THERESEOF LISIEUX

THECENTAURY SAINT

The followingcharacter study of a person from history was written in partial fulfillmentof Flower Essence Society (FES) requirements for certification as a floweressence therapy practitioner.  In this study, the person's life isexplored as an archetypal expression of one primary flower essence. If you have come to this site out of an interest in Therese but don't knowwhat flower essences are, before reading this study you may benefit froma brief introduction, which may be found by clickinghere.

Justas the delicate, lovely, and inconspicuous Centaury flower, often overlookedby humans, lies humbly near the earth, frequently growing amidst the weeds,so Therese of Lisieux, fondly called by Catholics the "Little Flower,"lived an ordinary life hidden away in the Carmelite Monastery of Lisieux,France and was considered "nothing special" by most of the sisters withwhom she lived.  It wasn't until after her death in 1897 that theextraordinary beauty and treasures of her spirituality of the "Little Way"were recognized by the world, leading to her swift canonization in 1925and subsequent declaration as a Doctor of the Church in 1997.  Today,she is probably the most popular of all Catholic saints, as well as havingbeen proclaimed by many popes the greatest saint and healer of modern times. 

Therese'ssainthood did not come easily.  She had much to heal and overcomein her sensitive, vulnerable temperament.  Her primary psychic wound,chiseled into her soul during a very difficult childhood, lay in the areaof loss.  This created the foundation for two primary needs and patternswithin Therese's personality:  an excessive need for love, manifestedmostly in her childhood and addressed by the Chicory flower essence, anda need to please others in order to receive affirmation and acceptance,as addressed by the Centaury flower essence.  As Therese grew andmade progress in the spiritual life, she was able to allow these woundsto be transformed.  What follows is a documentation of the woundingand the transformation within Therese of Lisieux.

The youngestof five daughters, Therese was born into a very loving Catholic familyin Alencon, France in 1873.  At the time of Therese's birth, her motherhad breast cancer, and at the age of two months Therese had to be givento a couple living in the nearby countryside to be nursed due to her mother'sillness.  She spent one day a week as an infant with her real familyand the rest of the week with her nursing mother.  At the age of eighteenmonths Therese returned home to live with her family.  She exhibiteda great deal of separation anxiety at that time, clinging to her mother,trying to get her mother's attention, and crying whenever her mother wasout of her sight.  Therese's mother said, "The poor little thing doesn'twant me to leave her.  She is continually at my side."  "Thereseloved to go into the garden but she would not stay there if her motherwasn't there and would cry until she was taken to her mother," says VilmaSeelaus, a Carmelite sister who has studied Therese's life and spirituality, lectures on her, and has produced a tape on her development, "Therese: Child, Girl, Woman."  Therese's early infancy separations had createda deeply rooted attachment disorder in young Therese and predisposed herto insecurity and an excessive need for love.  This difficult infancyalso set the stage for what would become Therese's primary temperament: she learned to be a pleaser, to love and serve as a way to find approval. 

As a child,Therese exhibited physical weakness and lack of robust physical health,which are indicative of the Centaury type.  She had asthma, bronchitis,flu, colds, and, as an adult, developed her final illness:  tuberculosis. The lungs were Therese's physical weak point, unlike the typical digestiveweakness of the Centaury type.  In her autobiography,Story ofa Soul, Therese describes her childhood self as a ponderer and, atthe age of two, as a sensitive, strong-willed child who would go into tantrumswhen things didn't go her way.  At the age of three, her mother describesher as having a stubborn streak that was invincible: "She is not docileand can be terribly obstinate.  She is also very good, very frank,and when she has done the slightest thing wrong everyone has to know aboutit."  Her stubbornness and strong will are not Centaury qualities,although her overly sensitive conscience does reflect a Centaury temperament. However, two- and three-year-old children, going through the "terribletwo's," often exhibit the kind of stubborn  behavior described byher mother.  They are more indicative of childhood Chicory states. More importantly, Therese's childhood losses have only just begun. As she continues to experience losses, she will experience greater movementtoward dependency and a weakening of the will, both indicative of the Centaurytemperament.

