Chapter 6
The Wisdom of the Cross

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to take hold of us increasingly, and lead us to the desert, close to Mary, in order to adore and love. Through adoration we approach the heart of Jesus and the heart of the Father in the most truthful manner. At the Cross, where he adores for all of humanity, Jesus invites us to adore with him. Through adoration we become the "desert of God," that is, all that might impede us from being in a direct relationship with God is set aside. Through grace we enter into direct contact with God; and we call upon the Holy Spirit. We beg the Holy Spirit for his help, asking that he bring us closer to the gaze of God, the gaze of the Father and the gaze of Jesus, and that he keep us from ever turning away. This we must ask from the Virgin Mary.

Therese of the Child Jesus and Martha Robin are, as it were, big sisters who lead us. And the more we touch our misery and our weakness, experiencing how fragile we are, the more we need their help, in order to meet, with them, the full the demands of grace, by going beyond ourselves always and by begging the Holy Spirit to draw us. The more we progress in the knowledge of what the Little Flower has to offer us, the more we discover the constant call to love. The vocation of a Christian consists in loving.
With the Little Flower, the Christian vocation occurs through suffering. She comes back to this fact constantly. We ought to gather all the places where she mentions the role of suffering in her life, for it would help us grasp how much she understood (early on) the mystery of the wisdom of the Cross. Let us consider a passage from a letter to her sister Celine,

Let us neglect nothing of what pleases Jesus. Ah, let us bathe in the sun of his love. This sun is burning...let us be consummated with love. St. Francis de Sales says: "When the fire of love is in a heart, all the furniture flies out the window." O, let us leave nothing but Jesus in our hearts. Let us not think that we can love without suffering, without suffering much.
Love, and love alone, gives meaning to our life. And regarding love, what Therese calls "pleasing," which is her primary concern, gives meaning to our life.

Let us not believe that we can love without suffering much. Such is our poor nature, and she can't help it. Our nature is our wealth. It is so precious that Jesus has intentionally come to earth to possess it. Let us suffer with bitterness, without courage, Jesus suffered with sadness. Without sadness, does the soul suffer? And we wish to suffer generously, greatly? Celine, what an illusion.
One sees to what interior poverty leads this manner of loving which assumes suffering. We must accept to suffer "with bitterness, without courage." But understand well: if we were to separate this phrase from its context, we would find ourselves before the spirituality "of one who crawls"; in other words, far from what Therese means. On earth, love is accompanied by suffering; and suffering is always hard to bear. To say that suffering is light and easy, is incorrect; such suffering is not true suffering, for true suffering always wounds us. If the love of God were not there when we suffer, we would crawl, we would stop, we would despair.

There is another error to avoid: believing that suffering "finalizes" Therese, that suffering is an absolute and an end for her (suffering for suffering's sake). Suffering is never an end, suffering never "finalizes." Regarding certain expressions of hers-- especially taken out of context--one sometimes does have the impression that Therese has suffering go before love, for example, when she speaks of seeking suffering as the most precious treasure, or when she says that her happiness is only in suffering. She in fact does not. In order to understand this, we must read her writings in the light of the Gospel, in the light of the wisdom of the Cross. It is very important, for it is surely one of the great secrets of the Little Flower.

Why is Jesus our Savior by means of the Cross? Thomas Aquinas poses the question. Jesus came to save us, but he could have done so by means of his hidden life. He could have saved us by means of his obedience to Mary and Joseph, or by means of his adoration of the Father in the silence of Nazareth. He could have been our Savior by means of his gestures of mercy: when he healed the sick, at the pool of Bethsaida, for example, where he saved the poor man, lying there for 38 years, watching everyone else go before him. By means of these gestures of mercy Jesus could have been the Savior for all who are ill, as was the man at the pool of Bethsaida. He also could have saved us by means of his teaching--for example, the teaching on the bread of life transmitted in Chapter 6 of John's gospel. He could have saved us by means of his different encounters with persons who represent humanity: spouses (Cana), the vendors in the temple (humanity seduced by money), Nicodemus, (the theologian), the Samaritan woman (woman who no longer knows how to love), the royal officer (a father whose child agonizes), etc. But the Father wills to save us by means of the sacrifice of the Cross, although he could have saved us in a different way. It therefore stems from a divine choice, a choice of divine wisdom, regarding us.

