Chaplet Of St Therese Of Lisieux? The 78 New Answer

For other uses, see Chaplet (disambiguation)

Shortly after my husband and I got married, we began a novena to St. Therese of Lisieux, that “famous” one that is said to be a foolproof method of knowing the will of God. In the early stages of my Catholic faith, I would often hear personal anecdotes from friends of how they prayed this nine-day series of prayers at the intercession of St. Therese, and on the last day they miraculously received roses, often of a particular color, which would confirm what they prayed about.

Now, while we shouldn’t rely solely on miraculous signs from heaven, praying a novena in this way is a magnificent demonstration of faith and heroic confidence that one’s prayers will indeed be answered.

We began the novena full of excitement, wondering what color of roses Saint Therese would send us…

Having just discovered that I was pregnant with our first child, my husband and I felt that we needed to know God’s will for our marriage. We knew that Kansas (where we currently resided) was not the ideal place to raise our family as it was quite a distance from both of our homes. So we began the novena asking for the intercession of St. Therese on this matter.

And we got specific. We asked for a rose to acknowledge the prayer, but gave her three options: a white rose for Wisconsin (my husband’s home state), a red rose for Kansas, and a yellow rose for Colorado (my home state). “I’m excited!” I remember shouting to my husband as we began the novena.

As we approached the final day, waiting for our rose made me feel like a child waiting for Christmas. However, day nine came and went: no rose. Weeks came and went: no rose. What gave?! We had prayed the novena with expectant faith that we would see a rose. In our great American way, we expected answers as soon as possible.

But after the last day of the novena, no roses appeared. Until…

As providence would have it, we spent two more years as missionaries in Kansas. Then, two babies later, we made a big move to Colorado because of some very open doors that were presented to us—no roses. About a month after our move, we were visiting a friend’s house and my eyes were immediately drawn to the mantel, which had a beautiful bouquet of fresh yellow roses on it. Interesting, I thought, remembering the novena color specs from two years ago. But probably a coincidence, I decided.

The next Sunday, in our new parish, I found my son hiding behind a statue of the Holy Family. A yellow rose protruded from St. Joseph’s hand. There were no other flowers on the statue. That stopped me for a second, but I brushed it off.

The following week, just before entering a business meeting, I noticed something shooting out of the rocks next to the building. It was – you guessed it – a wild yellow rose. Well, that was too weird and random to ignore. Someone once told me that seeing or hearing the same thing three times is God’s way of getting your attention. Well, with those roses, he definitely got my attention now!

Perhaps God’s delay in giving us a sure sign was His way of leading us to greater faith.

It seemed St. Therese had finally answered our novena from over two years ago. It certainly wasn’t in the original time frame we were hoping for, and it wasn’t even what we expected. There were other, more normal, circumstances that made it possible for us to move to Colorado. The discernment for us was not the result of a miracle, but a passage of time that confirmed the path that God was leading us on.

Often God speaks more in whispers than in thunder. However, the Lord knows our need for reassurance, especially in the formation of such a new venture, and so, with a little help from St. Therese, He chose to give us that comfort through a tangible sign.

God will always lead us in the path He wants us to walk. Praying novenas and looking for signs has nothing to do with changing God’s mind, but rather with strengthening our own dependence and total trust in our loving Father. The two years that God (and St. Therese) made us wait for our roses only shows that everything is revealed within His perfect timing, not ours.

Next time I face a big decision, will I pray a novena? Possibly. Will I sincerely pray for God to bless the steps I take, but also do my own natural part in making a decision, trusting that He is with me even if I’m just whispering? Absolutely.

“Command your way to the Lord, trust in him, he will act.” (Psalm 37:5)

St. Thérèse of Lisieux (January 2, 1873 – September 30, 1897) was a French Catholic Discalced Carmelite nun widely revered in modern times. She is popularly known as “The Little Flower of Jesus” or simply “The Little Flower”.

