我站在这座宏伟壮丽的大教堂前，它是献给一位非常朴素的女子的 ，她也是教会中最不寻常、最非凡的圣人之一，里修的德肋撒。 I'm in front of this grand and glorious basilica, dedicated to a very simple woman, also one of the strangest and most extraordinary of the saints of the church, Thérèse of Lisieux.
她是一位隐修的迦密会修女，24岁时去世。在她去 世时，只有她的家人和修道院里的修女们认识她。 She was a cloistered Carmelite nun, who died at the age of 24. At the time of her death, she was known only to her family and to the sisters in the convent.
然而，在她去世后的几年内，她就享誉全球。 And yet, within a few years of her death, she had a worldwide reputation.
她被宣布为圣人，最终成为教会的圣师。 She was declared a saint and eventually a doctor of the church.
当1990年代一个装有她骨骸的圣髑匣被带到美国时，数百万人前来瞻仰。 When a reliquary containing her bones was brought to the U.S. in the 1990s, millions of people responded.
据说当同一个圣髑匣被带到爱尔兰时，几乎全国上下都动身去看它。 They say when that same reliquary was brought to Ireland, almost the entire country moved to see it.
我们该如何解释这种现象呢？ How do we begin to explain this?
这与她非凡的灵修自传《一个灵魂的故事》有很大关系。 It has a lot to do with her extraordinary spiritual autobiography, called The Story of a Soul.
我承认，当我第一次读《一个灵魂的故事》时，并不特别喜欢。 I'll confess that when I first read The Story of a Soul, I didn't like it particularly.
和许多人一样，我觉得它有点过于感伤，情感过于激烈。 Like many others, I found it a bit overly sentimental, emotionally overwrought.
作为一个后弗洛伊德主义者，我很容易看到神经症和压抑的证据。 And as a post-Freudian, I was only too willing to see evidence of neuroses and repressions.
但后来我注意到了一些事情。 But then I noticed something.
有许多真正伟大的知识分子喜爱德肋撒。 The number of truly great intellectuals who loved Thérèse.
想想多萝西·戴、埃迪特·斯坦、托马斯·默顿、若望保禄二 世、汉斯·乌尔斯·冯·巴尔塔萨，这只是其中几个例子。 Think of Dorothy Day, Edith Stein, Thomas Merton, John Paul II, Hans Urs von Balthasar, just to name a few.
后来当我在巴黎读博士时，我的论文导师米歇尔·科尔宾，一位非 常聪明的人，有一天向我解释法国人不像我们那样称德肋撒为小花 ，而是称她为小德肋撒，以区别于大德肋撒，即亚维拉的德肋撒。 And then when I was a doctoral student in Paris, my thesis director, Michel Corbin, a very brilliant man, was explaining one day to me how the French don't refer to Thérèse as the little flower, as we do, but rather as la petite Thérèse, the little Thérèse, as opposed to la grande Thérèse, the great Thérèse, who's Thérèse of Avil.
但随后他补充道，在多年阅读里修的德肋撒之后，他说，我意识到她确实是伟大的德肋撒。 But then he added this, after many years of reading Thérèse of Lisieux, he said, I realize elle est vraiment la grande Thérèse.
她真的是伟大的德肋撒。 She is truly the great Thérèse.
我意识到我必须重新审视她。 I realized I had to take a second look.
她出生于1873年1月2日，是路易·马丁和他的妻子泽 莉的最小的孩子，他们是法国中产阶级中极为虔诚的成员。 She was born on January 2nd, 1873, the youngest child of Louis Martin and his wife Zélie, two extremely pious members of the French middle class.
德肋撒自己承认，她的童年是幸福的。 By her own admission, Thérèse's childhood was blissful.
作为最小的孩子，她受到所有人的宠爱，尤其是她的父亲。 The youngest child, she was doted on by everyone, especially her father.
他是她的小国王，而她是他的小女王。 He was her petit roi, little king, and she was his petite reine, little queen.