The entire life of Christ is with a view to "his hour." The hour of Jesus is the hour when he fully accomplishes his mission, which is to glorify the Father and save us. It is for this reason that he came. "Behold why I have come to this hour, Father, glorify your name." (John 12:27-28) "Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that your Son might glorify you." He came to glorify the Father and to save us. It is the mystery of the Cross which unites this contemplative gaze (glorifying the Father) with the apostolic work par excellence (saving us). It is the will of the Father that this be realized by means of the suffering of the Cross, and the suffering of the Agony where there is sadness (there is no true suffering without the interior sadness of the soul, Therese tells us), sadness such that Jesus could have died from it, "My soul is sad to the point of death." This sadness-- which takes hold of Christ's entire soul-is sadness caused by the weight of sin, by the horror of sin whereby man turns from God and turns in on himself: the sin of personal pride and/or the sin of collective pride (symbolized by the tower of Babel). The mystery of the Cross begins with the Agony and continues to Golgotha. Between the two there is the scourging at the pillar, the carrying of the cross, and the various forms of suffering that Jesus experienced because of the Crucifixion.

Why did God, in his wisdom, wish to unite, in the mystery of the Cross, love in its greatest, most powerful and purest aspect with suffering, with sadness? It is because of the wisdom of the Cross that the Little Flower unites so closely and constantly love and suffering in an extremely practical and simple fashion. If we wish to understand Therese, therefore, we must ask the question: Why does the Father--who sends his Son to glorify and save us--establish a connection between love and suffering, extreme suffering, that is, suffering which leads to and implies death. Why does the Father unite love and the deadly sadness of the Agony? Why is this? It would have been more normal to unite love with joy, with success. Jesus would have been capable of succeeding. He would have been able to bring salvation to humanity with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, or with the amazing procession shown in Chapter six of John's gospel, when Jesus is followed by a crowd of 5,000 men, not including the women and children. Salvation could have been given there. Indeed, none of these things are extrinsic to salvation, but they are not Jesus' "hour," the moment for which he came. His hour is an act of love realized by means of the sadness of the Agony, the suffering of the Cross and the offering of his earthly life, in obedience to the Father.

It is through love linked to obedience that Jesus saves us. This is perhaps the key for us. The Son wishes to manifest to us his love for the Father. And in manifesting his love for the Father he glorifies him (the manifestation proclaims his love for the Father). In order to manifest his love for the Father, Jesus must incarnate this love, in complete obedience, obedience which entails the offering of his life. It is, therefore, radical obedience. All of the other acts of the life of Jesus are done in obedience to the Father, but none were chosen by the Father in order for Jesus to manifest all his love for him and to glorify him. The Cross was chosen. It was an absolutely free choice on the part of the Father, which is very impressive. The Father chooses the Cross so that love might be more manifest, so that love might be perfectly lived, perfectly incarnated, and concretized through the whole of Jesus' humanity, through the whole of his human nature, in obedience entailing the offering of his life. Each time we obey, we offer something in our life: our capacities, or simply our time. This offering is proper to obedience, whereby we cooperate with one who has authority.

Now, what has the devil done since the beginning of the twentieth-century? He has attacked, in a very particular fashion, paternal authority. He has done it in a very clever fashion by showing all the defects of such authority. Paternal authority has, in fact, not always been exercised as a true service but as power. Because of the confusion between authority and power, paternal authority has become something horrible. It has therefore been rejected and, by the same token, obedience has been rejected. How difficult it is for us to obey nowadays. We must admit it: obeying is what is most difficult for us, given our sense of autonomy. But Jesus shows us that the Father's will is that his act of obedience take possession of his whole self, that it be radical and "substantial" obedience which expresses his love: "If you love me," Jesus says to his apostles, "you will keep my commandments." "If you love me...." And just before the Passion he says, "The world must know that I love the Father and that I accomplish what the Father commands." These words refer to the amazing cooperation between Jesus and the Father at the Cross: obedience of the Beloved Son, wholly loving obedience. In order that this obedience be complete, there need be the offering of his life--even though obedience is never adequate to love. Love is always source of obedience. Each time obedience becomes difficult for us, it is because we do not love enough. For the human intellect, obeying is horrible. When one reaches a certain age, adulthood, one is capable of directing himself, one acquires prudence, one has experience. And when one knows oneself a bit, it is stupid and revolting to have to obey someone who commands us and who knows us less well than we do ourselves.

