Course XLVII - Teaching 36: Miss Malka’s Solemn Vows (October 3rd, 1957)

To be before the Holy Altar to take Renunciation Vows in the commemoration day of Saint Therese of Lisieux is a true event and festivity for the soul, because if certain person can teach us how to fulfill our Renunciation Vow in every aspect, even to suffer a mystical martyrdom and a perfect holocaust, this being is Saint Therese of Lisieux.
Seemingly for a lay, renunciation life would be to reach perfect bliss, perfect union with God; in short, a possessive and sensitive happiness. Nothing could be more inaccurate and out of place, but the world should not know the true Renunciation bliss; the secrets of the Divine King must remain ever secret.
Renunciation is to achieve a non-possession of all things, even a non-possession of mystical goods and satisfaction, that is, spiritual gifts that are ordinarily the purpose of any life. Saint Therese of Lisieux taught this.
Gradually, she experiences every mystical stage by means of Renunciation. But she does not stop at the ecstasy. The Bhagavad Gita says, “Oh, you Saints that are tied to Samadhi!” The meaning of the true Renunciation is not to remain in ecstasy, but to transcend the ecstasy, and to live totally surrendered to the Divine Will.
Saint Therese of Lisieux teaches this because she does not stop at ecstasy, as so many saints that reached the Reality. She goes beyond. Finally, ecstasy becomes an impediment.
Renunciation, Divine Possession, is something beyond; it discards possessions, even the spiritual ones, and leaves the soul on this absolute void that only must be filled by the divine immensity. Saint Therese of Lisieux is the best example of Renunciation, because she never stops and transcends even the very ecstasy in order to reach a perfect simplicity and surrender to God: To want nothing, to be nothing, not to possess anything intellectually or spiritually; this is true Renunciation, super-happiness, and most transcendental happiness.
In Saint Therese of Lisieux’s example we see that she does not reach the Renunciation by a supernatural gift, since she experienced any stage that is necessary to do, as the most humble of the consecrated souls, in order to get to this sublime goal.
Why should he follow these steps? This is as those that day: Since my soul is a whole with the Universe, why to experience trials?
Saint Therese of Lisieux does not want this memory to be word or a notion. You see her as she experiences the hardest purgation stages of the spiritual life; as soon as she threads on the monastic path, the trial begins, and she will be in the dark: “I did not experience any sensibility in my heart; I was like a toy of the child Jesus”. She expected him to take her again, or otherwise, she would be even forgotten and abandoned.
Martyrdom of a young heart cannot be compared with the martyrdom of the one that already knows life as it is. Children and adolescents possess immense sensitive capacity; and an immense capacity to love and suffer.
Think of the true Saint Therese’s sorrow, when he said: “I felt abandoned by Heaven and Earth; no sunbeam there was in me; the heaven of my soul remained dark and cloudy”.
She was harshly reproached by her Superior Nun.
But this soul grows stronger with this purgation and dryness; and continuously she says, “I would not change the bitterness and sadness of those hours for any treasure of the world; I believed that my sisters did not recognize me”. And this is too much.
But Saint Therese of Lisieux is there and spends her purgative life; it is the first step of Renunciation, the sweetest step of Renunciation, because we forget certain things, but we never forget our hard dryness: it remains engraved there, as it were with fire and gold, on the soul and heart.
But at once the day of her monastic habits arrives: the Divine Mother shall grant to her the habit, and the illumination life begins for her.
Totally in white, she will receive the white veil; her soul is totally illuminated; and before this ceremony of the monastic habits, she feels something different invading her heart; then she dares to ask of the Divine Husband a little of snow. This is not snow weather, but as they go out into the yard, it is totally covered by snow. A new light comes to her.
A new time begins for us when we are detached and renounced our affective part, sensitive and carnal.
Even the tie of the Vow opens a new horizon, a new light for the intuition, for the soul; it shall not mean to fly on the air, but a light illuminating our soul.
Therese of Lisieux experiences this stage. She obtains happiness from any little things of the convent life –a glorious praise, his admirable song of love for all souls during so many years. She begins to have this light to interpret the Gospel and she becomes an interpreter of this kind par excellence; from this illumination way, she gets strength for the ecstasy, that being a perfect bliss that she feels as a wedding melody, in fact shall prepare her for her renunciation to perfect and spiritual possessions.
What is the use of understanding that God is in me, if my heart, my flesh and my blood still respond to my human condition, and my flesh and my blood still are not liberated?
The point is that still I am living in a human condition. This liberation shall come only by fulfilling my duties and Vows; this is something that we should conquer and achieve, and then all that we did to achieve it does not exist and is worthless. Because this transcendence has no beginning or end: and path, road and consummation are non-existent.
Therese of Lisieux wants to be a humble soul; she wants to get to this perfect renunciation step by step, hour by hour, by efforts and efforts of her will. She knows that God is not conquered by exercises, but that exercise is indispensable to the soul until the hour when the gates of Heaven are open.
There is a Light that the Divine Mother gives us and makes us see, with a higher light than that of our intelligence, the beauty and depth of the Teachings, the warnings of our Superiors, and our rules; this Divine Light gives us power and strength by means of a knowledge that shall be light of our entire mystical/spiritual life.
Finally, as I said, certain days you will get to the contemplation, because a soul must have a moment of Divine Union with God. The Little Therese reached this admirable state, and with the latter an arrow hurts her heart and floods her with a sea of sorrow and happiness.
The world does not exist; everything disappeared; just the perfect love remains.
We read this in biographies of great beings.
You read biographies about Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Brahmananda, or Ramana Maharshi, and you see how they reach the supreme ecstasy; but some beings remain in ecstasy and return continuously to it, and others reject it, as the Little Therese did.
They go beyond.
Finally, ecstasy is an experience and the result of a deep Divine bliss in the soul, but it is not divine renunciation; perfect renunciation is to remain in peace, not desiring even ecstasy. As Mrs. Gauldelle said to Ramana Maharshi when she saw the natural beauty around, “It is wonderful to stay here! This is so beautiful and one does not desire the supreme liberation!”. And the Maharshi replied, “This is the supreme liberation”.
In Saint Therese of Lisieux’s biographies we read words entirely confirming this: “I do not wish to be like those great saints that fly so high. I am a little soul”. Example of the pin case. A noon asks pins and Therese loses her temper. Surprised by this reaction of her Sister, Therese said: “Are you surprised by my imperfection? I do not desire perfection either”.
This is great and sublime: even not to desire the spiritual perfection. What a lofty renunciation! Sons and Daughters: in the day of the Holy Vows this is the motto of all of you: To take the greatness of God, but to transcend these things. The Renunciation Vow is a perfect acceptance of God and His will; it is renunciation to any spiritual greatness in order to go to so immense field in which only God exists.
God is the very immensity; I am happiness, perfection and light with Him. I am nothing and He is all, and Saint Therese of Lisieux teaches this: “I wished me to be little, and I did not wish to imitate great souls that ascend so high”.
Daughter, may this word be an order in your spiritual life. Surrender to God and to the Divine Mother’s arms. She will raise you and make of you a perfect expression of Her Divinity and Admirable Will.