Thérèse was an extremely influential model of holiness for Catholics and others because of the simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life. Along with Francis of Assisi, she is one of the most popular saints in church history. Pope Pius X called her “the greatest saint of modern times.”

Thérèse felt called to religious life early on and overcame various obstacles. In 1888, at the age of 15, she became a nun and joined two of her older sisters in the monastic community of the Carmelites of Lisieux (another sister, Céline, also later joined the order). After nine years as a Carmelite nun, having held various offices such as sacristan and assistant to the mistress of novices, Thérèse died of tuberculosis at the age of 24.

Her feast day was October 3 from 1927 until it was changed to October 1 in 1969. Thérèse is known worldwide, with the Basilica of Lisieux being the second most popular pilgrimage site in France after Lourdes.

French Discalced Carmelite nun and saint (1873–1897)

“Little Flower of Jesus” redirects here. For other topics, see Little Flower (disambiguation)

Thérèse of Lisieux (French: Thérèse de Lisieux [te.ʁɛz də li.zjø]); nee Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin, January 2, 1873 – September 30, 1897), also known as Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus et de la Sainte Face), was a French Catholic Discalced Carmelite nun widely venerated in modern times. She is commonly known as “The Little Flower of Jesus” or simply “The Little Flower” in English and la petite Thérèse (little Thérèse) in French.

Thérèse was an extremely influential model of holiness for Catholics and others because of the simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life. Along with Francis of Assisi, she is one of the most popular saints in church history.[4][5] Pope Pius X called her “the greatest saint of modern times.”[7]

Thérèse felt a vocation to religious life from an early age and after overcoming various obstacles, she became a nun in 1888 at the age of 15[8] and joined two of her older sisters in the cloistered community of Carmelite nuns at Lisieux in Normandy (still) one another sister, Céline, later also joined the order). After nine years as a Carmelite religious, having held various offices such as sexton and assistant to the mistress of novices, during her final 18 months at Carmel she fell into a night of faith in which she is said to have felt Jesus absent and tormented by doubts about his existence god. Thérèse died of tuberculosis at the age of 24.

Her feast day in the General Roman Calendar was October 3 from 1927 until it was changed to October 1 in 1969.[9] Thérèse is known worldwide, with the Basilica of Lisieux being the second most popular pilgrimage site in France after Lourdes.

life [edit]

Family background[edit]

Therese was born on January 2, 1873 at rue Saint-Blaise in Alençon, France, to Marie-Azélie Guérin (usually called Zélie) and Louis Martin, a jeweler and watchmaker.[10] Both of her parents were devout Catholics, who eventually became the first (and so far only) couple to be canonized together by the Roman Catholic Church (by Pope Francis in 2015).

Louis had tried to become a canon because he wanted to enter the Great St. Bernard Hospice, but had been turned down because he didn’t know Latin. Zélie, who possessed a strong, active temperament, wanted to serve the sick and had also considered entering the consecrated life, but the prioress of the regular canonesses of the Hôtel-Dieu in Alençon had advised her against it. Disappointed, Zélie learned lace-making instead. She excelled at it and, at the age of 22, set up her own shop on rue Saint-Blaise.[12]

Louis and Zélie met in early 1858 and were married on July 13 of the same year in the Basilica of Notre-Dame d’Alençon. At first they decided to live in perpetual abstinence as brother and sister, but when a father confessor stopped them, they changed their lifestyle and had nine children. From 1867 to 1870 they lost 3 infants and five-year-old Hélène. All five of her surviving daughters became nuns. Besides Therese these were:

Marie (February 22, 1860, Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, died January 19, 1940),

Pauline (September 7, 1861, Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion mother Agnes of Jesus, died July 28, 1951),

Léonie (June 3, 1863, Visitandine in Caen, sister Françoise-Thérèse in religion, died June 16, 1941) and

Céline (28 April 1869, Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face, d. 25 February 1959).

“A dreamer and brooding, an idealist and romantic, [the father] gave [his daughters] touching and naïve pet names: Marie was his ‘diamond’, Pauline his ‘precious pearl’, Céline ‘the bold’. But Therese was his ‘little queen’ who owned all the treasures.”

