Session 17: "I Will Spend My Heaven Doing Good on Earth" — Thérèse and the Communion of Saints

Session 17 — St. Thérèse of Lisieux

"I Will Spend My Heaven Doing Good on Earth" — Thérèse and the Communion of Saints

Opening Prayer

LEADER: Let us begin by asking the Holy Spirit to be with us tonight.
ALL: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love.
LEADER: Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created.
ALL: And you shall renew the face of the earth.
LEADER: O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful,
ALL: Grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
LEADER: Tonight is the final session of this study. We close with St. Thérèse and with the doctrine that has been quietly running underneath every session we have shared — the Communion of Saints. The women we have sat with for sixteen weeks are not in our past. They are alive in Christ, and they are with us tonight.
ALL: St. Thérèse of Lisieux, pray for us. All you holy women, pray for us. Amen.

Scripture Assignments

Assign each passage to a woman in the group before beginning.

Passage 1: Hebrews 12:1-2
Passage 2: Revelation 5:8
Passage 3: 2 Maccabees 12:43-45
Passage 4: Matthew 27:52-53

Who Was This Woman?

We sat with Thérèse last week and walked through her short life — born in 1873 in Alençon, the youngest daughter of St. Louis and St. Zélie Martin, into Carmel at fifteen, dead at twenty-four of tuberculosis in September 1897, declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997. Tonight we do not retrace the biography. We sit with the specific months at the end of her life, because what she said and did in those months is what gives this final session its name.

By the summer of 1897 Thérèse was dying. The tuberculosis had moved into her lungs and her intestines. She was hemorrhaging blood. She was, by the end, in extraordinary pain, often without effective relief — the Carmel of Lisieux at that time was not well-stocked with morphine, and her superiors were cautious about its use. She was twenty-four years old.

In those final months, her sisters in the community — including her blood sisters Pauline, Marie, and Céline — recognized that they were watching the death of a saint. They began to write down everything she said. The notebooks they kept have come down to the Church as Derniers Entretiens — the Last Conversations — and they are some of the most precious deathbed words in Catholic literature.

In one of those conversations, sometime in July 1897, Thérèse said to the sisters at her bedside the sentence that would echo through the Church for the next century. The exact wording is preserved slightly differently in different sources, but the substance is unmistakable. She said: I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth.

She said it as a promise, not as a wish. She said it as someone who already knew what she was going to do with her resurrection life. She was not going to retire into beatitude. She was going to work. She said also: I will let fall a shower of roses. And: My mission is about to begin — my mission to make others love God as I love Him, to give my Little Way to souls.

She died on September 30, 1897. Within a year Story of a Soul was published. Within three years letters began to pour into the Carmel of Lisieux reporting graces, healings, conversions, sudden returns to the faith — all attributed to the intercession of the young French nun no one had ever heard of in life. Roses, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, were everywhere. The shower had begun.

She was beatified in 1923 and canonized in 1925, the fastest major canonization process in modern Church history at the time. She became, within a generation of her death, the most popular saint of the modern age. Soldiers carried her image in two World Wars. Missionaries claimed her as patroness. Ordinary Catholics in every country in the world adopted her as a sister and a friend. Pope St. John Paul II — whose own life had been marked by her intercession from his youth — declared her a Doctor of the Church on October 19, 1997, the centenary year of her death.

Her promise was not metaphor. It was prophecy. She has spent her heaven doing good on earth for the last hundred and twenty-eight years, and she shows no sign of slowing.

That promise is the doorway into the doctrine we are sitting with tonight: the Communion of Saints.

Teaching Block 1 — The Cloud of Witnesses

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews has just spent eleven chapters describing the great heroes of faith — Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Rahab, the prophets, the martyrs. The whole roll-call of the Old Testament faithful. And then he turns to the reader and says this:

Furthermore, since we also have so great a cloud of witnesses over us, let us set aside every burden and sin which may surround us, and advance, through patience, to the struggle offered to us. Let us gaze upon Jesus, as the Author and the completion of our faith, who, having joy laid out before him, endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and who now sits at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2 — CPDV

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

The Greek word for cloud is nephos — not a small cloud, but a great mass of cloud filling the sky. The word for witnesses is martys — the same root that gives us martyr — a person who testifies, a person who has seen and now reports what they have seen. And the participle translated surrounded — perikeimenon — is the language of being completely encircled. We are in the middle of them. They are around us in every direction. Above us, beside us, behind us, in front of us. A great mass of witnesses, encircling us as we run.

This is not poetry. This is the Holy Spirit, through the inspired author, describing the actual structure of the universe the baptized live inside. The faithful who have gone before us are not gone. They are alive in Christ, gathered around us, watching, encouraging, interceding, urging us on. We do not run the Christian race alone. We run it inside a stadium so full of witnesses that we cannot see past them — and every one of them is for us.

