Joy in Suffering/Did St. Therese Suffer Much?
Did St. Therese Suffer Much?
This question naturally suggests itself as one looks upon the cheerful, almost smiling countenance of the "Little Flower," pressing her rose-covered Crucifix to her heart. Even those with whom she lived for nearly nine years openly voiced their belief that she had not. She herself, however, gave a different answer as her last days drew near. Pointing to a glass containing medicine of a bright-red color, she said: "You see this little glass? One would suppose that it contained a most delicious draught, whereas, in reality, it is more bitter than anything else that I take. It is the image of my life. To others it has been all rose color; they have thought that I continually drank of a most delicious wine; yet to me it has been full of bitterness. I say bitterness, yet my life has not been a bitter one, for I have learned to find joy and sweetness in all that is bitter." A slow and thoughtful reading of her autobiography, letters, and poems will fully convince one of the truth of these words—yes, even of that seemingly incredible and exaggerated cry of her anguished soul: "I could never have believed it was possible to suffer so intensely!"