My tribute to St Theresa of the Child Jesus

I have intended to write my tribute to St Theresa since May 19th ... the day I arrived in Vezelay France to start my most recent walk. A poster with her picture was on the bulletin board at the first place where I attempted to find lodging. The poster was announcing the veneration of her relics at St Pere on May 22nd. At the time I decided I would hang around Vezelay until the 22nd .. if St Pere wasn't too far away.

The next day ... standing in the doorway where I had spent the night and with no known agenda ... simply gazing at all that was within eyesight ... my eyes focused on a street sign accross the road ... St Pere 2 kilometres. Seems I was just given the answer to my question of the night before ... St Pere is close enough to hang around until the 22nd ... now my only concern was the cost of hanging around. As it turned out I was able to stay at the same place for 3 consecutive nights at no cost ... hmmm

Seems fitting that I should write it today ... the memorial day of St Theresa of the Child Jesus.

Where to start? ... perhaps with some recollection of my rather mysterious and circuitous journey in getting to know and love St Theresa. How one can come to know and love a person who has been dead for more than one hundred years is a mystery in itself ...

I suppose the same mysterious phenomena is at work that leads some people to come to know and love Jesus of Nazareth ... who has been dead for more than two thousand years.

A couple of expressions/writings attributed to St Theresa have stuck with me ...

• Always strive for absolute trust and absolute confidence in God
• Her metaphor for spiritual growth ... St Theresa tried to draw a picture with words ... something like this ... imagine a step ladder in the middle of your family room with your toddlers' favourite toy placed on top of the step ladder. Your toddler comes into the family room and notices her favorite toy on top of the step ladder. She crawls over to the step ladder and tries to get one of her legs up on the first step ... of course she is too young to climb onto even the first step. Your child is 'well adjusted' ...ie she doesn't scream for adult intervention. She simply patiently and persistently attempts to get her leg up onto the first step ... with the confidance that if she can achieve this ... she will be able to repeat the process and climb to the top of the ladder and retrieve her favourite toy. St Theresa encourages us to treat our 'spiritual journey' the same way ... accepting that we cannot climb even one step towards God on our own ... we must simply keep doing what we can(lifting the leg up towards the first step) and wait for God to stoop down to us and lift us up onto the first step ... and again ... and again ... patience and humilty!

How can one know with certainty whether a person who lived and died in the past ... 100 years or 1,000 years ago ... has any direct influence in our life today ... positive or negative???

I will not attempt to answer the above question ... seems to me the only thing in life that is absolutely certain ... is ... uncertainty.

Nonetheless, I will attempt to share some of my experiences ... limiting my personal bias as much as possible ... I encourage the reader to draw their own conclusions.

I will start with my recollection of that night in a hotel room in London Ontario in 1995. That particular moment in my life was very difficult ... traumatic perhaps. I found myself all alone ... recently separated from my wife and family ... unemployed ... and too damn self-reliant to turn to family(siblings or parents) for help.

A few weeks earlier I had turned to alcohol and marijuana in my attempt to escape from my misery and pain ... no luck ... went all the way to Montreal to visit my brother Brian ... couldn't drink more than 3 beers and my first experience with marijuan was no better ... neither provided any form of relief.

In the hotel room, I was still looking for an escape ... I wanted to run away ... from everything and everyone ... my only question was ... where could I go? At some point that evening my memory coughed up something my sister Joanne mentioned to me months or years before ...

Joanne had told me something about Algonquin Park ... I recalled her telling me that one could rent all the backpacking gear necessary to take a long hike through the park. The isolation and solitude of deep in the bowels of Algonquin Park appealed to me ... I pointed my car in that direction the following morning.

Arrived at the park and after enquiring about the specifics of the various camping programs ... I elected to book a 7 day walk through the park ... the program involved walking to a specific camp site each day. I rented a backpack and bought enough grub to last for seven days(forgot to buy enough cigarettes for the week). This would be the first 'backpacking' experience in my life ... was I in for a surprise.

During the first couple of days I walked about 30-40 kilometres into the park ... ate only the granola bars ... too lazy to cook anything in the evening, hardly felt up to finding the right tree to hang up backpack for the night ... recommended to avoid unwelcome furry visitors during the night. Rained on the 2nd night ... inside and outside my tent ... got up and tried to dig a trench around the outside of my tent to keep the ground dry inside the tent.

