Embracing the Little Way

 

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations

 

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

 

 

Week Forty: Eager to Love

 

Embracing the Little Way

 

 

 

My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  
—2 Corinthians 12:9 

I am glad for weaknesses, constraints, and distress for Christ’s sake, for it is when I am weak that I am strong.  
—2 Corinthians 12:10  

Father Richard describes how Francis, Clare, and later, Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897), found a direct experience of God through humility:    

In his letters to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul, following Jesus, forever reversed the engines of ego and its attainments, and it is this precise reversal of values—and new entrance point—that Francis and Clare of Assisi understood so courageously and clearly. Seven centuries later, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun who became the youngest, least educated, and most quickly designated doctor of the Church, also sought this downward path, which she called “a new way” or her “little way.”  

Thérèse—lovingly called the Little Flower by most Catholics—was right, on both counts, since her way of life was indeed very new for most people and very “little” instead of the usual upward-bound Christian agenda. Doing “all the smallest things and doing them through love” was the goal for Thérèse. [1] The common path of most Christianity by her time had become based largely on perfectionism and legalism, making the good news anything but good or inviting for generations of believers. [2]  

Thérèse, almost counter to reason, declared: “If you want to bear in peace the trial of not pleasing yourself, you will give me [the Virgin Mary] a sweet home.” [3] If you observe yourself, you will see how hard it is to be displeasing to yourself, and that it is the initial emotional snag that sends most of us into terribly bad moods without even realizing the mood’s origins. To resolve this common problem, both Francis and Thérèse teach us to let go of the very need to “think well of yourself” to begin with! “That is your ego talking, not God,” they would say.  

Only someone who has surrendered their foundational egocentricity can do this, of course. Psychiatrist and popular writer Scott Peck told me personally over lunch that this quote was “sheer religious genius” on her part, because it made the usual posturing of religion well-nigh impossible. It mirrors these teachings from St. Francis:  

Show your love to others by not wishing that they be better Christians. [4]  

We can patiently accept not being good. What we cannot bear is not being considered good, not appearing good. [5]  

Until we discover the “little way,” we almost all try to gain moral high ground by obeying laws and thinking we are thus spiritually advanced. Yet Thérèse wrote, “It is sufficient to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself as a child into God’s arms.” [6] People who follow this more humble and honest path are invariably more loving, joyful, and compassionate, and have plenty of time for simple gratitude about everything.