Zélie was so successful at making lace that in 1870 Louis sold his watchmaking business to a nephew and took care of the travel and bookkeeping of his wife’s lace business.

Birth and childhood[edit]

The house of Rue Saint-Blaise in Alençon: The family home and birthplace of Therese

Louis Martin, father of Therese

Shortly after her birth in January 1873, Therese Martin’s prospects for survival were uncertain. Because of her frail condition, she was entrusted to a wet nurse, Rose Taillé, who had already cared for two of the Martin children.[14] Rose had her own children and could not live with the Martins, so Therese was sent to live with her in the bocage woods of Semallé.

The Basilica of Alençon where Therese was baptized

On April 2, 1874, when she was 15 months old, she returned to Alençon, where she was lovingly surrounded by her family. “I hear the baby calling me Mom! as she walks down the stairs. With every step she calls Mama! (Madame Martin to Pauline, November 21, 1875) She was brought up in a very Catholic environment, including attending Mass at 5:30 a.m., strict observance of fasting and prayer to the rhythm of the liturgical year. The Martins also practiced charity, visiting the sick and elderly, and occasionally welcoming vagrants to their table. While she wasn’t the model little girl her sisters later portrayed, Therese was very responsive to this upbringing. She played nun. Described as a generally happy child, she also displayed other emotions, often crying: “Céline is playing with the little one with some bricks […] I have to correct the poor baby who throws terrible tantrums when she can’t have one of her own. She tosses and turns desperately.” on the ground and thinks all is lost. Sometimes she is so overwhelmed that she almost chokes. She’s a nervous kid, but she’s very well-behaved, very intelligent and remembers everything.”[14] At 22, Therese, then a Carmelite, confessed: “I was far from being a perfect little girl”.

From 1865 Zélie complained of chest pains and in December 1876 a doctor informed her of the severity of the tumour. Madame Martin, feeling that death was imminent, had written to Pauline in the spring of 1877: ‘You and Marie will have no difficulty in your upbringing. Your disposition is so good. In June 1877 she traveled to Lourdes hoping to be healed, but the miracle did not happen: “Our Lady did not heal me because my time is up and because God wants me to rest somewhere else than on earth.” On August 28, 1877, Zélie died at the age of 45. Her funeral took place in the Basilica of Notre-Dame d’Alençon. Therese was almost 41⁄2 years old. Her mother’s death dealt her a severe blow and later she would think that “the first part of her life ended that day”.

She wrote, “Every detail of my mother’s illness is still with me, especially her last weeks on earth.” She recalled the scene in the bedroom where her dying mother received the last sacraments while Therese knelt and her father wept. She wrote: “When Mom died my happiness changed. I used to be so lively and outspoken, now I got shy and oversensitive and cried when anyone looked at me. I was only happy when nobody was paying attention to me… It was only in the intimacy of my own family, where everyone was wonderfully nice, that I could be more myself.”[17]

Therese (1876)

Three months after Zélie’s death, Louis Martin left Alençon, where he had spent his youth and marriage, and moved to Lisieux in the Calvados department of Normandy, where Zélie’s pharmacist brother Isidore Guérin lived with his wife and their two daughters Jeanne and Marie. In her final months, Zélie had given up the lace business. After her death, Louis sold it. Louis rented a lovely, spacious country house, Les Buissonnets, set in large gardens on the side of a hill overlooking the town. In retrospect, Therese would see the move to Les Buissonnets as the beginning of the “second period of my life, the most painful of the three: it extends from the age of four and a half to fourteen, the time when I have rediscovered my childhood character and am in the In Lisieux, Pauline took on the role of Therese’s “Mama”. She took this role seriously, and Therese became particularly close to her and to Céline, her sister who was closest in age to her.[14]

Early years[edit]

Les Buissonnets, the house of the Martin family in Lisieux to which they moved in November 1877 after the death of Madame Martin. Therese lived here from November 16, 1877 to April 9, 1888, the day of her entrance into Carmel. , the Martin family home in Lisieux to which they moved in November 1877 after the death of Madame Martin. Therese lived here from November 16, 1877 to April 9, 1888, the day of her entrance into Carmel.

