Part 3
“Let us take advantage of everything to sanctify ourselves.”
Fidelity to little things is like the flower that blossoms in the soul of those who live in spiritual childhood.
The life of Our Lord Jesus is the most beautiful model of the importance given to little things. For thirty years of his life, he did little things with a lot of love: sweeping St. Joseph’s workshop, fetching water from the well, planing a piece of furniture… aware that in so doing he was participating in the salvation of the world. No lectures, no miracles, just little things in everyday life offered out of love.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Sister Eugénie’s virtue always was that perfect fidelity to little things, following the example given by Our Lord.
She was undoubtedly led along that path by Father Rabussier, the founder of her religious community, the Holy Family of the Sacred Heart. Sister Eugénie took her perpetual vows on 8 September 1897, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. It was no coincidence that Father Rabussier chose this text from St Matthew as the Gospel for the celebration: “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The feast of the Blessed Virgin Child led Father Rabussier to speak about this delightful littleness, which is a means of entering the Kingdom of heaven…
Blessed Eugénie attached importance to little things because she saw in them a gratuity directed towards God alone. We can cite a concrete example related by a novice she was instructing:
“Our dear Sister seemed to want to inspire us above all to seek only the Good Lord in our little services. One day, she took me to the oratory of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which I was responsible for maintaining, and pointed out to me that, while the parquet floor in the middle was shiny and clean, the small dark corners were grey with dust. You see, she said, when you clean and take care of what everybody sees, it’s almost for the world that you do it; whereas the little corners are for the Good Lord alone… I can still hear her as she said that, and I’ve never forgotten that simple word that describes her so well.” (SEJ p.65)
But what are these little things to which we are invited to be faithful?
Blessed Eugénie encourages us to do many little things in our daily lives, and to do them with a lot of love… For example, putting away a little thing that is lying around, making the sign of the Cross properly, closing a door without slamming it… At her school, we discover that these small acts cause Jesus great joy. She gives this very eloquent image:
“A single leaf on a tree is a very little thing, almost nothing; but all these leaves together give a beautiful shade and form a pleasing whole…
In the same way, a small isolated act seems like a little thing, and yet how much joy these small acts, often repeated, can cause Our Lord! Let us do little things well. Let us take advantage of everything to sanctify ourselves!” (SEJ p.54)
“Everything we find in this life, minute by minute, becomes a step on the way up to God, and higher and higher.” (Notebook 21)
Among little things, we cannot forget, of course, faithfulness to prayer. Sometimes our prayer can be arid; tiredness can make us want to put it off until later: so many big things can seem more urgent… Here again, Blessed Eugénie gives us a fine example of fidelity to spiritual life. When illness, frailty and darkness made her write ‘’unable to pray‘’, she prayed anyway, even if she felt nothing, and wrote with humility: ‘’Alas! how was I? Like a poor log, but this log wanted to burn.” (SEJ p.218)
Sister Eugénie helps us to discover that nothing is small or useless in prayer, even when it is austere or when another activity tempts us to put off this spiritual exercise until later…
“Do things in good time and never usurp the exercises of piety, not even for a minute.” (Notebook 35)
“We have the right to ask God for the spirit of prayer. We must not be content with oraison and exercises of piety; our day must be one of continuous prayer. If we want to, work and occupations are fervent prayer for us, because prayer is nothing else than the union of our soul with God. In Nazareth, people worked continuously at material things and yet they never stopped praying.” (Notebook 37)
Little things are acts of charity and little fraternal attentions she was accustomed to. Thus, in her notebooks, Blessed Eugénie recalled:
“The opportunities for hardship presented by charity! Little chores, little replacements, little annoyances: what a richness!” (Notebook 21)
“How good she was to us, her Sisters remembered, she did our work when one of us was tired.” As much as she forgot herself, she thought of her Sisters. (SEJ p.86)
Even during her illness, “if she had thought of a way to give one of her sisters a little delight, she would find the strength, despite her great fatigue, to create a frame, a picture, etc.” (SEJ p.159)
Little things can sometimes be little possibilities. What we might call the “spirituality of small opportunities”: those little things that everyone can do but which require you to give up your desires or projects… Here’s an eloquent testimony: when it came time to decide on the foundation of Saint-Denis, the Superiors travelled to Paris and stayed there for some time; on their return, they were all very keen to see them again.