Therese'sdeepest wound occurred when she was four; her mother died.  Therese'spersonality changed and she became, as described by Vilma Seelaus, moreshy, serious, retiring, and sensitive (one look would reduce her to tears). She began to manifest more negative traits of the Centaury type, consideredby some practitioners as the most sensitive of the thirty-eight Bach flowertypes (according to Bach flower practitioner and author Mechthild Scheffer). During any crisis Therese very easily succumbed to tears and emotionalupset.  This emotional state continued for the next ten years.The losses Therese  experienced as a child contributed an underlyingdeprivation in the Chicory sphere which further weakened her basic Centaurynature. She never developed the overbearing qualities nor the powerfulpersonality of the Chicory type.  Therese received so much lovingattention from her father and sisters after her mother's death that perhapsbasic Chicory needs were met to a sufficient degree not to cause a full-blownChicory personality to develop. 

At the ageof four, when the object of Therese's devotion, her mother, was taken fromher, she claimed her oldest sister, Pauline, as her new mother.  "Asa child, Therese's attachments to her family were passionate, and Paulinewas now her ideal; she wanted to be just like her," says Vilma Seelaus. Therese deeply loved Pauline, and, typical of the Centaury type, bondedwith her, perhaps to the point--using our contemporary psychological language--ofenmeshment. 

WhenTherese was ten, Pauline left home to enter the Carmelite monastery inLisieux, the city the family had to moved to after the mother's death.This was Therese's third childhood loss, and it greatly traumatized her. Carmelite monasteries at that time were all cloistered and extremely strictabout contact with those outside the monastery (as well as about contactamong the sisters within).  Therese would be limited to regulated,scheduled visits with other family members present when her beloved Paulinewould be seen behind a grille, or iron grating, a feature of cloisteredmonasteries at that time.  Although Therese had transferred her affectionto Marie, another of her sisters, after Pauline's departure (Therese saysshe loved Marie so much "that she could not live without her gentle companionship"),the loss of Pauline and tortuous visits to the monastery were too muchfor sensitive little Therese.  She developed a serious and mysteriousillness and hovered near death while her loving and supportive family watchedover her and prayed. 

Itis possible that Therese was manifesting an extreme Chicory state throughher mysterious illness.  Was she expressing through her illness "theunvoiced psychological need for attention and love" characteristic of thenegative Chicory state, according to Cornelia Richardson-Boedler (ApplyingHomoeopathy and Bach Flower Therapy to Psychosomatic Illness)? Was her illness an unconscious, manipulative attempt, in true Chicory form,to "get Pauline back"?  Was this the only outlet available to littleTherese because, as an authentic Centaury, feelings of jealousy and angertoward Pauline would be completely unacceptable to her conscious mind? This serious illness was a very critical period in young Therese's life. The family had brought a special statue of the Virgin Mary to her roomwhile they prayed for a  miracle.  Eventually, Therese was miraculouslyhealed when she felt that the Virgin Mary smiled at her through this statue. She had, in effect, transferred her need for love, nurturance, and motheringto a source that could not be taken from her:  the Virgin Mary. Healing and forward movement in the Chicory sphere had graciously occurred.

Another majordifficulty in Therese's childhood centered around an extremely painfulperiod of scrupulosity.  Scrupulosity has been (and is less so now)a rather common Christian, and especially Catholic, "disease," which isespecially prevalent in individuals with a sensitive conscience. The individual, in attempting to please God, becomes painfully aware ofevery thought, every event, every tiny nuance which may be "sinful” inGod's eyes.  The scrupulous person even begins to create "sinful"internal dialog in fear that he or she might be thinking this or that sinfulthing.  Scrupulosity is an excruciating, draining, entrapping conditionfor which there is no "out" except the discovery of God's love.  Confessing one's sins may give temporary relief, but a sinful thought mayoccur only five minutes after leaving the confessional, thus necessitatinganother confession.  The Centaury type is known, according to CorneliaRichardson-Boedler, to have a finely tuned conscience and to be unusuallyconscientious and easily aroused to guilt.  Therese's religious upbringingand desire for holiness, coupled with her sensitive Centaury nature, createdfertile ground for the blossoming of this disease.  It is an illnessassociated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).  Dr. Ian Osborn,a specialist in obsessive-compulsive disorder and a lover of Therese'sspirituality, believes that Therese suffered from OCD.  She is knownin some circles as the "OCDsaint" and is called upon as the "patron saint" of OCD sufferers. Shame and guilt, which is addressed by the Pine essence, are the most powerfulemotions present during periods of scrupulosity.  Pine is often indicatedfor use in conjunction with Centaury since the "try to please/fail/feelguilt" cycle is such a common phenomenon in Centaury types (or its variation,the "try to please/fail/feel anger and resentment that the effort to pleasewas not acknowledged/feel guilt over the anger" cycle). 

