Dialogue 3: The Holy Face

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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James Finley (0:08)

Greetings, I'm Jim Finley.

Kirsten Oates (0:11)

And I'm Kirsten Oates.

James Finley (0:13)

Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

Kirsten Oates (0:23)

Welcome, everyone, to season 13 of Turning to the Mystics, where we've been turning to St. Thérèse of Lisieux. And I'm here with Jim to discuss his third talk. Welcome, Jim.

James Finley (0:36)

It's been so rich walking through her teachings and guidance, and now this session moves towards her death and so on. So it's a lovely ending of her story of the soul.

Kirsten Oates (0:47)

I loved the third talk. I'm really looking forward to discussing it today.

The overarching theme we've been exploring with Thérèse is her little way. And the little way is this idea that God loves us in our ordinariness, that we don't have to do or achieve great things for God to love us. What we learn to do is to surrender to God's love that's already present with us, and in and with all things.

James Finley (1:12)

Yes. And for her and all the saints, the Gospels, that surrender of ourself and our littleness is the truly great thing.

Kirsten Oates (1:21)

Yeah, yeah.

James Finley (1:22)

Seriously. And then because when we surrender ourself and our littleness, it's a response knowing that in Jesus, God has surrendered to us, that we belong to God, and in Jesus, God belongs to us. So she's very big on the intimacy of this self-donating surrender, each unto each, as the path of holiness, you know.

Kirsten Oates (1:44)

There's a reciprocity to the surrender.

James Finley (1:46)

That is. This reciprocity is the experience of our very being. That is to say, we're in a trans-subjective communion with God as the beloved, our very being hidden with Christ and God forever. So what we're talking about is when that washes over into our experience, and then we freely surrender to that experience and then live by it, which is discipleship.

Kirsten Oates (2:10)

The second and third session you did, you explored this idea of St. Thérèse's little way through the lens of her devotional name. So when she entered the Carmelite, she was able to choose her own devotional name. And Jim, you mentioned when you entered the monastery, the name was chosen for you.

But for Thérèse, this came out of her own inner experience, desire, devotion. And the name she chose is Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face.

James Finley (2:44)

That's right. And for her, and this is a Catholic devotion, is a devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. So that's the Holy Face that she's speaking of. That's what we're exploring here.

Kirsten Oates (2:55)

Wonderful. And that's what we're exploring today. This second part of her name, the Holy Face.

Yes. And so you're already offering this clarification that it's Jesus' face is what she's referring to.

James Finley (3:08)

And so what we're doing here is see how she can help us by being sincerely receptive to her insights into the Holy Face. It can help us to deepen our own experience in response to God's love for us in this oneness.

And that's the path we're exploring.

Kirsten Oates (3:26)

And also we're exploring through Thérèse's experience, the role that Jesus can play in someone's path. And this name that refers to the Child Jesus and the Holy Face of Jesus, you can see from the very beginning when she entered the Carmelite, that she had this deep, deep devotion and connection to Jesus.

James Finley (3:47)

I think it's this way too in terms of spiritual direction. I think what we're to do is we're to listen to what's been given to us in our devotional sincerity. And the devotional sincerity is the way in which God has given to us.

So it's a kind of a gift, and it varies. It moves around, there's more than one. They're almost like poetic expressions of what our heart most resounds with. And then you seek to live by that, in fidelity to what's been given to you in your devotional sincerity.

Kirsten Oates (4:19)

And then, Jim, you've also been saying that we can also listen in to someone else's experience like Thérèse, and that can resonate inside of us. So even if we don't have our own personal devotion to Jesus, we can be drawn into this innate reciprocity that she experienced through Jesus, but this innate reciprocity is in all of us.

James Finley (4:41)

That's right. So for a long time, for example, I really didn't relate this much thinking of Jesus. I was very much about God, the Meister Eckhart, Infinity, and much this way. But it's interesting, the last five years or so, as I've gotten older, Jesus resonates more.