It is a rare soul that sets a hand to the plow and never looks to what was left behind. For some, this looking back results in their leaving the monastery and returning to the world. For others, it is less radical and can involve a gradual weakening of their resolve to follow Christ wholeheartedly. And so their fervor wanes, and their commitment to ongoing conversion falters. Thus, they can find themselves initially stagnating, spiritually, and gradually regressing as former patterns of sin and compromise reassert themselves. No longer only looking back, they actually remove their hand from the plow and settle into a life of mediocrity and ultimate misery. Thérèse is someone who may well have looked back, on occasion, but only to immediately and repeatedly set her hand back on the plow and her gaze back on Christ. Her feast day is thus a graced opportunity to examine where our own eyes are fixed: on the plow (and on Christ) or looking back distractedly to what was left behind and thus disqualifying ourselves for the Kingdom of God.