Therese was homeschooled until she was eight and a half years old, when she entered the Benedictine school at Notre Dame du Pre Abbey in Lisieux. Therese, who was taught well and carefully by Marie and Pauline, found herself at the top of the class, apart from writing and arithmetic. However, due to her young age and good grades, she was bullied. The one who bullied her the most was a fourteen-year-old girl who was doing badly at school. Therese suffered greatly from her sensitivity and cried silently. In addition, the exuberant games in their free time were not to their liking. She preferred to tell stories or look after the little ones in the toddler class. “The five years I spent at school were the saddest of my life and if it weren’t for my dear Celine with me, I couldn’t have stayed a single month without getting sick.” Céline tells us: “She has now developed a taste for hiding,[20] she did not want to be observed because she genuinely considered herself inferior”. On her days off, she grew fond of Marie Guérin, the younger of her two cousins ​​in Lisieux. The two girls played hermits, just as the great Teresa once played with her brother. And every evening she immersed herself in the family circle. “Luckily I could go home every night and then I became happier. I jumped on Father’s knees and told him about the spots I had and when he kissed me all my worries were forgotten… I needed that kind of encouragement so much.” But the strain of the double life and the daily self-control weighed heavily on Therese. Going to school became increasingly difficult.

Therese at the age of 8, 1881

When she was nine years old in October 1882, her sister Pauline, who had acted like a “second mother” to her, entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux. Therese was devastated. She understood that Pauline was in seclusion and that she would never come back. “I said from the bottom of my heart: Pauline is lost to me!” The shock brought back the trauma of her mother’s death. She also wanted to join the Carmelites but was told she was too young. Nevertheless, Therese so impressed Mother Marie Gonzague, the prioress at the time of Pauline’s entry into the community, that she wrote to comfort her, calling her “my little daughter-to-be”.

disease [edit]

At that time, Therese was often ill. She began to suffer from nervous tremors. The shaking started one night after her uncle took her for a walk and started talking about Zélie. Assuming she was cold, the family covered Therese with blankets, but the shivering continued. She gritted her teeth and couldn’t speak. The family called Dr. Notta, who could not diagnose. In 1882, Dr. Gayral that Therese “reacts to emotional frustration with a neurotic attack.”

Alarmed but withdrawn, Pauline began writing letters to Therese and tried various strategies to intervene. Eventually Therese recovered after turning to look at the statue of the Virgin Mary that stood in Marie’s room where Therese had been taken. She reported on May 13, 1883, that she had seen the Virgin smile at her. She wrote: “Our dear wife came to me, she smiled at me. How happy I am.” However, when Therese, at the request of her eldest sister Marie, told the Carmelite Sisters about this vision, she was overwhelmed by their questions and lost confidence. Self-doubt made her wonder what had happened. “I thought I lied – I couldn’t look at myself without a feeling of deep horror.”[27] “For a long time after my healing, I thought that my illness was intentional and that this was a true martyrdom for my soul”. Hers concerns about this continued until November 1887.

In October 1886, her eldest sister Marie entered the same Carmelite convent, adding to Therese’s grief. The warm atmosphere in Les Buissonnets that was so important to her disappeared. Now only she and Céline remained with her father. Her frequent tears led some friends to think that she was of weak character, and indeed the Guerins shared this opinion.

Therese also suffered from scruples, a condition experienced by other saints such as Alphonsus Liguori, also a doctor of the Church, and Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. She wrote: “One would have to go through this martyrdom to understand it well and it would be impossible for me to express what I have experienced for a year and a half.”

