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We’ve had a late start to the autumn weather here on Belmont Abbey’s campus, but this week has finally found the crisp anticipation that marks my favorite season. I know our students will be eager to take advantage of this during their mid-semester break: hiking in the glorious Blue Ridge and generally enjoying all the bracing loveliness within reach of our North Carolina campus.

Of course, even before this belated temperature shift, I’d noticed the level of animal activity (and boldness) increasing – as the urgent impulse to prepare began overriding timidity. And now the campus squirrels are everywhere. A mockingbird has been singing long, communicative songs from the lampposts and treetops outside Stowe Hall. Leaves are falling in earnest, first from the crepe myrtle, then slowly from other trees. And cardinals and chickadees pepper and glow overhead with an energy I can’t help sharing.

I love the autumn, as so many people do: the robust colors, the scarves and sweaters, the nutmeg and cinnamon that find their way into every dessert and specialty drink… but it does seem strange to feel so much excitement and joy over a season oriented, ultimately, toward preparation for the cold, dark days ahead. Then again, maybe it’s not so strange, considering who we are as Christians, and the Word in which we live and hope.

Watching the grass dim and all but stop growing, the trees become stark, and the last wildflowers brown and brittle, we can still breathe the clear, cool air and the tannin spice of fall with joy. Because the truth is, we are fallen people, who need cycles of renewal, of giving up to God all that we are and have. Dying to ourselves, we trust in God to build us back more beautifully than ever.

The oak, maple, and crepe myrtle shed their leaves in preparation for the weight of snow and ice, the punishing cold and the short days, but we recognize even in their barren forms a kind of patient beauty. In a way, autumn shows us prudence and generosity: prudence in preparing ourselves for cold and meager times; generosity in flaming out with the beauty of sacrifice and repentance, of dying to ourselves, that we may be transformed to new life in the coming year. Both prudence and generosity require and embrace trust. They make lovely and meaningful what might otherwise seem bitter.

Because winter is not the end of the story, we can place the loss, even seeming death – so vividly embodied in the drift of dry leaves – within a larger narrative of hope, life, and resurrection. The seasons may bring change and challenge, but Benedictine stability reminds us of the abiding presence of God, Who endures beyond change. Let us relish our autumn days in the promise of life beyond our failings and our struggles!

One of my favorite saints happens to have a feast day at the beginning of October: St. Therese of the Child Jesus, often called “The Little Flower,” was a Carmelite nun whose autobiography, Story of a Soul, is still widely read and loved.

Therese wasn’t always my favorite. On the one hand, it’s hard not to admire this beautiful saint whose “little way” embraces small things with great love, and who wanted to spend her heaven showering roses on earth. On the other hand, it can be hard – at least for me – to relate to someone who’s been painted as nearly perfect, even angelic, in her holiness. The stubbornly fallible part of me starts grumbling at the prospect, or just plain distrusts the image.

I’ve come to realize, however, that the “Little Flower,” beyond espousing a way of life that’s frankly beautiful, is also a tenacious and imaginative saint. To be martyred for one’s faith is certainly a profound and glorious affirmation of love. To undergo daily anxiety, annoyance, frustration, and discomfort – to carry the chronic crosses, day after day, is no less profound an opportunity. To take the irritating circumstances of grinding teeth and clacking beads, the mundane chores or thankless errands – the whining, pestering, broken circumstances – and meet them with love takes an incredible act of will. It looks at the world and sees, not what’s immediately obvious to our last nerve, but the transformative, even creative potential by which we participate in God’s ongoing gift: that Love by which He holds us unarguably in existence.

From the outside, it might look as if nothing bothered Therese, or as if she was somehow immune to temptation. But when I think about what it takes to seize the moment with determined love, I recognize a stubborn joy that acknowledges – and flatly refuses to be turned away by – the unpleasant aspect of an experience. It’s more like athletic strength, muscled and deliberate, than a show of virtuosity. Therese, after all, was no less human than the rest of us; her virtue is most heroic in that she had to choose it at every opportunity. “I can prove my love only by scattering flowers, that is to say, by never letting slip a single little sacrifice, a single glance, a single word; by making profit of the very smallest actions, by doing them for love,” she wrote.

When I think about it, I have to remember that even a “little flower” holds a fierce root grip in the earth, drawing from its particular circumstances life-giving water. Its leaves have the power to transform light into food, and its color and fragrance attract in order to pollinate, enriching the complex system of relationships in which it grows. While certainly the prospect of drifting rose petals is a lovely one, the reality of root and pollen, sap and fiber, fill me with renewed hope. And when I receive a rose from my sister and friend, Therese, it reminds me of the energetic grace teeming in the soil and atmosphere of daily circumstances: in all its challenging, uncomfortable, and glorious reality.

So when we face the crosses of our daily lives (and we all have them), let’s seize the opportunity to transform each one with love, as St. Therese did. We, too, can relish the opportunity to live with our whole hearts, even (or especially) in situations that seem rough, difficult, or undignified. Remember – the battle is already won!