“One of the Sisters present told us that on the day of our Mothers’ arrival, we were looking forward with very justifiable impatience to the recreation which was to bring us together to hear the stories of the journey. Just as the recreation was about to begin, a Sister was needed to help with the washing up. Sister Eugénie spontaneously asked for and was granted to fill in for the stopgap role she loved so much. She did not return to the common room until the end of the break, happy and content as if she had been present for the whole talk.” (SEJ p.39)
The testimony of Mother Émilie Leperche confirmed that: “Sister Eugénie offered herself for little chores, the unexpected… She had the spirit of a little servant girl.” (SEJ p.27)
Little things can also mean “the little sacrifices we make every day” which she talked about in her notebooks. There is no point in dreaming of the martyrdom to which we are probably not called or of which we are quite incapable… With a great deal of common sense, the Blessed said:
“I may never have any great sacrifices to offer to the good Lord, but from morning to night I can immolate my heart, my body and my soul for Him, taking advantage of the small opportunities that are offered to me. Anything that makes me give up my own will offends my susceptibility and affects my sensibility; any setback, misunderstanding or annoyance is an opportunity to give. Every opportunity to suffer, in whatever way, is an arrow that comes to me from the Heart of Jesus; it is launched by his jealous love to awaken mine. I want to take advantage of it always.” (SEJ p.55)
In another section, she reflected about little sacrifices: “But is there anything small when love gives it?” (SEJ p.238)
“Through obedience, I am called to sacrifice myself at any moment, to sacrifice my strength, my freedom, my will, my judgement, and if God permits, I may have the happiness of sacrificing my life through obedience!… How I must be faithful to little things, to little sacrifices; it is through this fidelity that God buys the grace of martyrdom. My God, I know very well that I am unworthy of such a great grace; nevertheless, I absolutely want to be a martyr for your glory; I want to be it, not by shedding my blood, if that is not your will, but by dying a thousand times a day to my own love, my own judgement, my own heart.” (Notebook 35)
Giving importance to little things also means fighting against little mistakes. In her notebook, she wrote:
“How many faults come from habits that I do not fight, from little passions that I do not mortify and from little illusions for which I refuse the light. How much these little faults harm the love of Jesus Christ!” (Notebook 3)
Blessed Eugénie attached so much importance to these little venial sins that she warned us:
“Because of a few miserable little venial sins which she (the nun) does not fight, all sanctity is impossible… Sanctity is absolutely incompatible with a few little venial sins of which one contracts the habit (we do not mean venial sins which one commits through frailty) but those of which one contracts the habit…” (Notebook 7)
Little things are also the little obedience that punctuates our day. Blessed Eugénie showed us that the price of this obedience is linked to the love that she felt.
“For a religious soul, obedience and God’s will are one. As Sister Eugénie once wrote: Just as a small child is attracted by a nut, or a dove by an olive branch, so the soul must be attracted by each of the wills of the Good Lord. There is nothing small in these wills, nothing small in my Rule, in obedience: God’s will is Himself…. So, I must not neglect any of them. If a saint were to come down to earth from heaven for a few moments, what would he do? First of all, he would seek to know God’s will, and then he would carry it out with all the love of which he was capable, even if this divine will consisted for him of nothing more than lifting a blade of straw or pulling up a weed.” (SEJ p.211-212)
In her notebooks we find her desire expressed in this way:
“Always be like a little child for little permissions.” (Notebook 11)
The third stanza of her poem is a true illustration of Blessed Eugénie’s experience of obedience:
“Like a docile toddler
At the slightest word from their mother
Who knows how to make everything easy,
Smiling at their naive enthusiasm;
So I want to let myself be
Without feeling any embarrassment,
When my loving Mother
Wants to carry me in her arms.” (SEJ p.68)
During one of her spiritual retreats, Blessed Eugenie emphasised the importance of little things in her resolutions and added ‘’do the most little things greatly and nobly, and do them in a way worthy of God‘’. (Notebook 36)
“Never want to do a lot and do it well, but do a little and do it well. It is said of St Bernard that he was extraordinary in ordinary things… Do every action, even the smallest, with fervour, purity of intention and great love; do everything that obedience commands, but do it without unrest or discouragement. God does not look at the action, but at the intention.” (Notebook 37)
It is marvellous to note that this love for little things, far from closing in on our Blessed’s soul, opened up infinite horizons for her… Eugénie was a soul of desire open to the whole world! Her life was directed towards eternity. Like Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus, she aspired to a universal mission.
Let us listen to her say:
“A God unknown to thousands of souls who do not serve God… How, in the presence of this almost infinite field, can you confine yourself to a small square and spend your life clearing that small field?… Do not work for time, but for eternity. In any work, any job, any action, we can be apostles as much as the greatest missionaries.” (Notebook 37)
Because in the end, as we have seen, holiness is not a question of how much work, how many words or how many sacrifices, but it depends on the quality of the love we have for it.
In conclusion, we will just quote something that our little Sister said, which sums up very well how attachment to little things helps us to grow in holiness through spiritual childhood:
“NOTHING is SMALL in what Love demands!” (SEJ p.39)
