Dear reader, let’s have a brief dialogue in the last few pages of this magazine. I am sure that you have had to take the stairs many times in your life. I am not talking about a staircase with only three or four steps, but one of those multi-storey flights of stairs whose end is not immediately visible… When we were children, we dared to show off our energy in front of our elders as we climbed them, but after a certain age – not necessarily very old – the situation begins to change… Would you agree?
Let us take our imagination back to more than a century ago, when people had no other means but their own legs for overcoming such obstacles… Reaching the top floor of a tall building required effort, and contemplating a vast panorama from above was only possible by means of mountaineering, unless someone had first dedicated themselves to building… a staircase! With industrial inventions everything has changed and today we can, for example, reach dizzying heights without suffering by getting into a simple elevator.
However, continuing our dialogue, I ask you: what is the point of being many metres above the ground while the soul is unable to rise to the heights of virtue?
You, reader, will point out: “It is easy to talk, it is hard to practise. Holiness is not so simple! It requires suffering, dedication, perseverance…” I confess that these problems also abound in my mind. Since neither of us can find the right answers, there could be no better solution than to turn to an authorized witness, someone who has been through the same situation and has overcome the challenge – a doctor on the subject.
The 19th century saw profound changes in human existence. It was during this period that elevators appeared and, after their widespread use, they gradually became commonplace. However, at the same time, another and more important transformation was taking place: a new path to holiness was opening up for the young Frenchwoman Therese Martin.
While travelling in Italy, she had a lot of fun with her sister Celine on the elevators of Rome. This diversion, so childish and typical that many of us also remember being entertained in this way, remained in her memory and would later serve as a lesson for her… and for us!
Let us listen to her words: “we no longer have to take the trouble of climbing stairs, for, in the homes of the rich, an elevator has replaced these very successfully. I wanted to find an elevator which would raise me to Jesus, for I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection.”1
St. Therese of the Child Jesus’ legacy to the Church consisted of opening a way in which the conquest of virtue is achieved not through fear, but through charity,2 with which all the small acts of daily life are laden.
The eminent and simple Doctor of the Church continues: “I searched, then, in the Scriptures for some sign of this elevator, the object of my desires, and read these words coming from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: ‘Whoever is a little one, let him come to Me’ (Prv 9:4). And so I succeeded. I felt I had found what I was looking for. But wanting to know, O my God, what You would do to the very little one who answered Your call, I continued my search and this is what I discovered: ‘As one whom a mother caresses, so will I comfort you; you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you’ (cf. Is 66:13, 12).”3
Here is the answer to our problem: we can undoubtedly reach the highest holiness. The difficulties will remain, because it is only through the cross that we reach the light; but the cross will be softened by the balm of love, which can only penetrate those who recognize their shortcomings and trust entirely in God’s action.
This is why St. Therese concludes: “The elevator which must raise me to Heaven is Your arms, O Jesus! And for this I had no need to grow up, but rather I had to remain little and become this more and more.”4 ◊
Notes
1 ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX. Manuscript C. The elevator. In: Story of a Soul. 3.ed. Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1996, p. 237.
2 Cf. ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX. Carta 258. Para o Pe. Bellière, 18/7/1897. In: Obras Completas, op. cit., p.492.
3 ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX, Manuscript C. The elevator, op. cit., 237.
4 Idem, p. 237-238.
