THE FOUR OFFERINGS OF BLESSED THERESE COUDERC
by
Abbé André Combes
Blessed Therese Couderc lived for eighty years. Certainly not in a few pages could one flatter oneself to have exhausted the lessons of so long a life. But, in this life, so long and so fruitful, there were privileged moments, days of signal graces, particularly decisive hours, which dominated, oriented all the rest. These moments, these days, these hours, are not all known to us. But, thanks to God, our ignorance is not so great that we cannot, by fixing our attention upon this interior life in its very unfolding, discover at least four of these principal points. Each one of them determined, in this spiritual evolution, a phase so important that we cannot consider them together without having the impression that we understand the whole.
These four points, quite fundamental in the spiritual development of the Foundress of the Cenacle, consist of four offerings. Each one of these offerings, taken separately, does not seem difficult to interpret. What is at times disconcerting, is their number: the need felt by Mother Therese thus to offer herself several times, whereas each one of these offerings seems a complete and entire offering of herself. There is, then, a problem as regards the value and respective signification of these offerings. As long as this problem remains unsolved, the interior life of Mother Therese remains unintelligible. If we succeed in solving it, this soul so wonderfully faithful to her grace does not refuse to reveal the essential of her secret. Moreover, to try to solve this problem is not only to arrive at a less imperfect knowledge of a saint whose sanctity goes far beyond what we too easily think it to be, but it is also to become a little less incapable of profiting by her lessons, of interpreting her example, and so, please God, of becoming a little more like her. It is then worthwhile to make this effort.
The four principal points upon which we are going to fix our attention have in common these three characteristics: we know the place, the date, and the nature of them.
The first took place at the sanctuary of Notre Dame d’Ay, not far from La Louvesc, in 1837: it is a Consecration to Our Lady.
The second, at Fourviere in 1859: it is an offering as a victim of holocaust.
The third at
The fourth, again at Fourviere, in 1869 or 1870: it is a sacrificial offering of self.
Only to recall these dates suggests an important observation. The life of the saints is not uniform. Incidents of such a nature may take place, that the upheaval they occasion may be deep enough to cause the saint to be at first surprised, then – apart from the assistance of the Holy Spirit – to give in, especially as such upheavals can break down an already long continuity of purpose. In 1837, Mother Therese Couderc was already thirty-two years of age. When the idea of offering herself as a victim of holocaust came to her, the interior disposition described in her offering of 1837 had lasted for twenty-two years. The rhythm of her ascension then accelerated in a notable way; her third offering came after only five years; her fourth, after five or six. But then, it is again a long period that stretches out, unchanged beneath our gaze – fifteen or sixteen years, until her last breath.
Let us now try to determine the nature of each of these stages. Almost always neglected, the first is not the least important. It is a Consecration to Our Lady. “But we all make consecrations to Our Lady, and many of them,” an excellent religious objected to me one day, surprised to see me attach so much value to a proceeding so ordinary, and desirous of confirming herself in her incredulity. My answer is simple. Innumerable Christians have received Baptism. If many neglect to make this initial sacrament bear abundant fruits of holiness, this common way of making Baptism commonplace does not alter the fact that Baptism played an extraordinary role in the life of a St. Augustine, of a Clovis, of a Father Ratisbonne … All depends upon the way in which each one understands and accomplishes an action common to all.
Now the way in which Mother Therese Couderc understood and accomplished her consecration on August 15th, 1837, suffices to distinguish her from a multitude of religious consecrated to Our Lady, because she made of this consecration, if I may dare to say so, a kind of marial Baptism, which inaugurated in this interior life a disposition so radical and so constant, that henceforth all in her should harmonize with the highest exigencies of the adorable will of God. It is a starting point towards the purest heroism.
Why?