Full conversion[ edit ]

Therese 1886, 13 years old

Christmas Eve 1886 was a turning point in Therese’s life; she called it her “complete conversion.” Years later, she explained that that night she overcame the pressures she had been under since her mother’s death, saying, “God worked a small miracle to make me grow up in an instant […] On that blessed night.” … Jesus, who saw fit to make himself a child out of love for me, saw fit to let me come out of the swaddling clothes and imperfections of childhood”.

That evening, Louis Martin and his daughters Léonie, Céline and Thérèse attended midnight mass in Lisieux Cathedral – “but their hearts were very little.” On 1 short mantilla, after only seven weeks of the Poor Clares’ regime in Alençon, Les Buissonnets” and her sisters helped her to overcome her sense of failure and humiliation. Back at Les Buissonnets, as every year, “as was the custom for French children, Thérèse had left her shoes on the stove, empty in anticipation of gifts, not from Santa Claus but from the baby Jesus who had imagined himself traveling through the air carrying toys and cake.” As she and Céline walked up the stairs, she heard her father, “perhaps weary from the hour or this memory to the unrelenting emotional demands of his tearful youngest daughter”, saying somewhat irritated: “Therese is far too old for that now. Fortunately, this will be the last year!” Therese had started to cry and Céline advised her not to go back downstairs immediately. Therese suddenly pulled herself together and wiped away her tears. She ran down the stairs and knelt down fire and unpacked her surprises as jubilantly as ever.In her account nine years later in 1895: “In a moment Jesus, satisfied with my good will, accomplished the work which I could not have done in ten years.” After nine sad years, her mother’s death “gained her lost soul power” and, she said, “she should keep it forever.” Discovering the joy in self-abnegation, she added, “I felt, in a word that charity invading my heart, the need to forget myself in order to make others happy – since that blessed night I have not been defeated in any battle, but I went from victory to victory and began to do so say “to run a giant course”.”[a]

According to Ida Görres, Therese “immediately understood what had happened to her when she achieved that mundane little victory over the sensitivity she had endured for so long; … freedom lies in determinedly looking away from oneself … and the fact that a man can turn away from himself reveals again that victory, when good, is pure grace, a sudden gift … It cannot compelled, yet it can only be received by a patiently prepared heart. Biographer Kathryn Harrison: “After all, in the past she had tried to control herself, tried with her whole being and failed. Grace, alchemy, masochism: whatever lens we look at her transport through, Therese’s night of enlightenment showed both its power and its danger. It would direct their steps between the mortal and the divine, between life and death, destruction and apotheosis. It would get her exactly where she wanted to be.”

Therese’s character and the early experiences that shaped her have been the subject of debate, especially in recent years. Aside from the family doctor who observed them in the 19th century, all other conclusions are bound to be speculative. Thus the author Ida Görres, whose formal studies had focused on church history and hagiography, wrote a psychological analysis of the character of Therese. Some authors suggest that Therese had a strong neurotic aspect to her personality for most of her life.[35][36][37] Harrison concluded that “her temperament was not molded for compromise or moderation…a life spent not taming but directing her appetite and will, a life inspired perhaps by the strength of her Desire and ambition has been curtailed.”

Rome and entrance to Carmel

Before she was fourteen, Therese, when she began to experience a period of calm, began reading The Imitation of Christ. She read the imitation carefully, as if the author had traced each sentence for her: “The kingdom of God is within you… Turn to the Lord with all your heart, and leave this miserable world: and your soul will find rest.”[38] She carried the book with her constantly and later wrote that this book and parts of another book of quite a different character, Lectures by Abbé Arminjon on the end of this world and the mysteries of the world to come, had nourished her during this critical period. After that, she began reading other books, mostly on history and science.

In May 1887, Therese approached her 63-year-old father, Louis, who was recovering from a minor stroke, while sitting in the garden one Sunday afternoon, and told him that she wished to celebrate the anniversary of “her conversion” by entering Carmel before Christmas. Louis and Thérèse both broke down and cried, but Louis got up, gently plucked a small white flower with the root intact and gave it to her, explaining the care with which God had created it and preserved it to this day. Thérèse later wrote: “As I listened, I thought I heard my own story”. For Therese, the flower seemed to be a symbol of herself, “destined to live in another soil”. Therese tried again to join Carmel, but the high priest of the monastery did not allow this because of her youth.