The Catholic tradition has always taught that this is what the Communion of Saints is. The Apostles' Creed names it — I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints. It is not a sentiment. It is a doctrine. The Church is a single body, made up of three states: the Church Militant on earth, fighting the spiritual battle; the Church Suffering in purgatory, being purified; and the Church Triumphant in heaven, glorifying God face to face. All three are one Church. The communion among them is real, active, and continuous. The dead in Christ are not behind us. They are with us.

And they are not idle. The Book of Revelation lifts the veil and shows us what they are doing:

And when he had opened the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having stringed instruments, as well as golden bowls full of fragrances, which are the prayers of the saints.
Revelation 5:8 — CPDV

Each one held a golden bowl full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. John, in his vision, sees the elders in heaven holding bowls — phialē, the same shallow ceremonial bowl used for libations in temple worship — and the bowls are full of incense, and the incense is the prayers of the saints. The prayers of God's people rise to His throne, but they do not rise unaccompanied. They rise inside the bowls held by the elders and the living creatures of heaven. The saints in glory are carrying our prayers to God.

This is intercession. This is what the saints do. The Catholic tradition has always taught this and has always taught it for a reason — because the saints themselves keep doing it. Their intercession is real. Their action in the lives of the faithful on earth is real. They are not symbols. They are persons, alive in Christ, awake and at work.

Thérèse said I will spend my heaven doing good on earth because she understood the doctrine and she meant to inhabit it. She understood that death does not end the Christian's mission. Death promotes the Christian into a higher mode of mission. The faithful soul on earth can do good through her hands, her feet, her body. The faithful soul in heaven can do good through Christ Himself, in whom she is now perfectly hidden, by intercession that crosses every boundary of space and time. She loved souls on earth. She would love them more, not less, after death. She said so. And she has done so.

Discussion Question 1: Who in your own family or your own past — someone who has died — do you experience as still present, still praying for you, still part of your life now? And what would change if you took seriously that the experience is true, that they really are praying for you?

Teaching Block 2 — Prayer for the Dead, Prayer with the Saints

The Communion of Saints runs in both directions. The saints in glory pray for us. We also pray for the faithful departed who are being purified in purgatory. This is one of the most distinctively Catholic teachings, and one of the most ancient, and it has scriptural anchor that most of the women in this room have never been shown explicitly. Hear it from the Second Book of Maccabees, written about a hundred years before Christ:

And, calling an assembly, he sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem, to be offered for a sacrifice for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously about the resurrection, (for if he had not hoped that those who had fallen would be resurrected, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead,) and because he considered that those who had fallen asleep with piety had great grace stored up for them.
2 Maccabees 12:43-45 — CPDV

Judas Maccabeus, after a battle, finds that some of his fallen soldiers had been wearing pagan amulets under their tunics, a sin against the first commandment. He takes up a collection — twelve thousand drachmas of silver — and sends it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering for the dead. The inspired author of 2 Maccabees comments: In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.

We sat with this passage early in this study, in our Hidden Canon work — it is one of the deuterocanonical passages that the Protestant reformers removed from the Bible because, among other reasons, it teaches a doctrine they had decided to reject: prayer for the dead. The Catholic Church kept the book because the Holy Spirit had given it to His people and because the doctrine it teaches is true. The faithful departed who are being purified can be helped by our prayers. Our love does not stop at the grave. Their need of grace does not stop at death. The Church Militant on earth and the Church Suffering in purgatory are bound together by prayer, by the offering of Masses, by the small daily intercessions of the living for the dead.

And the Lord Himself signed this teaching with one of the strangest sentences in the New Testament, almost lost in the chaos of Good Friday:

And the tombs were opened. And many bodies of the saints, which had been sleeping, arose. And going out from the tombs, after his resurrection, they went into the holy city, and they appeared to many.
Matthew 27:52-53 — CPDV

The tombs were also opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. At the death of Christ, the graves of the holy dead were thrown open. After His resurrection, the dead came out and walked into Jerusalem. This is not an incidental detail. Matthew is the most carefully ordered of the four Gospels, and he includes this scene at the climax of his Passion narrative because it is the doctrinal sign of what the Cross has just accomplished. The wall between the living and the dead, between earth and the place of the holy ones, has been broken. The communion between them is now open in Christ.

Everything we say about the Communion of Saints flows from that broken wall. We pray for our dead because the wall is open. The saints in glory pray for us because the wall is open. We ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede, we name patron saints at confirmation, we light candles before statues, we celebrate feast days, we keep relics, we venerate the bodies of the holy because the body matters and the resurrection has begun — because the wall is open and Christ has opened it.

Thérèse knew this in her bones. She said I will spend my heaven doing good on earth because she knew the wall had been opened by her Bridegroom and she fully intended to walk back through it, after her death, to keep working for the souls she loved. She has been doing so for more than a century.