Jesus obeys as Beloved Son and, because of this love, his obedience is complete. Love bears obedience, not the opposite. Obedience concretizes love in an efficacious manner. In obedience the efficaciousness and strength of love is realized. Hence, at the Agony and at the Cross, Jesus manifests how much his love for the Father is an absolute. For him, love for the Father is everything and, thanks to this love, he can offer his soul which bears the iniquity of the world. Thanks to this love he can bear the scourging at the pillar and condemnation to death as a slave with no rights. Thanks to this love he can die upon the Cross with all the suffering it entails. After the Cross, there is still the cry of thirst, as though the great work of the Cross--the greatest work that ever existed on our earth, the greatest act, the accomplishment par excellence--did not suffice. The cry of thirst reveals to us that this work, great as it may be, is inadequate for love, that love goes further and cannot be reduced to results, to work, to efficiency. How great this is. Love always goes further. And this is part of the contemplative lucidity of Christ crucified, lucidity in the midst of suffering, in the midst of the offering of his entire life. Jesus shows us that beyond his sacrifice there is love for the Father which surpasses all. We see to what degree the mystery of the Agony and the Cross are borne by love and in love.

And so we begin to understand why salvation was wrought through the mystery of the Cross--or we at least begin to guess, for only in heaven, in the Beatific Vision will we fully understand. Here on earth, it remains a mystery; yet we must do all we can to go as far as possible in our contemplation of the mystery in order to live it, in order that it shed light on our life. The great light for our Christian life is the mystery of the Cross. Such is the message of Therese of the Child Jesus. She leaves us her act of offering to prepare us for it and so that we might understand that all must be brought to completion and finds its meaning in the Cross.

Love therefore bears suffering; but why not joy? Does not love blossom in joy? If Jesus so loves our human nature, should he not have manifested his supreme love, the love whereby he is Savior, in and through joy? It would have been more connatural to us. Jesus could have given us complete joy as of this earth. The full "success" of love would then have been the blossoming of our being and this joy, for joy always entails blossoming. When there is no longer any blossoming, there is sadness, there is brokenness, brokenness that can become unbearable. We then turn in on ourselves and there is no longer the ecstatic aspect of love.

Let us understand that the Cross, with all the suffering it entails, is a passage whose end is joy. Its end is not sadness, its end is not suffering (that is why suffering does not finalize). Its end is love that blossoms in joy. This blossoming is the mystery of the Resurrection. "If Christ is not risen, vain is our faith" (1 Cor. 15:17). Exteriorly, the Cross is a failure, the most horrible failure that ever existed on earth: amongst the 12 disciples of Jesus there is a traitor, one whom Jesus chose to be his successor who betrays him, and the others flee...save one. Only one of 12, John, is present at the Cross. What would be said of a Novice Master who had formed 12 novices amongst whom only one remained faithful? We would pity him: "Poor novice master. What an idiot; he understood nothing." Exteriorly, the Cross is a horrible failure, and the devil is convinced it is his great victory. In reality, the Cross is the victory of love, a hidden victory: the grain of wheat must fall to the earth to bear much fruit. Here, one touches the fruitfulness of love-- not only love, but the fruitfulness of love. So that there be this fruitfulness of love, we must pass through the Cross, a difficult passage which Jesus indicates for us, but only a passage, whose end is the Resurrection.

Many persons do not grasp the mysterious covenant between love and sadness, sadness caused by sin, by a lack of love, by pride. Out of pride such persons do not accept to pass through the Cross and, therefore, do not accept the full demands of love. One must pass through the Cross for there to be this radical purification of our heart, of our will, of our intellect so that love might take hold of everything in us. Suffering and sadness place us in a horrible state of fragility, a sometimes unbearable state of fragility. When we suffer too much, we can no longer do anything. When we let ourselves be overwhelmed by sadness, we are annihilated, like the apostles whom Jesus, at the Agony, finds "asleep with sadness" (Luke 22:45). Love is victorious over the sadness and suffering of the Cross, but the victory is hidden, a victory which will blossom only in the hereafter. God the Father demands of us an act of faith that goes to the end. According to appearance (which is why one must never judge according to appearance), the Cross is a failure. And when one lives a failure like the Cross in life, one needs divine hope and great love to get beyond it, to avoid being reduced to nothingness by the weight of the sadness and suffering.

How great is the trust the Father demands of the Son, and of us. If the Father wills this, it is so that our hearts might be purified and be able to receive divine love in its most powerful and most absolute aspect. If the Father gives us the wisdom of the Cross, it is to purify us radically of what St. John calls the three "concupiscences" (that of the flesh, that of the eyes, and that of life) and to have us understand the deep demand of love. Joy would not be able to bring this about. Joy is only a passage. The danger of joy is that it tempts us to stop, to "pitch three tents" (Matthew 17:4, Mark 9:5, Luke 9:33), whereas we never have the temptation to stop at suffering. On the contrary, we wish for suffering to pass as quickly as possible. Even Therese sighs for a moment, "Is it not the agony yet? Am I not going to die?", but just as quickly states otherwise, "I do not wish to suffer less long." When one suffers too much and love is not strong enough the temptation to suicide is great. In order to eliminate the suffering, one yields to the temptation.