在生命的早期，她就有直觉自己会跟随姐姐宝琳进入迦密修道院成为修女。 Very early in life, she had the intuition that she would follow her sister Pauline into the Carmelite convent and become a religious.
她从未动摇过这个决心。 She never wavered from this resolution.
她童年的幸福在1877年母亲去世时戛然而止，当时德肋撒只有四岁。 The bliss of her childhood came to an abrupt end with the death of her mother in 1877, when Thérèse was only four.
之后，她变得孤僻、情绪化，正如她自己所说，变得过分敏感。 Afterwards, she became withdrawn, moody, as she herself said, sensitive to an excessive degree.
她在里修的学校生活并不愉快，因为她经常被同学欺负。 Her time at school in Lisieux was not pleasant, as she was picked on by her classmates.
她人生中第一次感到，用她的话说，自己被衡量后发现不足。 For the first time in her life, she felt herself, as she put it, weighed and found wanting.
当她的姐姐宝琳，也是她的代母，决定进入修道院 时，母亲去世对德肋撒的全面影响才显现出来。 The full effect of her mother's death on Thérèse would appear when Pauline, her older sister and substitute mother, decided to enter the convent.
德肋撒经历了一种奇怪的疾病，有身体和心理症状，其中一些相当可怕。 Thérèse experienced a strange malady with both physical and psychological symptoms, some of them quite frightening.
她会剧烈哭泣，遭受严重头痛，陷入发抖的状态。 She would cry violently, suffer from severe headaches, fall into fits of shivering.
这是德肋撒自己对这段时期的描述。 Here is Thérèse's own description of this period.
我对一切都感到极度恐惧。 I was absolutely terrified of everything.
最终拯救她的是恩典的显现。 What saved her finally was a manifestation of grace.
1883年5月13日，德肋撒发现自己躺在床上。 On May 13, 1883, Thérèse found herself here in bed.
她身心俱疲，无法自助。 She was utterly debilitated, physically, psychologically, unable to help herself.
然后她注意到了圣母像。 And then she noticed the statue of the Blessed Mother.
这尊像以前就在房间里，但她仿佛是第一次注意到它。 It had been in a room before, but it was as though she was noticing it for the first time.
她说她被雕像的迷人美丽所震撼，尤其是圣母玛利亚的微笑。 She said she was struck by the ravishing beauty of the statue, and especially by the Virgin Mary's smile.
当她注意到圣母的微笑时，她所有的身体和心理症状都消失了。 When she noticed the smile of the Blessed Mother, all of her physical and psychological symptoms left her.
她被治愈了。 She was healed.
现在，我们如何解释这个非凡的事件呢？ Now, how do we explain this extraordinary incident?
我想，我们可以从多个角度来看待它。 We can look at it many ways, I suppose.
但德肋撒将其视为神恩典的显现，神无条件的爱的彰显。 But Thérèse saw it as a manifestation of God's grace, God's unmerited love.
当她成年后，她成为我们传统中恩典教义的伟大导师之一。 When she came of age, she became one of the great doctors of grace in our tradition.
是的，我们与神的爱合作，但最终灵性生活的开始和结束都是恩典。 Yes, we cooperate with God's love, but finally the beginning and the end of the spiritual life is grace.
德肋撒灵性旅程的下一个重要步骤，再次是一件 私密的小事，传统传记作者不会注意到的事情。 The next great step in Thérèse's spiritual journey was, again, a private, small matter, nothing to which a conventional biographer would draw attention.
这发生在圣诞节。 It took place on Christmas Day.
马丁家族有个习俗，在圣诞节清晨，刚过午夜弥撒后，孩子们会 回家，从摆放在壁炉前的鞋子里取出父母放在里面的小礼物。 There was a custom in the Martin family that very early on Christmas morning, just after midnight mass, the children would come home and they would draw from their shoes that were arranged right here in front of the fireplace, little gifts that their parents had placed in them.
德肋撒很喜欢这个仪式，尤其是她父亲参与其中。 Well, Thérèse loved this ritual, and especially her father's participation in it.