1887 police mugshot by Henri Pranzini

During the summer, French newspapers were full of the story of Henri Pranzini, convicted of the brutal murder of two women and a child. To the outraged public, Pranzini represented everything that threatened the decent way of life in France. During July and August 1887 Therese prayed intensely for the conversion of Pranzini so that his soul could be saved, but Pranzini showed no remorse. In late August, newspapers reported that when Pranzini’s neck was placed on the guillotine, he had grabbed a crucifix and kissed it three times. Therese was thrilled and believed her prayers had saved him. She continued to pray for Pranzini after his death.

[…] The familiar flowing curls are slicked back and up severely, stacked in a hard little Therese aged 15. Before asking permission to enter Carmel on Christmas 1887, she had her hair pinned up for the first time, symbolizing a passing childhood. “A photograph taken in April 1888 shows a fresh, firm, girlish face[…] The familiar flowing curls are slicked back and up and piled in a hard little chignon on top of her head”.

In November 1887, Louis took Céline and Therese on a diocesan pilgrimage to Rome for the priestly jubilee of Pope Leo XIII. On November 20, 1887, Therese went for her part during a general audience with Leo XIII superiors to decide … You will enter if it is God’s will” and he blessed Therese. She refused to leave his feet and the noble guard had to carry her from the room.[43]

The journey continued: they visited Pompeii, Naples, Assisi before returning via Pisa and Genoa. The pilgrimage of almost a month was timely. She “learned more than in many years of study”. She left her native Normandy for the first and last time in her life. She, in particular, “who only knew priests in the exercise of their ministry, was in her company, heard their conversations, which were not always edifying – and saw her shortcomings with her own eyes”.

She understood that she had to pray and give her life for sinners like Pranzini. But Carmel prayed especially for the priests, and this surprised her, since their souls seemed to her “as pure as crystal.” A month spent with many priests taught her that they are “weak and feeble men.” She later wrote: “I have met many holy priests during that month, but I also found that although they were above the angels in their supreme dignity, they were nonetheless men and still subject to human frailty. If the holy priests, ‘the salt of the earth’, as Jesus calls them in the Gospel, must pray, what about the tepid? Again, as Jesus says, “If the salt loses its taste, with what shall it be salted?” I understood my vocation in Italy.” It was also her first encounter with young men. “In her brotherless existence, manhood had been represented only by her father, her uncle Guérin, and various priests. Now she had her first and only experience.” At the beatification, Céline explained that one of the young men in the pilgrim group “had developed a tender affection for her.” Thérèse confessed to her sister: “It is high time for Jesus to take me out of the to remove poisonous breath of the world […] I feel my heart is easily caught by tenderness, and where others fall I would fall too. We are not stronger than the others.” Soon after, the Bishop of Bayeux authorized the Prioress to receive Therese. On April 9, 1888, she became a Carmelite postulant.

Lisieux Carmel[ edit ]

The Lisieux monastery

The monastery that Therese entered was a long-established house with a long tradition. In 1838 two nuns from the Carmel of Poitiers were sent to found the House of Lisieux. One of them, Mother Geneviève of St. Teresa, was still alive. When Thérèse entered the second wing, which housed the cells and sickrooms in which she was to live and die, which had only existed for ten years, “she found a community of very old nuns, some strange and cranky, others sick and worried , some lukewarm and complacent. Almost all the sisters came from the petty bourgeois and artisan class. The prioress and mistress of novices came from the ancient nobility of Normandy. Probably the Martin sisters alone represented the new class of the rising bourgeoisie”.