 VilmaSeelaus describes Therese as "a child with a seemingly desperate need toplease who found her security in the approval of others."  She believesthat, without the support of God and her  loving family, Therese's"internal and external trials could have led to an emotional breakdown." But Therese's family provided "a loving, safe, container for her, and herfather's love became increasingly tender" after the death of Therese'smother, providing additional support to young Therese.  Therese herself,in reflecting as an adult on herself as a child of 12 1/2 (just beforeher major conversion experience), says, "I was only a child who appearedto have no will but that of others."  Therese had a deeply spiritualnature and a desire to grow in holiness.  Her practice of virtue consistedin performing acts to please her sister Celine.  She would then getirritated when Celine did not notice her virtuous acts!  Her needsfor approval and acceptance were so great that she was incapable of performinga truly selfless act.  It seems, in the case of Therese, that earlyinfancy experiences predisposed a perhaps already sensitive child to evengreater weakness, vulnerability, and separation anxiety, and that the negativeCentaury  state, characterized by a weak will, undeveloped personality,and oversensitivity, was set more firmly within her as she continued toexperience loss after loss.  She was fortunate that her family memberswere loving and supportive.  Had she lived with individuals capableof manipulating her sensitive nature to meet their own needs, Therese perhapswould not have been able to  overcome her emotional handicaps andwould have ended up funneling her life energy into the care of a dominantfamily member, in typical Centaury fashion, rather than becoming a saint.

The primaryspiritual and transformative event of Therese's life occurred when shewas fourteen.  It was Christmas Eve, and the family had returned frommidnight Mass.  Therese, who still enjoyed childhood customs relatedto Christmas, wanted to put presents into slippers in front of the fireplace. She overheard her father's remark that he was glad that this was the lastyear they would have to do that.  Devastated, she went upstairs. But then, instead of her falling into emotional turmoil and despair, somethingdifferent happened.  In an instant--an instant of grace, in Therese'sperspective--she was able to gain new strength, overcome her extreme sensitivity,and go downstairs to open presents joyfully with her father.  This wasthe major turning point in Therese's life, and she never returned to bethe "old Therese" after this.   She regained, in this instant,what she had lost when her mother died ten years earlier:  she regainedinner strength and a strengthened will.  Bro. Joseph Schmidt, a Theresianscholar, retreat leader, and author of Praying with Therese of Lisieux,describes the miracle of that Christmas Eve night in this way:  "Theresefailed to please her father that night, and she bore the pain of it anddid not die."  While giving a retreat talk, Bro. Schmidt remarkedthat Therese was always good at pleasing people her whole life, but afterher conversion she did not compromise herself, and she pleased people outof wholeness and not self-centeredness. 

From thisturning point on, Therese was able to transcend her scrupulosity. "A burning desire for God awakened within her," says Vilma Seelaus. Not long after her conversion, she felt a call to enter Carmel, the Carmelitemonastery which Pauline had entered.  Entering Carmel would necessitateleaving her beloved father, which would be extremely difficult for bothof them. Therese was his "queen," and losing her would very painful forhim.  Nevertheless, Therese was able to follow her call, risk displeasingher father and causing him pain, and, although she still loved him andworried about him, leave him and enter Carmel.  She did this at theage of fifteen, having been granted an exception to the age rule for enteringmonasteries. 

WithinCarmel her struggle for individuation continued.  She had to workhard to retain healthy boundaries with her "former mother" and belovedsister Pauline and with her other two sisters who entered the monasteryone by one.  Her deepest love was God, and she strove to love Godfirst and foremost and to "purify" her attachments to her family members. But she did this in a healthy way, still loving them and maintaining contact. She strove for an inner purification.  Given Therese's childhood anddeep attachment issues, this did not come easily for her.  She developeda will of steel in dealing with herself and her relationships within themonastery, but always tempered by her steadily growing awareness of God'slove and mercy and by a surrender and abandonment to the higher will ofGod. 