但在1886年的那个圣诞清晨，德肋撒上了楼梯，当她以为 自己听不到时，她听到父亲说，幸运的是，这是最后一次。 But that Christmas morning of 1886, Thérèse went up this staircase, and when she was presumably out of earshot, she heard her father say, well, fortunately, this is the last time.
通常，这样的评论会让她心碎，她会泪流满面。 Now, that comment normally would have broken her heart, and she would have dissolved in tears.
但这次发生了不同的事。 But something different happened.
重要的是，在耶稣的生日这天，她意识到耶稣已经进入了她的心。 Significantly, on this birthday of Jesus, she realized that Jesus had invaded her heart.
所以，她压抑了那些感觉，下了楼，以真诚的热情参与了这个家庭仪式。 So instead, she suppressed those feelings, she came down those stairs, and with unfeigned enthusiasm, she participated in this family ritual.
在这个非常简单的场景中，我们看到了什么？ What do we see here in this very simple scene?
我们看到了恩典的侵入。 We see the invasion of grace.
德肋撒现在意识到她的生命必须完全由耶稣的爱来决定。 Thérèse realized now that her life had to be completely determined by the love of Jesus.
在这件事之后，成为迦密会修女的愿望，这个从童年就有的愿望，现在成了她燃烧的渴望。 In the wake of this event, the desire to become a Carmelite, which had been in her since childhood, now became a burning preoccupation.
在说服父亲这是她正确的选择后，她以非凡的勇气会见了 一些反对她的主教和教会人士，他们告诉她她太年轻了。 After she convinced her father that this was right for her, she met, with extraordinary courage, a number of bishops and ecclesiastics who opposed her and told her that she was too young.
但她决心将此事上诉到最高法院。 But she resolved to bring the case to the highest possible court.
她加入了一群前往罗马的朝圣者，希望亲自向教宗利奥十三世陈述她的请求。 She joined a group of pilgrims going to Rome, hoping to present her plea personally to Pope Leo XIII himself.
1887年11月20日，德肋撒获得了觐见的机会。 On November 20, 1887, Thérèse had her audience.
尽管她被告知不要对教宗说什么，但她还是脱口而出：「圣父，为了庆祝您的禧年 ，请允许我15岁就进入迦密修道院。」教宗微笑着告诉她要听从上级的命令。 Though she had been told to say nothing to the Pope, she blurted out, Holy Father, in honor of your Jubilee, permit me to enter Carmel at the age of 15. The Pope smiled and told her to do what her superiors ordered.
但她坚持道：「哦，圣父，如果您同意，所有人都会赞同的。」 But she persisted, Oh Holy Father, if you say yes, everyone will agree.
教宗回答：「去吧，去吧，如果这是神的旨意，你就会进入的。」 The Pope responded, Go, go, you will enter if God wills it.
此时，她仍在恳求和哭泣，被两名教宗卫兵抱走了。 At that point, still begging and weeping, she was carried off bodily by two papal guards.
一个月后，巴约的主教松口了，她获准进入迦密修道院。 A month later, the Bishop of Bayeux relented, and she was given permission to enter Carmel.
在接下来的九年里，直到24岁去世，德肋撒从未离开 过里修迦密修道院的范围，过着简单的迦密修女生活。 For the next nine years until her death at 24, Thérèse never left the confines of the Lisieux Carmel, living the simple life of a Carmelite religious.
但在那些年里，她开始培养一条灵修之路，她称之为「小道」。 But in the course of those years, she began to cultivate a spiritual path that she came to call the little way.
这不是她伟大的迦密先辈亚维拉的德肋撒和十字若望的道路， 不是灵修高手的道路，而是任何普通信徒都能遵循的道路。 It was not the path of her great Carmelite forebearers, Thérèse of Avila and John of the Cross, not the way of spiritual athletes, but a way that any simple believer could follow.
这与灵性童年有很大关系，在圣父面前成为一个小孩子，依赖、充满希望、等待接受恩赐。 It had a great deal to do with spiritual childhood, becoming a little child in the presence of God the Father, dependent, hopeful, waiting to receive gifts.
