The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-08-31
ADDRESS TO NoVIcEs BY VERY
REV. JAMES C. BYRNE, v. G.

From the Prophets and the Evan
gelists we get glimpses all too meagre
into the workings of the human soul
of our beloved Saviour. The prophets
tell us of His obedience, of His gen.
tleness, of His rich endowment with
the gifts of the Holy Ghost. But they
speak necessarily only in general
terms. The evangelists give us ad-
mirable sketches of scenes from His
public life. But this public life was
brief and the sketches are for the
most part drawn in the interest of the
public office of Christ We have almost
nothing of His meditations from hour
to hour of the rush, the transport,
and the onset of that thrice-elect soul
towards God, almost nothing of it's
years of agony in view of the wrong
of sin and it's plannings to undo that
wrong. A veil hangs over thirty years
of His life and it is raised only as
much as was necessary at its close.
How little we know of Our Lord! How
much there is that we do not know!
Of course we have our theology. But
the general terms of the revealed
Word or our reasoned conclusions
founded upon it, are a very partial
biography of Christ. We have, how
ever, a supplementary way of knowing
Our Lord more intimately. 1t is in
some respects more satisfying than
any conclusions which we can draw
We can study Him in His saints who
are Jesus Christ among us. All that
they were they received from Him.
We know the saints the more we
know Jesus Christ their model and
their desire: we know Jesus Christ
the more, after making due allowance,
we know the saints His copies. We
welcome therefore a new saint as We
would welcome new epiphany of the
Saviour AS partial manifestation
of the hidden life of our Lord, so far
as it may be permitted to employ the
example of one who has not yet been
canonized by the Church, l beg leave
to present briefly the life of Sister
Terese of the Infant Jesus, the de-
vout Carmelite nun known as the
Little Flower" | shall dwell upon
only few of the marvellous work
ings of grace in her. AS this grace
was the grace of Christ we can rise
from the revealed beauties of her soul
to a fuller and higher conception of
the soul of the Saviour,-that Saviour
Whom today you, as she once did, Sc
lect as your spouse.
A Hidden Life.
You all know the life of Soeur Ter
ese which once known seems to
haunt one continuously with its har-
monious blending of wholly human
and wholly heavenly charm. That life
was begun Jan. 2, 1873, in Alencon,
and came to a close Sept. 80, 1897, in
the convent of LisieuX after nine
wears of conservation to God. The
whole Catholic world knows her now.
But when Sister Terese was dying
she was unknown to us, her contempor-
aries, and in a way even to most OF her
companions in the cloister. One of
the nuns was overheard to remark: 81
wonder what Mother Superior will find
to saw about her. She was good, of
course. But she never did anything
great" The neighbors and acquaint-
ances of Jesus, likewise, said of Him at
the close of His hidden life: us not this
the carpenters son? Is not his moth
er called Mary and his brethren James
and Joseph and Simon and Jude? And
his sisters, are they not all with us?
Whence therefore has he all these
things? And they were scandalized in
him." (Matth. XIII, $3.50. Christ in
deed had spent over score of years in
Nazareth. He had been seen by the
good and the wicked in great mum.
hers. He was the ineffable gift OF
God. Yet He had been passed by un
noticed by them all. The blindness o1
men in appreciating natural things
for which their faculties are specially
adapted, is astonishing. Men pass by
the richest mines without seeing
them; armies march over the greatest
treasures of historical remains with
out taking them into account; oul
ears are deaf and our eyes are bline
to the tappings and flashes of the
forces of nature. Our progress has
been marked more by succession o
accidental discoveries than by a rea
soned ascent from lower to highe
plane. But no accident can open ou
ewes to the supernatural treasures o
Grace. God alone can reveal thes
treasures to us as He did in openin
the eyes of the Apostles to the tru
worth of Christ, or as our eyes hav
been opened by the providentially er
forced self-manifestation of Siste
Terese.
Through obedience Sister Teres
wrote her own life. 1t is narr;
tive at once simple and profound.
is simple because it tells only of tn
ordinary succession of events in tn
life of an innocent child which lea
her to embrace the life of the cloiste
and to pass therein nine outward
uneventful years. 1t is profound b.
cause it presents the picture of pul
soul systematically climbing up
rugged pathway to the heights OF pc
lection with step as sure as it Ws