La maladie de Thérese Martin et la guerison par la Vierge Marie

Abstract

The sickness from which Therese was suffering when she was ten years old was diagnosed by physicians as neurosis. She diagnosed it herself as an effect of a demon’s attack. Are these two diff erent opinions so contradictory that they exclude each other? No necessarily so. John Paul II, in his Fides et ratio, says that truth acquired through natural reason does not render useless the truth of faith. While appreciating the medical point of view, a theologian should not be satisfi ed with this level of interpretation. It is so in this case because Therese dedicated seven pages of her autobiography to recounting her difficult experience in order to express, above all, her faith. “The sickness came from the demon.” We should respect this as Therese’s discernment. She expressed her opinion at the time she was writing The Story of a Soul. This means that it came about when she already reached the summit of union with God. In this period of spiritual life, a person receives the gifts of spiritual perception and the discernment of spirits. According to Saint John of the Cross, Satan driven by jealousy becomes very active toward a person who, progressing on his or her way to God, is at the moment of transition from sensual tasting to the solitude of the spirit. It does not rule out the activity of God, who while introducing the soul of Therese to the night of the senses, wants to set Therese free from disordered attachments to the image of her mother, however she might be depicted in the mind of a ten-year-old child. Therese does not analyze her life in terms of St John of the Cross’ “dark night” but has her own interpretation of events. If the Passion and Resurrection of Christ are one paschal mystery, in the same way, sickness and the return to good health are one theological event. A situation that looked hopeless from a human point of view had to lead to a surprising healing, and through it, to amazement because of this act of salvation. “The sickness was not meant to lead me to death but is more like a sickness of Lazarus, which endowed God with glory.”