Because if Mother Therese Couderc, on this fifteenth of August, 1837,
feels the need of consecrating herself once again to Our Lady, it is not in
order to prove to her “good Mother” the intensity of her devotion nor the
plenitude of her confidence. It is
not even to regulate with her, her situation as
We are assured of that by the autograph text of this consecration which has been providentially preserved to us. It should be read to the end with all the attention it deserves.
In ending this consecration, “O my good Mother, prostrate at the foot of your altar, I beg of you for the honor of your holy name and the glory of your Divine Son, to obtain for me the grace to act always from supernatural motives, to obey and to be faithful to grace, and to be animated by the spirit of Jesus Christ, so that my own will may count for nothing. May I listen always to the voice of grace and never to that of nature.”
This marial consecration which has just subordinated the Superior of La Louvesc to the Queen of Heaven, ends in a supplication which goes far beyond the gesture of a child confiding itself to its mother. This Mother is alone capable of procuring fully the glory of her Divine Son; it is then a question of obtaining from her the grace which permits the soul to imitate her in this so necessary function. This grace – Mother Therese is convinced by her experience as much as by her faith – consists in a transformation so profound that it raises the soul to a fidelity sufficiently integral to the demands of the supernatural order as to enable the soul, set free from all purely natural spontaneity, to be always animated by the spirit of Jesus Christ Himself.
Let us make no mistake. What the humble Mother Therese aspires to under our very eyes is nothing less than perfect mystical passivity. What she suffers from is to feel herself still threatened by returns of her own spirit, to risk obeying the voice of nature rather than that of grace. What is striking in this prayer is an absolute thirst which excludes all compromise: always, thrice repeated, solidly in opposition to a never, which admits of no shades of meaning. What she must have always is perfect docility to grace. What she never wants is the predominance of nature. As far as it depends on her, from this Assumption of 1837, Mother Therese Couderc renounces all autonomy, not only, of course, sinful, but even ascetic autonomy, so as to give herself up without the shadow of a reserve to the very spirit of Jesus Christ. After such an offering, which bears upon the vital center of her spiritual being, the real question is to know what can possibly remain for her to offer.
In reality, for twenty-two years – as far as we know – Mother Therese lived by this offering, without having either to modify it or complete it. By it, she was plunged to the bottom of the abyss and to the highest summit of conformity to the will of God. Reduced to nothing, then called to help in face of schism, she never troubled herself about anything but to remain deaf to the voice of nature, so as to obey that of grace, animated only by the spirit of Jesus Christ. Could she consent to modify in any way at all an interior disposition so deeply rooted and so divinely efficacious?
Such is the case of conscience put
before her suddenly on
Certainly not, far from it. But there is, in the logic of this vocation as Father Maréchal has just described it, a threshold that her humility will not permit her to cross:
“That day and the following days, I heard these words incessantly, and they continued to produce the same impression upon me. I prayed, I offered myself to Our Lord as completely as I could. I told him that I did not dare to offer myself as a victim, for victims must be pure if they are to be pleasing to Him, and I had offended him so much.”
There is, then, no question of a want of generosity in this consecrated soul of 1837: she has no other intention than that of offering herself to Our Lord as far as she was able. But here she comes to a turning point in her spiritual life – that spiritual life in which, for so long, she had felt powerless to go beyond the already realized offering. Two obstacles hold her back. The first is of an intellectual order. It consists in a certain notion of the meaning of victim. This notion, scriptural in origin, has just been confirmed by Father Maréchal. The preacher had, in fact, presented the victim as placed upon the altar. It is then a victim which, to be pleasing to God should be pure. Even though she had been the victim of so many misunderstandings and so much injustice, how could the humble Mother Therese consider herself sufficiently pure to be a eucharistic victim capable of pleasing God?
The second obstacle is still more profound. It concerns what, in her spiritual life is most essential. It is rooted in that very consecration of 1837. a voice has sounded in her ears and has pierce her heart, inviting her to a yet more perfect offering. Very well, but it is a human voice. She feels urged to obey it; but she wants to obey only the voice of grace. She must be animated only by the spirit of Jesus Christ. Is it really Jesus Christ who, by the voice of his priest, invites her to go yet further?