Discussion Question 2: When was the last time you prayed for someone who has died — by name, deliberately, as a Catholic act of love that crosses the grave? And who, right now, would you put on that list if you started one tonight?

Teaching Block 3 — These Women Are Alive

We have come to the end of this study. Seventeen weeks. Seventeen sessions. The Mother of God, who stood at the foot of the Cross and at Pentecost. Mary Magdalene, who saw the risen Lord first and was sent to tell the apostles. St. Monica, whose tears for her son were finally answered after thirty years. St. Macrina the Younger, who taught her brothers theology on her own deathbed. St. Hildegard of Bingen, who saw the Living Light and wrote thunderous letters to popes and emperors. St. Catherine of Siena, who called a Pope home to Rome and lived in a mystical marriage with Christ. St. Teresa of Ávila, who walked us through the seven mansions and founded seventeen convents on bad Spanish roads. St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who gave the Church the Little Way and promised to spend her heaven doing good on earth.

And there are the others we sat with along the way — every woman in this curriculum, sixteen weeks of them, a small chorus of the cloud of witnesses.

Here is what must not be missed at the end of this study, because it changes how every week of it should be remembered: these women are not historical figures. They are not biographies you have studied. They are not characters in a Catholic literature curriculum. They are alive in Christ tonight, in this room, all of them. They have been listening to this study. They have been praying for the women reading their stories. They have been at work, by their intercession, in your lives for the last seventeen weeks whether you have noticed it or not.

Mary is praying for you. Monica is praying for the wayward people you love. Macrina is praying for your sisters and your brothers. Hildegard is praying for whatever creative work you have been given to do. Catherine is praying for the Church you love and grieve for. Teresa is praying for your prayer life. Thérèse is praying for whatever small thing is in front of you tomorrow morning. The Blessed Mother is praying for everything. All of them. Right now. Tonight.

The Catholic tradition has always taught — and the Catechism teaches still — that the saints in heaven are more present to us than the people in the room with us. Their presence is not bounded by distance, because they live in Christ and Christ is everywhere His Spirit goes. Their attention is not divided as ours is, because they see us in Him who sees all things in one act. Their love for us is not diluted by their love for the other souls they intercede for, because the love of heaven is not a finite resource. Each of them loves you as if you were the only one — because in the love of Christ in which they live, you really are seen that way.

This is what Thérèse meant. I will spend my heaven doing good on earth. She meant it personally. She meant it for you. She has been spending her heaven, in part, on a Catholic woman in Chattanooga or Decatur or Lookout Mountain reading these words tonight, and she will keep doing so for as long as you live and longer.

You did not sit with these women alone. They sat with you. And when you close this study tonight, you do not close a book and put it on the shelf. You stand up among friends who will walk out of this room with you and walk home with you and be with you tomorrow morning and the next morning and at the hour of your death — friends in Christ, members of one Body, the cloud of witnesses that fills the sky around your life.

That is the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. It is the most beautiful doctrine the Catholic Church teaches, and it is the one most easily forgotten, and it is the one that is most consoling at the hour when you need it most.

Discussion Question 3: Looking back across the seventeen women you have studied — and the seventeen weeks you have spent with them — which one has come most alive for you? Whose voice do you hear most clearly when you pray? Who do you want to walk home with tonight as your friend and intercessor for the next year of your life?

This Week

This is the final week of the study, and the practice is the practice that will carry you out of the study and into the next year of your Catholic life.

Choose one of the seventeen women you have studied — the one who has come most alive for you, the one whose voice you hear when you pray, the one you would want walking next to you in the hardest moment of the year ahead. Adopt her formally as your particular intercessor for the next twelve months.

Tonight or tomorrow, do this concretely:

Find a holy card or a small image of her and put it somewhere you will see it every day — beside your bed, in your prayer corner, in your car, taped to your refrigerator. Learn her feast day and mark it on your calendar; pray a small special prayer to her that day, and if you can, get to Mass for it. Find one of her own writings (the Magnificat for Mary, the Confessions of Augustine for Monica, the Story of a Soul for Thérèse, The Interior Castle for Teresa, the letters of Catherine, the visions of Hildegard, On the Soul and the Resurrection for Macrina) and begin to read it slowly across the year — a paragraph a week is enough. And every morning, in your morning prayer, name her by name. St. ___, my friend and intercessor, pray for me today.

She will. She is alive. She has been waiting to be asked.

Pray as you begin:

Lord Jesus, I thank You for the cloud of witnesses You have given me in these seventeen women. Grant that I may walk with the one You have chosen for me, into the year ahead, until I see them all in You face to face. Amen.

And to Mary, the Mother of all the saints and the Mother of God:

Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of all the holy women, gather me into your prayer and into the prayer of all your daughters in heaven. Walk with me. Bring me home. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Gather prayer requests and close out.