The Carmelite order was reformed in the 16th century by Teresa of Ávila, who essentially devoted herself to personal and collective prayer. The nuns of Lisieux followed a strict regime of one meal a day and little free time for seven months a year. Only one room in the building was heated. There were many times of stillness and solitude, but the Foundress also set aside time for collaborative work and relaxation—the rigors of life should not hamper fraternal and joyful relationships. Founded in 1838, the Carmel of Lisieux had 26 religious in 1888 from very different classes and backgrounds. For most of Therese’s life, the prioress mother was Marie de Gonzague, née Marie-Adéle-Rosalie Davy de Virville. When Therese entered the convent, Mother Marie was 54 years old, a woman with a changeable sense of humor, jealous of her authority, sometimes used capriciously; this resulted in a certain laxity in following established rules. “In the sixties and seventies of the [nineteenth] century, an actual aristocrat in a petty-bourgeois monastery counted for far more than we can imagine today […] the superiors appointed Marie de Gonzague to the highest offices as soon as her novitiate was completed […] ] In 1874 the long tenure as prioress began”.

Postulate [ edit ]

Therese’s time as a postulant began with her acceptance into Carmel on Monday, April 9, 1888.[48] She felt peace after receiving Communion that day and later wrote: “At last my desires have been fulfilled and I cannot describe the deep sweet peace that filled my soul. This peace has stayed with me during the eight and a half years of my life here and has not left me even in the greatest trials”.

Ever since she was a child, Therese dreamed of the desert where God would one day lead her. Now she had entered this desert. Though now reunited with Marie and Pauline, from day one she began fighting to win and keep her distance from her sisters. At the very beginning, Marie de Gonzague, the prioress, had given the postulant Therese to her eldest sister Marie, who was to teach her to follow the Liturgy of the Hours. She later appointed Therese to be Pauline’s assistant in the canteen. When her cousin Marie Guerin also entered, she employed the two together in the sacristy.

Therese strictly adhered to the rule that forbade any superfluous talking during work. She saw her sisters together only during the hours of rest together after dinner. At such moments, she sat down next to someone who happened to be close to her, or next to a nun she had been watching dejectedly, ignoring the tacit and sometimes expressed sensitivity and even jealousy of her birth sisters. “We have to apologize to the others that we are four under one roof,” she used to remark. “When I am dead, you must be very careful not to have family life together […] I did not come to Carmel to be with my sisters; on the contrary, I saw clearly that her presence would cost me dearly, for I was determined not to yield to nature.” [citation needed]

Although the mistress of novices, Sister Marie of the Angels, was slow to find Therese, the young postulant adapted well to her new surroundings. She wrote: “Illusions, the good God gave me the grace not to have when I entered Carmel. I found religious life as I had imagined it, no sacrifice surprised me.”

She chose a spiritual director, a Jesuit, Father Pichon. At their first meeting on May 28, 1888, she made a general confession in which she retraced all her past sins. She walked away with a deep sense of relief. The priest, who had suffered from scruples himself, understood and reassured her. A few months later he left for Canada and Therese could only ask him for advice by letter and his replies were rare. (On July 4, 1897, she confided to Pauline: “Father Pichon treated me too much like a child; yet he also did me much good, saying that I had never committed a mortal sin.”) During her time as Postulant Therese has had to endure quite a bit of bullying from other sisters because of her lack of talent for manual and craft work. Sister St. Vincent de Paul, the best embroiderer in the community, made her uncomfortable and even called her “the big goat.” In fact, Therese was the tallest in the family at 1.62 m. Pauline, the smallest, was no taller than 1.54 m (5 ft 1⁄2 in).

Like all religious, she discovered the ups and downs associated with differences in temperament, character, sensitivity problems or infirmities. After nine years, she wrote clearly: “The lack of judgement, education, the sensitivity of some characters, all these things do not make life very pleasant. Ich weiß sehr gut, dass diese moralischen Schwächen chronisch sind, dass es keine Hoffnung auf Heilung gibt.“ . Aber das größte Leid kam von außerhalb des Karmels. Am 23. