MORE ABOUT ST. TERESA MARGARET

“Habitual examination of conscience”

“I propose to have no other purpose in all my activities, either interior or ex­terior, than the motive of love alone, by constantly asking myself: ‘Now what am I doing in this action? Do I love God?’ If I should notice any obstacle to pure love, I shall take myself in hand and recall that I must seek to return my love for His love.”

“Since nature resists good, even though the spirit may be willing, I resolve to enter upon a continual warfare against self. The arms with which I shall do battle are prayer, the presence of God, silence; yet I am aware how little I am able to use these weapons. Nevertheless I shall arm myself with complete confidence in you, patience, humility and conformity with your divine will ... but who shall help me to fight a continual battle against enemies such as those which make war on me? You, my God, have declared yourself my captain; you have raised the standard of the Cross, saying: ‘Take up the cross and follow in my footsteps.’ To correspond with this invitation, I promise to resist your love no longer; rather, I will follow you to Calvary without hesitation.” 

On the Hidden Life

St. Teresa Margaret can almost be named "the saint of the hidden life," so thoroughly did she absorb its meaning and mystery. The life of Jesus and Mary at Nazareth is indeed the model par excellence for all religious, but this silent and self-effacing saint penetrated deeply into it, and gave its application such wide horizons that she can really be said to have proposed something essentially original.

It is a commonplace to use the life at Nazareth as a type of the Hidden Life, because the enclosed religious is completely withdrawn from the world. But in this sense Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were not "hidden," at least not from their neighbors and the inhabitants of Nazareth and its environs. Probably, like small country towns the world over, everybody knew and discussed the least event around the village well, and anything that happened in Joseph's house would be common knowledge, as with everybody else. But where one can claim that their hiddenness was absolute was that while all their exterior activities were watched, and every visitor noted, so well was their interior life concealed from all eyes, that they passed for the most ordinary and unremarkable among a community that was in itself insignificant. The revelation of miraculous powers in Jesus was received with shocked disbelief. They had known him since childhood and could vouch for his likeableness, kindness, generosity, no doubt - but not sanctity, let alone divinity! This was Teresa Margaret's method of practicing the "hidden life." Everyone in the community saw all she did, talked with her, worked with her, and were warm in their praise of her goodness and charity. But the real depths of her interior life were completely hidden and were one day to prove a revelation and surprise to these intimate daily companions. She passed every minute under their very noses, so to speak, but managed to remain unnoticed, keeping her soul's secret for God alone. 

“Obedience,” said St. Gregory the Great, “is rightly placed before all other sacrifices, for in offering a victim as sacrifice, one offers a life that is not one’s own; but when one obeys one is immolating one’s own will.”... One may leave home, family, friends, renounce social position and material possessions, detach oneself from every created thing, but unless he dispossesses himself of his own will, the sacrifice is worthless … [and Teresa Margaret] developed what one biographer described as “the art of never doing her own will.” ... She had a strong character and a warm, ardent nature, and she seemed to sense that the conflict between her own rebellious temperament and her desire for sanctity would be resolved by the perfection of her submission. 

“At the foot of the Cross,” wrote Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D., “suffering becomes more a proof of love than a punish­ment. Teresa Margaret became a saint not through multiplying penitential exercise, but by having effected an uninterrupted adhesion of her will to the crucified Redeemer.” 

Lest the fact that sympathy might provide some consolation - for it is well-known that a trial shared loses much of its cutting edge - she endeavored to conceal from those around her any pain or sorrow she endured, or the discomfort of fatigue, the weather, minor indispositions, or the small misunderstandings and inevitable frictions of community life. She continued to practice the incessant mortification of consistently presenting a smiling and serene exterior no matter how harassed she might be by interior sufferings or trials. 

Quotes from and about Saint Teresa Margaret

                         “Lord,I shall be yours, whatever the cost, despite all repugnance.”

Preparing to enter Carmel

... the Prioress suggested that, for one intending to enter Carmel, she could think of no better practice than “to accustom herself to mortify her own will in all things, however trifling, and to yield willingly her own rights in order to convenience others, pleasantly agreeing with their opinions, treating all with a genuine kindness, thus making a continual and entire sacrifice of the self to God.” ... Anna Maria (St. Teresa Margaret) had now, from an authoritative source, the secret of the essential spirit of Carmel: the holocaust of one’s will, rather than the rigid adherence to exterior acts and mortifications.

 Rather than continually dwelling on her misery and worthlessness, she merely let all thought of self fall away before the infinite majesty of God; and truly the most profitable and genuine way of despising self is to forget oneself altogether.

However, self-knowledge unlike self-love does not depress with the sight of one’s imperfections. “I can do all things in Him who gives me strength,” she repeated with St. Paul, refusing to be downcast. God could and would supply all she lacked, and Father Ildefonse testified: “The effect of self-knowledge did not discourage her, but rather forced her to throw herself on the goodness and mercy of God. She said to me once, ‘From myself, nothing; from God, everything ... the smaller and weak­er I am in myself, the richer and stronger I shall be in Him ... He shall be the more glorious in His mercy as I am more despicable in my sins and nothingness.’’

On her practice of poverty and detachment, Teresa Margaret framed the following counsel: “Always receive with equal contentment from God’s hand either consolations or sufferings, peace or distress, health or illness. Ask nothing, refuse nothing, but always be ready to do and to suffer anything that comes from His Providence.”

She who does not know how to conform her will to that of others will never be perfect.

Let the nuns take great care not to excuse themselves for their faults except when absolutely necessary. By acting in this way they will make great progress in humility.

“Knowing that a bride cannot be pleasing to her spouse unless she endeavors to become what he wishes her to be ... I will always think of my neighbors as beings made in your likeness, produced by your divine love, redeemed at the price of your precious Blood, looking upon them with true Christian charity, which you command. I will sympathize with their troubles, excuse their faults, always speak well of them, and never willingly fail in charity towards them in thought, word, or deed.”

I am resolved to give complete obedience in everything without exception, not only to my superiors, but also to my equals and inferiors, so as to learn from you, my God, who made yourself obedient in far more difficult circumstances than those in which I find myself.”