But, if it is true that the voice of Father Maréchal cannot be rejected as the voice of nature, it is not less so that, while exhorting to the mortification of nature, this human voice is not sufficient to suppress the resistance that nature opposes to grace. After having heard it to the point of losing her peace, Mother Therese is not transformed by it in her inmost being to the point of feeling worthy to be pleasing to God as an acceptable victim.
What the voice of a man, be he a saint, cannot accomplish, the voice of God, in an instant, is about to realize. Only he, by whose spirit Mother Therese was always animated, could disentangle this interior drama. That is why, without delay, God himself speaks and, speaking as God, does more than simply confirm the call of his minister; he invites the humble Mother Therese to outstrip the summit she thought herself unworthy to climb.
He then made me understand that he wanted me nevertheless – that he accepted me as a victim, and I distinctly heard these words: ‘You shall be a victim of holocaust.’
When promotion comes from God, humility has no objections to make. That is why Mother Therese continues:
I experienced no revolt, I adhered wholly, but I was trembling and speechless.
Trembling, speechless, precisely because she saw herself borne beyond her limits, and because she did not understand whence. Father Maréchal exhorted her to offer herself as a victim, but God himself consecrates the victim of holocaust. What does he mean by that?
I asked what these words meant: victim
of holocaust. Our Lord deigned
to explain to me that the ordinary victim was immolated on the altar, and the
remains distributed to the priest, and thus were of some use, but the fire from
heaven descended upon a victim of
holocaust, and consumed it so completely that even the ashes were scattered
to the wind, so that there remained no trace or vestige capable of any use, for all was for him.
It has been thought often, too often, that Mother Therese’s offering of holocaust was the point of departure for the terrible sufferings which tortured her last years. That is not true. The error comes partly from the explanation which she herself gave of her holocaust; partly, also, from a false idea of God too commonly entertained.
Doubtless, the fire from heaven does consume the victim of holocaust, but what this fire from heaven devours in the victim of holocaust is all that would not be for God – all that, after having been offered to God, could be put to some other use. If it is possible for a victim to be exclusively consecrated to God, the holocaust is perfect without further destruction.
What is not possible to a material or carnal victim becomes so to a spiritual victim. A spiritual victim can, unknown to anyone, be so exclusively consecrated to God that no trace of her spiritual being can be of any other use; only, given her quality as a spiritual being, there may be, in this very totality, progressive degrees of depth. That is why, victim of holocaust from 1859, Mother Therese could from that moment tell herself that all in her was for God; yet this totality of consecration as victim was not of a nature to hinder her from making progress along the same line. Hence it follows that, even arrived at this point which, to many might appear supreme, there still remained in her matter for a still more complete offering.
From 1859 to 1864 the life of the
victim of holocaust was very far from being marked with suffering.
I speak, of course, of her interior life.
It matters little, now less than ever, what happens exteriorly.
For her, only one thing counts: her union with God.
At this time, it is almost always joyfully experienced – to the point
that one may call beatifying. The
letters she wrote to her Superior General from
It seems to me that he (Our Lord), has so taken, possession of my heart that it would be impossible for me to love anything but Him. There are days when he so absorbs my faculties, that all the rest makes 'ho impression, upon me and touches me not .at all, Oh! how good is God to give us by these sweet communications, even upon this poor earth, a foretaste of the happiness he reserves for his elect! When one has tasted such joys, it is not difficult to despise all those that do not come from Him, and one is no longer tempted to seek them in creatures.
Such is the state of soul of a victim of holocaust. All, in her, is for God; but this radical oblation does not hinder God from filling her with spiritual delights. He does this because such is his good pleasure. But perhaps it is not impossible for us to discover at least one of the reasons for this divine conduct. It is not impossible, because Mother Therese helps us in this search. The confidence given in the .following letter to her Superior General will, at the same time, prepare us for her third offering.