After the first couple of days ... decided I had enough isolation and solitude ... realized the only way out was the same trail I took to get in ... yikes! ... another 2-3 days walking ... carrying this heavy backpack ... couldn't even throw away the food ... not allowed ... carrying powder for drinks etc

I survive the walk back and decide to stay in Huntsville for a while ... days? ... weeks? ... months? ... I didn't know and I didn't care. Rented a room near Mary Lake ... about 10 miles from Huntsville. The next week I decided to bring my car in for an oil change and check up ... the warranty on the car was about to expire and I figured I might as well get anything that might need repairing covered under warranty ... how I managed to care about such trivia beats me :-)

Left the car at the dealership ... decided to walk into town (Huntsville) for a coffee ... about a 45 minute walk. Walking along ... minding my own business ... likely deep in thought ... about what ... who knows? ... an older man pulls out along side to pass me ... suppose I was walking too slow for him ... his name is Hector. We exchanged one of those popular yet meaningless greetings ... something to the effect ... "nice day if it don't rain eh!"

Somehow Hector decided to walk along side of me for a bit ... we engaged in conversation and spent the next hour or so together. At one point Hector shared a recent dream or 'vision' ... a voice which Hector thought was God told him not to worry ... that he would rejoice ... he would come back as a farmer and work to heal the earth ... plant alfalfa and than plow it under ...

Hector and I spent a lot of time together during the next several days. On Saturday I invited Hector to attend mass with me on Sunday. He explained that he had not been near a church for more than 50 years and wasn't interested ... I didn't make any attempt to persuade him.

Sunday morning as I pull into the parking lot at the church in Huntsville ... there's Hector standing in the parking lot ... all dressed up ... obviously waiting for me ...hmmm ... I was excited and happy to see him. We went into the church together.

At the end of mass the priest asked the parishoners to remain seated ... a lady walked up to the pulpit and started to talk about some upcoming trip ... 2 people had cancelled at the last minute and this lady was trying to sell the now vacant seats ... a bus going somewhere the following weekend.

Something 'clicked' inside ... I figured the 2 seats had suddenly become available to accomodate me and my new friend Hector ... I had no idea where the bus was going ... somewhere around Peterborough ... didn't matter to me at the time. I made several attempts to persude Hector to take the trip with me ... nope ... he wasn't going.

Something still 'tugged' at me to take the trip ... even if Hector wasn't interested ... I bought one of the empty seats ... and as far as I know the last seat remained vacant.

The bus took the parishoners and me to Marmora ... to a farm just outside Marmora. This particular visit to Marmora was quite uneventful ... yet I would find myself visiting this farm in Marmora again in September and October.

At Marmora I learned about Medugorje. I decided shortly after my 3rd visit that I had to visit Medugorje. At the time I had no money so I asked my friend Ron to loan me enough money for the trip ... he agreed.

In November I was on my way to Medugorje with Michelle ... who had already made several trips to Medugorje. I should mention that between the time I made the decision to go to Medugorje(late October) and my departure(early November) my money problem had been resolved without a loan from Ron ... a story for another day.

Visited Medugorje and got restless after a couple of days ... needed to leave ... said goodbye to Michelle and 'hit the road' without really knowing where I would go next. While in Medugorje I made arrangements to have some money wired to Split ... didn't take much with me. Arrived in Split ... found my way to the American Express office and went in to get my money ... nope.

A problem of sorts with the wire transfer ... I am standing at the counter waiting for the kind lady at the desk on the other side of the counter to resolve whatever is holding up my 'money' ... in a few minutes this kind lady tells me the telephone lines to Zagreb have gone dead ... communication with someone in Zagreb is necessary to resolve the problems with the wire transfer.

A few minutes later the same kind lady tells me the fax lines to Zagreb have also mysterously gone dead ... no way to establish communication with Zagreb today ... yikes!! I am completely broke ... was depending on the wire transfer ... I am even out of cigarettes and I have no money to buy any ... poop! I explain my predicament to the same kind lady on the other side of the counter ... she gets up from her chair ... go finds her purse ... pulls some money out and gives the money to me ... enough for a pack of smokes ... wow!!

John(a gentleman I met in Medugorje) comes into the office looking for me ... I suppose to check to see that I was OK ... I explained the situation to him ... he replied ... no problem! I'm not so sure ... I have no money to buy something to eat ... no place to sleep ... and John's saying ... no problem! ...hmmm!

