from the book The Little Flower and the Blessed Sacrament, written by Rev. Joseph Husslein, S.J. (1925).

PART I

BEFORE THE TABERNACLE

CHAPTER I

-Early Eucharistic Attractions-

Love of the Holy Eucharist was early instilled into the soul of the little Teresa. Like a quickening dew it slipped into the heart of the "Little Flower," long before its tiny petals had unfolded in all their beauty. From the age of two, she tells us, she was already drawn to the Divine Spouse of virgins.

   At what time she first came to know and love Him in His Blessed Sacrament we are not informed by her. The words she puts upon the lips of her sister Celine, in that delightful poem, "What I Used to Love," may well lead us to conclude she was there in reality describing her own experience no less than that of her playmate and praymate in that springtime of her childhood. In simple language she thus records these earliest intimacies of virginal affection for Christ in the Holy Eucharist:

"O, how I loved my heavenly Lord,

In His blest Sacrament adored!

He bound me to Him by His plighted word:

That He my spouse would be

From infancy."

   She was not yet four years of age when the following conversation between herself and Celine was overheard by their mother:

   "How can God be in such a tiny Host?" asked Celine.

   "That is not strange," replied little Teresa, "because God is Almighty."

   "And what does 'Almighty' mean?"

   "It means that He can do whatever He likes."

   Happy little children, brought so early to the knowledge and love of the Supreme Good by the tender care of a wise and loving mother!

   The delightful autobiography of St. Teresa of the Child Jesus, written in obedience to the wish of her Mother Prioress, gives us only passing glimpses of this noble woman after God's own Heart; but they are enough to reveal her to us in all the charm of domestic affection, gentle as she was firm in her control, winning as she was saintly in her life. We find her always with her little ones, saying their prayers with them, accompanying them in their walks, training them with all the skill of personal experience in the art of sanctity, and so finally, like St. Paul, making them imitators of herself as she also was an imitator of Christ. Thus reared in holiness from their tenderest years, it was only necessary to point out to them the Virgin Christ in His Holy Eucharist that they might love Him with all their hearts.

   At the early death of this valiant woman the full responsibility of the home fell upon the "incomparable father" of that family, a man like St. Joseph, hidden and saintly in his life. St. Teresa, referring to his custom of daily reciting the family prayers with his children, wrote: "I had only to look at him to know how the saints pray."

   But he was no less humanly tender than he was heroic in his faith and sacrifice. Constantly he deepened and strengthened in little Teresa the love of her Divine Spouse and of His Presence in the Eucharist. As an instance I may cite her own words in which she describes the rambles she was wont to take with him.

   "Every afternoon," she says, "I went out for a walk with him, and we paid a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in one or other of the churches." It was in this way that St. Teresa of the Child Jesus first saw the chapel of the Carmel in which she was to spend so many happy hours.

   "Look, little Queen," he observed, using the pet name he had given her, "behind that big grating there are holy nuns who are always praying to Almighty God." Little did she then think that soon she, too, would be kneeling there with them before the Divine Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.