她在《一个灵魂的故事》中写道：「耶稣屈尊向我展示了通往这神圣熔 炉的道路，这条路就是小孩子的降服，在父亲的怀抱中无惧地睡去。」 She wrote this in the story of a soul, Jesus deigned to show me the road that leads to this divine furnace, and this road is the surrender of the little child who sleeps without fear in its father's arms.
它也发展成一种愿意出于大爱做简单平凡事的心态。 It evolved, too, a willingness to do simple and ordinary things out of great love.
小小的善举，欣然接受的小牺牲。 Little acts of kindness, small sacrifices accepted graciously.
《一个灵魂的故事》中最令人难忘的段落之一是德肋撒对她如何 耐心地对待一位被分配给她的脾气暴躁的老修女的生动描述。 One of the most memorable passages in the story of the soul is Thérèse's delicious description of her very patient dealings with a cranky old nun to whom she'd been assigned.
「小道」的核心是在任何给定情况下明智地知道爱的要求是什么，愿意为他人谋求利益。 At the heart of the little way is the prudence to know in any given situation what is the demand of love, willing the good of the other as other.
在生命的末期，德肋撒强烈地渴望做教会历史上伟大人物所做的一切事情。 Toward the end of her life, Thérèse experienced the intense desire to do all the things the great figures in the history of the Church had done.
她说：「我想成为神父、殉道者、传教士、福音传道者和圣师。」 She said, I wanted to be priest, martyr, missionary, evangelist, and doctor.
然后她想：「在迦密这个小修道院里，我怎么可能成为这些呢？」 Then she thought, how could I possibly be any of these things in my little monastery here in Carmel?
然后她读了保罗致哥林多人的第一封信，被保罗谈论 更美好的道路，即爱的道路的那段精彩内容所打动。 Then she read Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and she was struck by that magnificent passage where Paul talks about the more excellent way, the way of love.
德肋撒突然意识到爱是所有美德的形式。 Thérèse realized in a flash that love was the form of all the virtues.
爱使所有圣人的生命成为可能。 Love was what made the lives of all the saints possible.
爱是支撑神父、传教士、福音传道者、圣师工作的基础。 Love was what undergirded the work of priest, missionary, evangelist, doctor.
于是她说：「耶稣，我的爱，我找到了我的圣召。」 And so she said, Jesus, my love, I found my vocation.
「我将成为教会心中的爱。」 I will be love in the heart of the Church.
这就是「小道」。 That is the little way.
我在开始时提到，像许多人一样，我最初被「小花」过于情绪化、感伤的风格所排斥。 I mentioned at the outset how I, like many others, was initially put off by the overly emotional, sentimental style of The Little Flower.
但即使是最怀疑的读者通常也会被她生命末期与不信仰的可怕挣扎的描述所打动。 But even the most skeptical reader is usually won over by the account of her terrible struggle at the end of her life with unbelief.
开始困扰德肋撒的是对天堂存在本身的怀疑。 What began to plague Thérèse were doubts about the very existence of heaven.
像哈姆雷特一样，她开始怀疑死亡之后是否还有什么。 Like Hamlet, she began to wonder whether anything followed this sleep of death.
这不是一时的理智上的过分谨慎。 And this was no passing bout of intellectual scrupulosity.
这种状态一直持续到她生命的最后一刻。 It would last up until the very end of her life.
她写道，这种考验不是几天或几周的事。 She wrote, this trial was to last not a matter of days or weeks.
直到神自己设定的时刻，它才会结束。 It would not be extinguished until the hour set by God himself.
而那个时刻还未到来。 And that hour has not yet come.
她在去世前几周写下了这些话。 She wrote that just a few weeks before she died.
非凡之处在于她如何将这种挣扎解释为分担了许多不再相信神的同时代人的痛苦。 What's extraordinary is how she interpreted this struggle as a participation in the pain of so many of her contemporaries who no longer believe in God.
她写道：「在欢乐的复活节期间，耶稣让我真切地感受到有些灵魂没有信仰。」 She wrote, during the joyful days of Easter, Jesus made me really feel there are souls who have no faith.