We leave the office and John has me follow him down the street and arounfd the corner ... up some stairs and in front of a door to a house. John apparently knows what he is doing ... after exchanging s few words in broken english and international body language ... the gentleman in the house pulls some money out of his pocket and gives it to me. Apparantly I am to buy my supper with this money, come back and sleep in this house ... and settle the bill after I have my money from the wire transfer. I'm impressed ... to say the least ... from being penniless in a strange country ... to having everything I need or want via complete strangers ...Wow!!

The pizza that evening tasted so good! The next day the kind lady at the American Express office has resolved the problems with my wire transfer. I head off to the bank accross the street with this little piece of paper and walk out with $3,000.00 in American Express travellers cheques ... $10.00 and $20.00 denominations ... a stack a couple of inches thick ... I am ready to 'hit the road'. I repay my debts and buy a bus ticket to Riecka.

I am carrying around with me my suitcase and a couple of large cardboard boxes stuffed with religious articles I purchased in Medugorje ...$2-3 thousand worth. I decide to buy a carrying bag to put some in ... still my 'load' was very heavy and very awkward. By the time I got on the bus I had decided I would rent a car ... there was no way I could travel carrying around all this stuff ... walking 100 metres was a huge challenge.

Met an elderly man on the bus ... he paid to have my bus ticket upgraded ... didn't understand what he said ... arrived in Riecka and found a car rental agency. At the time I had no credit card ... the agent was reluctant to even rent me a car ... in the end he agreed with a sizable deposit ($1,000.00 US or so ... I remember it put a hole in my stack of travellers cheques :-)) . I told him I would only need the car for 3-4 days. Don't know where this time frame came from ... I still had no idea where i was going ... other than my hope to visit my uncle's graves ... one near Ravenna in Italy and one near Brussels in Belgium.

Checked into a hotel ... tried to call home ... no answer ... called Medugorje hoping to chat with Michelle ... she wasn't home and I was told she planned to leave Medugorje the next day ... Decided to drive to Ancona and try to meet Michelle as she got off the boat ... found her and off we headed off together on what turned out to be 10 days or so of sight seeing. Michelle wanted to go to San Giovani Rotundo to visit the place where St Pio spent most of his life ... at the time this didn't appeal to me and it was my car rental :-) . (I would find myself in San Giovani Rotundo with Kevin a year or so later)

We visited my uncle Charlie's grave ... quite an emotional experience for me. We visited St Rita's village (Cassio ??) Assissi ... don't think i knew much about St Francis of Assissi ... bought a book about him ... would have a huge impact on my life .

Decided to call the car agency to let them know I would not have the car back as planned. Found a kind lady who spoke some english. She contacted the agency and when she hung up she had this strange look on her face. She let us know that Interpol was looking for me and the car ... apparently the car had been reported stolen when it was not returned as intended ... Yikes!!

The lady also told us that because of this we were not permitted to return the car to Riecka ... we must return the car to Fiumi ... Yikes!! ... this sounded serious. We asked her where Fiumi was ... she checked a map and couldn't find it. She suggested we ask as we get closer to Croatia.

As we travelled north through Italy ... no one seem to know where this place called Fiumi was. Finally in Trieste at the train station I think ... a gentleman recognized the name and let us know that Fiumi was Italian for Riecka ... what a relief!!

Returned the car and bought train tickets for Paris ... I wanted to go to Belgium and Michelle wanted to go home.

In the train I decided to read one of the books I had purchased along the way ... Teresa of Jesus ... a 2 volume series. I thought I was buying a book about the saint Michelle told me about St Therese ... nope ... St Teresa of Jesus was a well known spanish mystic who lived in the 16th century and St Therese was a french girl who died at age 24 in Lisieux. I gave The book I started reading to Michelle and kept the second book of the series. (I would read this later in Canada ... this book included St Teresa's famous writing about her mystical experiences"Seven Interior Castles which also would have a profound effect on my life)

Arrived in Paris ... all I wanted was a hot coffee and a cigarette ... and a few minutes to recover form being in a crowded train for such a long time. Michelle was in one of her ... "like a german tank moods" ... no time for coffee ... let's go ... gotta get there!! ... we still laugh about it today but it wasn't so funny at the time.

Rented another car ... got separated on the way to find the car in the parking lot ... Michelle wanted to go one way and I wanted to go another ... and so we did

I arrived at the car and no Michelle ... I was prepared to leave without her but she came along in the next couple of minutes. we drive to Belgium and visit my Uncle Bruce's grave ... again quite an emotional experience.

We discovered this museum along the way ... quite a story! ... built and dedicated to the Canadian soldiers who liberated Belgium in the fall of 1944 ... Uncle Bruce was one of them.

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