Be so good, Very Reverend Mother, as to thank Our Lord a little for treating me with so much mercy, all unworthy as I am. It is, no doubt, to accommodate Himself to my weakness, which could not bear the trials he sometimes sends to strong and generous souls, for when sometimes he seems to leave me a little and retire to a distance, I cry and call him until he makes me feel his presence again, and I tell him that I cannot live without Him.
In this cry,
this call of a soul who cannot endure to feel forsaken, there is certainly a
touching proof of love and fidelity. Awaiting
all from Our Lord, having nothing in herself which is not his, her life depends
on him so integrally that, without Him, her being would have no meaning,
Nothing is more certain nor more evident; but in this urgent need of
sensible experience, a certain imperfection is hidden.
To insistently call back Our Lord who seems to withdraw, is assuredly a
proof of love for him, but it is also to risk opposing his liberty.
For a soul who holds nothing so sacred as to conform without reserve to
the will of the good Master, there is still there a weakness, even a certain
contradiction of the demands of the holocaust.
How could all in her "be for Him" if she allows herself to
suffer from, the feeling of, his absence – an absence which he considers
opportune? Mother Therese could not
have failed to be aware of this, since she adds:
"See how
unmortified I am, and how little courage I have to bear the privations of his
love”; and reassures herself by saying in conclusion: “But I hope he will
forgive me.”
No doubt, but to pardon does not mean to abandon a soul to an inferior degree of sanctity. It is precisely from this last limitation that God is going to free his victim of holocaust, by inspiring her to surrender herself (se livrer) to him.
What, in truth, can remain in a soul who has decided to receive all from God and to give all to God? It remains for her to disinterest herself so completely in her state, exterior and above all interior, that she no longer impedes the free action of God in her by any attachment whatever to events or impressions. God respecting our liberty infinitely, it is for the soul, under the impulse of grace, to make this decisive step.
Such is the progress accomplished
in the soul of Blessed Therese Couderc by
First of all, with the extraordinary delicacy which reigns, from the beginning to the end, in the way in which God directs this soul, who is clearly so dear to him, he draws Mother Therese towards her particular perfection, without showing her the precise point to be reached. He only invites her, more strongly that ever, to place herself in the disposition which will enable her to press on to the further height, by suggesting to her “to give herself over without reserve to the guidance of the Holy Spirit,” inspiring her to analyze in the clearest possible manner, what this “giving of oneself over to the Holy Spirit” really means. He thus leads her on to conceive an offering which goes beyond all that she has previously been able to imagine. He draws her along this new track by infusing into her the certitude that she clearly understands what is the point at issue, and the assurance that nothing is easier than to attain it. Hence these phrases which occur in all memoirs of her, but which are not always given their fully significance.
I grasp the whole sweep of the meaning
of that phrase: ‘to surrender oneself’ (se
livrer). To give oneself over is
more than to devote oneself – it is even more than to abandon oneself to God
… To surrender oneself is, in short, to die to everything and to oneself,
never to give self a thought, except to keep it always turned toward God.
To hand oneself over is, again, to seek oneself no more in anything,
neither in spiritual things nor in temporal – that is, no more to seek
self-satisfaction, but only God’s good pleasure.
This time we have arrived! No more to seek oneself in anything, neither in temporal – that, of course – nor in spiritual things, which is much more difficult: the victim of holocaust entirely given over the Holy Spirit sets her face toward a radical stripping of all spiritual consolations which she valued so highly.
But she does not yet see very
clearly what will be her state of soul under such a regime of interior life.