In our contemporaryculture, one who is suffering from a need to please others and a weak willwould be encouraged to discover his or her own needs and desires and tomeet them or follow them.  But Therese was different, and she livedin a different time and culture.  She herself experienced an ardentlove of and desire for God, and she lived in a culture which was not characterizedby a high level of focus on the individual and the importance of the individual'sdesires and needs, as is the case in contemporary American society. Therese found her way out of the "Centaury trap" through transcendence. She never lost her Centaury desire to please, but she was freed from thetyranny of pleasing others through seeking solely to please the one sheloved most, through "giving pleasure to the one she knew loved her," saysVilma Seelaus.  "Wouldn't that be pleasing to Jesus?" was a thoughtfrequently in her mind.  Her pathway to freedom is described beautifullyby the Carmelite priest Marc Foley in The Love that Keeps Us Sane: Living the Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux:

"Therese wantedto become like a little grain of sand, hidden from all eyes for a reason: 'so that Jesus alone may be able to see it.'  She sought her truereflection in the face of Jesus alone.  Therese chose to direct hergaze inward so that the opinion of God alone would matter to her. In doing so, even though she suffered the misunderstandings and rash judgmentsof others, she freed herself from the exhausting task of trying to wintheir approval."

Therese wascertainly aware of her own desires and will, but she chose instead to pleaseGod, to offer them to God and seek instead the higher will of God. She did this out of pure love, not egocentric love.  The followingstory from her life, along with the inner motivations disclosed to us byTherese, shows us a highly mature and developed Centaury type "in action." The superior had asked for someone to help a sister who was working witha tree outside and said the first of the three sisters present to takeoff her apron would be allowed to do this task.  Therese wanted verymuch to do it, but she realized that another sister also wanted to do it. Therese made the conscious choice to take off her apron more slowly sothat the other sister would be the one chosen to help with the desiredtask.  She did this out of love and service to her sister and, moreimportantly, as an offering of love to God.  She was able consciouslyto sacrifice her desire to a higher, transcendent desire, her desire tolove and serve God.  An immature Centaury type would have sacrificedher desire out of a self-centered motive  so that the other sisterwould like her, or to make God like her.  Or perhaps an immature Centaurywould have sacrificed her desire without any "self" involved in the processand out of an unconscious compulsion to please.  As a child, Theresemade sacrifices, but she wanted attention and appreciation for having donethem.  As a mature Centaury, she found joy in loving and serving withoutself-centered motivations.

In seekingsolely to please God, she found freedom in her relationships.  Her transformation is evident in the following (Therese as quoted in Foley,as above):

"If I'm notloved, that's just too bad!  I tell the whole truth, and if anyonedoesn't wish to know the truth, let her not come looking for me. . . . We should never allow kindness to degenerate into weakness.  Whenwe have scolded someone with just reason, we must leave the matter there,without allowing ourselves to be touched to the point of tormenting ourselvesfor having caused pain or at seeing one suffer and cry.  To run afterthe afflicted one to console her does more harm than good.  Leavingher to herself forces her to have recourse to God in order to see her faultsand humble herself."

Thoseare the words only  of a transformed Centaury!  But under whatmay smack of toughness in the quote above was a sensitive and tender heart. The mature spirituality of Therese evolved out of her struggle with herown woundings and compulsions.  Her images of God reflect her movementfrom scrupulosity and trying to please to love and compassion.  "Godis more tender than any mother," she tells us, and her writings are filledwith touching, loving images which reflect this truth.  As Vilma Seelausstates, "At the height of Therese's maturity she becomes again the child: the child in God's arms.  She no longer needs to see this love reflectedin her parents as she did when a child.  She experiences it in thedepth of her being."

A summary,in her own words, of Therese's spirituality or "little way" which beautifullyexpresses the healings and inspirations experienced during her short lifeis presented below (compiled by John Nelson in his book Living the LittleWay of Love):

First plantphoto:   Centaury (copyright by J. Barnard, Healing Herbs,England).

Second plantphoto:  Centaury (courtesy of Healing Arts Press, InnerTraditions International, taken from The Family Herbal by Barbaraand Peter Theiss).

Third plantphoto:  Chicory, taken at the Trappist Monastery of Gethsemani,Kentucky.

Fourth plantphoto:  Chicory (copyright by J. Barnard, Healing Herbs, England).

Fifth plantphoto:  Pine (copyright by J. Barnard, Healing Herbs, England).

Sixth plantphoto:  Centaury (courtesy of Healing Arts Press, InnerTraditions International, takenfrom The Encyclopedia of Bach Flower Therapy by Mechthild Scheffer).