Anniversaries and memorials anchor our lives by reminding us to look back, while experiencing the present, and looking toward the future. The Church’s many memorials, feasts, and solemnities are important because, as is true of our personal anniversaries, they help to locate moments from the past in the present and similarly move into the future. Because memorials cannot take precedence over a Sunday liturgy, we are not officially celebrating St. Therese of Lisieux, also known as The Little Flower on this her memorial. But there is a degree of flexibility in preaching.
Canonized in 1925 Therese is considered the first saint of the twentieth century. She is one of the first saints to have been photographed during her lifetime. Many of the photos were taken by her blood sister who was also a Carmelite of Lisieux.
What some call the cult of St. Therese is worldwide. It grew, in part, from her writings published as, The Story of a Soul. The documents were found only after her death and published three years later. The book has never been out of print. Therese was declared Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paull II in 1997. He explained that those who are declared Doctors of the Church have become a reference point for all through the example of their lives and the legacy of their writing.
Before being a saint, however, Therese was a human being, a flesh and blood woman,
who, at times, struggled with her faith in the same way we do. She suffered from scruples. Her death from tuberculosis was a difficult one. There are controversies over her writing. Many of the photographs were “photoshopped” by her sister to present a more favorable impression. She had been a difficult child and was not always easy as an adult.
The memorial of the Little Flower is not the only anniversary today. Two others occupy my thoughts. I pronounced final vows in the Society of Jesus ten years ago this morning. Jesuit vows are unusual in that there are no temporary vows. Our first vows are perpetual. Final vows do not happen until several years after ordination, and only following tertianship, a period of about nine months when a man recapitulates his novitiate experiences in compressed form. Unlike most congregations and orders, Jesuits pronounce vows kneeling in front of the Body and Blood of Our Lord just before communion.
A more significant anniversary today is the death of Father James Aloysius Martin,
who preferred being called Jimmy. Jimmy died sixteen years ago this afternoon in his bed at Georgetown. He and I are the only two men from the coal-mining town of Plymouth in NEPA, to have ever become Jesuits. At the time of his death Jimmy was,
the oldest Jesuit in the world at age 105 years, one month, and one day.
I witnessed his death as did twenty other Jesuits who came to his room directly from community Mass when I notified them that death was very near. It was a remarkable experience. The moment Father Burroughs ended the prayers for the dying with the sign of the cross, Jimmy heaved a great sigh and his immortal soul departed his mortal body. Though I’ve witnessed more deaths than I can remember, this one left me speechless for reasons I can’t fully articulate, though part of the answer hearkens back to when he was just 100.
I’d stopped in to see him in the infirmary where he was recovering from pneumonia. He was awake. I asked, “Jimmy, what are you doing?” He responded, “I’m praying.” “What are you praying about?” “Oh, I’m praying because I don’t think I’ve given enough to God.” Tears flooded my eyes. He had already been a Jesuit for 81 years, had been at Anzio in WW II, was a missionary to the Philippines, built the retreat house in Faulkner, MD, and served many years as Prefect of Discipline at Georgetown University. He resigned as house chaplain at age 101.
Jimmy, a lifelong athlete who turned down a baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania to enter the Society, gracefully accepted the gradual diminishments that aging imposed on him. One day when he was 90 he returned from celebrating Mass somewhere in northern VA, walked into the superior’s office, dropped the car keys on the desk and announced, “I’m done.” No one knows what lay behind that sudden decision. He never discussed it. He never drove again.
He rarely missed community Mass until the last months of his life when he was mostly bedridden.
His sense of humor was wicked. One evening when he was 103 I joined him at table where he was sitting with two Jesuits from West African. Besides heavy French accents they had very soft speaking voices. The men were trying to tell him that they had never seen anyone as old as he was, but he couldn’t hear or understand. I intervened and said, “Jimmy, these men are trying to tell you that they are amazed you’ve lived as long as you have.” Jimmy stroked his chin, chuckled, and said, “So am I, so am I.”
Today’s anniversaries bring two extremes together. At one we have St. Therese, the Little Flower who died of tuberculosis in the Carmelite infirmary age 24 and yet was named patroness of missionaries. At the other is Father Jimmy Martin, who served in Europe during WW II, was a missionary in the Philippines, and lived a very active ministerial life until he was in his 90s. When he died of pneumonia in his infirmary bed,he had lived 81 years longer than the Little Flower. The two had, and have, one thing in common.
When both were young they gave everything they were and everything they had to serve God for the rest of their lives. Both lived the Suscipe, a prayer attributed to St. Ignatius. It is the same prayer that was sung at the offertory during of the final vow Mass ten years ago.
“Take, Lord, and receive
all my liberty, my memory,
my understanding, and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me,
To You Lord I return it.
Everything is yours;
do with it what you will.
Give me only Your love and Your grace,
That is enough for me.
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The photos are from final vows ten years ago and a shot of Fr. Martin and me.
Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
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