「他允许最浓厚的黑暗侵入我的灵魂。」 He allowed my soul to be invaded by the thickest darkness.
德肋撒于1897年9月30日死于肺结核。正如我 开始时提到的，在她去世时，只有少数人认识她。 Thérèse died of tuberculosis on September the 30th, 1897. As I mentioned at the outset, at the time of her death, she was known only by a handful of people.
然而，在她去世后的几年内，通过《一个灵魂的 故事》的影响，「小道」开始吸引全世界的人。 Yet, within a few years of her passing, through the influence of the story of a soul, the little way began to beguile people all over the world.
我曾将凯瑟琳·德雷克塞尔的圣德描述为一种提升的正义。 I spoke of Catherine Drexel's sanctity as a sort of elevated justice.
我们可以将德肋撒的圣德描述为变化了的谨慎。 We might characterize Thérèse's holiness as transfigured prudence.
谨慎是一种道德上的知识。 Prudence is a kind of moral know-how.
「小道」是被基督之爱的激进性提升和改变的谨慎。 The little way is prudence elevated and transfigured by the radicality of Christ's love.
她有丰富的诗意想象力。 She had a great poetic imagination.
这也是吸引人的地方。 That's what grabs people, too.
她总是声明自己不是那些灵修高手中的一员。 She always protested that she was not one of these spiritual athletes.
她了解十字若望和亚维拉的德肋撒这些伟大人物。 She knew about John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila and these great figures.
她钦佩他们。 She admired them.
她会说，但我不是那样的。 She would say, but I'm not like that.
我不是灵修高手。 I'm not a spiritual athlete.
我不是那些长到神那里的大树之一。 I'm not one of these great trees that grow up to God.
我只是一朵小花。 I'm just a little flower.
这就是她绰号的由来。 That's where the nickname comes from.
我是森林地面上的一朵小花。 I'm a little flower on the floor of the forest.
没人会注意到我。 No one's going to notice me.
但阳光可以平等地照耀所有的花。 But the sun can shine equally on all of them.
阳光照射高大的树木，也照到森林的地面。 The sun hits the high trees and the sun comes down to the forest floor.
这是恩典普遍性的绝佳比喻，表明我们都能受到恩典的影响。 It's a great metaphor for the universality of grace, that we're all susceptible to the influence of grace.
就像阳光同样照耀善良的人和邪恶的人。 As the sun shines on the good and the bad alike.
它同样照耀伟大的和渺小的。 It shines on the great and the small alike.
我认为，这是她拥有的一种伟大的灵性直觉，吸引着人们。 So that was a great bit of spiritual intuition she had, I think, that appeals to people.
那个比喻怎么样，就像你说的她向神举起双手？ What about that analogy of, like, you said she lifted her hands up to God?
哦，是的。 Oh, yeah.
我认为那是一个精彩的比喻。 That's a splendid one, I think.
它很美。 It's beautiful.
背后还带着一丝苦笑，因为她再次承认了那些灵修高手。 And there's kind of a wry smile behind it, because she again acknowledges the spiritual athletes.
你知道，那些真正严肃的人。 You know, the really serious people.
他们正在攀登通往神的道路。 They're climbing their way up to God.
她钦佩他们。 And she admired them.
但她也会带着那丝苦笑说，嗯，我只是个小孩子。 But she also, with that little wry smile, would say, well, I'm just this little child.
我无法攀登高山。 I can't climb the mountain.
但我可以这样举起双臂，当然，当然，他会想要把我抱起来。 But I can raise my arms up like this, and of course, of course, he's going to want to pick me up.
然后她对那些灵修高手眨眨眼说，实际上，我比 你们到达的更高，因为他直接把我举起来了。 And then she sort of winks at the spiritual athletes and says, and actually, I get higher than you, because he lifts me right up.
我认为正是这种洞察力让人们觉得非常感人和极具吸引力。 It's that kind of perception that I think people find very moving and very attractive.