She does not think of it, even as she writes these words which give full
license to God to treat her in future, purely and simply according to his good
pleasure, because, infinitely better than the best of fathers, infinitely more
skillful than the cleverest of surgeons, God gives her the courage to go forward
towards Calvary, by making known to her in advance the real import of her
immolation. Hence this grandiose
vision which, on the morning of
Before the eyes of her soul rise up all the altars of the Eucharistic sacrifice all over the world. She sees the Lamb immolated. She contemplates streams of the Precious Blood, sufficient to ransom millions of worlds. With anguish she asks “why,” in spite of this superabundance of merits, “so many souls are not sanctified.” She hears the reply: “It is because souls are lacking in correspondence and generosity.” The offering which she is then inspired to make is precisely the one to remedy this deficiency.
To surrender oneself (se livrer) is not just to aim at the highest summit of her personal perfection; it is permitting God to treat her according to his good pleasure, to procure the full efficacy of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Offered upon the altar of her religious consecration, the victim of holocaust has been raised to the dignity of a victim integrally agreeable to the Most High. Today, by this yet more radical offering, which bears upon all her dispositions and all her inclinations, she is united to the sacrifice of the Lamb, and, outstripping the problem of her personal sanctification and of fidelity to her religious vocation, she assumes, in the whole of the Mystical Body of Christ, the eucharistic function which belongs to a victim of co-redemption.
Thus it is that, henceforth, free
to rise to the summit to which such an oblation tends, the Holy Spirit cannot
lead the victim of eucharistic co-redemption elsewhere than to the
From this, in the mystery of the soul entirely given over to God, we come to the fourth offering, so many elements of which remain hidden from us, but of which we know enough not to be able to speak of them without tears – or rather to be obliged to keep silence, after having only tried to say in what it must have consisted.
One day, finally given over without reserve to God, Mother Therese became aware that there was something abnormal in the fact that she continued to be filled with divine consolations. Immediately she said to Our Lord: “I would follow you just as well without that!” As though he only waited for this impulse of heroism, Our Lord hastened to act towards her as we have seen was his custom. Going far beyond the intention of the humble victim, he proposed to her to go to the very end, by becoming a witness of his agony and sharing it. Incapable of hearing such a proposition without faltering, without trembling with terror, it was nevertheless without hesitation that Mother Therese remained faithful and again gave herself over to God.
Then all within her changes.
She is 64 or 65 years old. It
is not the age when interior upheavals are desirable or agreeable.
The one that she now experiences ravages her to the depth of her physical
and spiritual being. Her habitual
consolations disappear. The keen
views on the faith, the sweet sentiment of confidence, that love, so ardent and
so deeply felt which she enjoyed – all gone!
Nothing remains but darkness, anguish, fear.
To her local
But that agony is less hers than the one in which she is sharing. She constantly sees Our Lord in agony, redoubling his prayers, covered with a sweat, like drops of blood, seeking among his own for one to sympathize with him in his pains and sorrows, and finding them sleeping for sorrow …
She does not sleep.
She sees the causes of the agony and sorrows of the Man-God in every age
and especially in our own days. Her
face is covered with tears which flow incessantly for hours together.
With Our Lord she says over and over again: “My Father, if it is
possible, let this chalice pass from me, yet not my will but thine be done
…” Kneeling on a prie-dieu in
the tribune, in the shadow of a pillar, she prays, she weeps, she suffers.
It is her
This at least we must know, before
we read the letter written by Mother Therese Couderc to her Superior General on
As for the present, my dispositions and my impressions are about the same; there is no reason to be disturbed about them. I have understood (and the Father thinks as I do) that it is only a little increase of the fear and apprehension I have had for years. The impression of fear is greater, while those of weariness and sadness have not diminished – all that goes together, and I am persuaded that it will be so to the end. There is then, nothing to be done but to accept with submission and even with joy, saying always and everywhere: My God, let not my will be done, but yours. Yes, I adore and I want this Divine Will, for it is always just, always holy, and always worthy of our love.
To reach such a degree of perfection, not only shows the excellence of the way the leads to it – it also reveals to the world the price paid for its salvation.