This covenant which God wished to realize between love and suffering remains a mystery for the human intellect. If the Holy Spirit and the Father had asked our advice, we would certainly not have told them to save the world by means of the Agony and the Cross. We would have said, "Save the world by means of Cana" (the transformation of water into wine in an atmosphere of festivity is joyous). Or we would have said, "Save the world through teaching" (teaching is great). Or, "Save the world through acts of mercy towards the sick." We ourselves must rather accept to be ill-not on an operating table, but on the Cross, allowing the Holy Spirit to go as far as the piercing with the lance, where Jesus is victim of love in an ultimate fashion. Therese grasped this in an astonishing fashion--and it is for us.

The mystery of the Cross of Christ could have led us back to earthly paradise, Eden, entirely freed of all the consequences of sin. Is this not, in a certain sense, what Christ asked in his prayer at the Agony, "Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me." Jesus does not say, "Take the Cross from me," or "Take death from me," but "take this cup from me". What does this symbolic language mean? It refers to the cup of suffering, and Jesus asks, "Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me. Take this particular manner or mode in which you wish to save humanity and be glorified." The mode is that of Mary present at the Cross. It is that of Therese of the Child Jesus present at the Cross. A child that suffers, a fragile being that suffers, someone who is completely unarmed is the scandal of which Albert Camus speaks. Therese is a child. During his Agony, Jesus asks the Father to take the cup. He accepts to die, but he begs the Father to be the only one to suffer; and at the same time he surrenders everything to the Father: "Not what I will but what you will." Yet he does ask to be the only one to suffer, for he knows us, he knows how fragile and weak we are, he knows how difficult it is for us to suffer and to die to ourselves. The Father could have permitted that he be the only one to suffer, for Jesus is the one who saves. He is the Savior, not Mary. Mary is superabundance. Jesus therefore asks the Father to be the only to suffer, but the Father wills that Mary be present, and that John be present, that there be an icon of the Trinity at the Cross: Jesus, Mary and John-- the Christian icon of the Holy Trinity. Jesus takes the place of the Father; he is source of new life. Mary, like the Son, receives everything and gives everything. And the common fruit of the love between Jesus and Mary is John, the Church, us.

The presence of Mary is not necessary. Jesus suffices for everything. Why, then, does the Father will that Mary be there? In order that she be more united to Jesus; in order that the mystery of the Cross which Jesus lives--the covenant between love and suffering-- be lived by her in the mystery of the Compassion. And with Mary is John. At the Cross, Mary is given as Mother to John. She, therefore, gives her treasure to John, and to each one of us, for in being given to John she is given to the entire Church. Let us never forget when we suffer much that Jesus prayed to the Father that we be spared the suffering and sadness, for he knows our weakness. Jesus knows that when we have a little bit of joy, everything is fine, but the moment there is suffering and brokenness (or when things simply do not go our way), we are tempted by despair, the terrible temptation to turn in on ourselves and no longer live the "first love." Jesus knows, and regarding this temptation he prayed at the Agony. But the Father wishes to go to the end of mercy. To go the end of mercy is to allow those saved by the Cross to be united to Jesus to the point of becoming Savior with him. This, Therese so ardently desired. If Mary had not been present at the Cross, if Mary had not lived the mystery of the Compassion, she would have been less united to Jesus, for she would not have lived what Jesus lived. The covenant between Bridegroom and bride, which, from the prophet Hosea to the Song of Songs, is at the heart of all the covenants of the Old Testament, is at the heart of the new Covenant where it is fully realized. Jesus is the Bridegroom of the Church and Mary, at the Cross, is the bride of his heart. The covenant between Bridegroom and bride would not have been realized if Mary had not been present at the Cross. And it would not be realized for us if we had not been bound to the Cross of Christ and to his Agony. We would remain servants, we would not be spouses. A spouse lives the secrets of her spouse, and she does the same "work" as her spouse, otherwise she would not be spouse. Mary does the same work as Christ in faith, hope and love and, in this sense, she brings to completion the mystery of the Cross; and through Mary, John does; and through Mary and John, Therese does, we do....

Let us ask the Little Flower who lived this with such great acuteness and depth and, above all, simplicity, to help us to receive this secret and to live it.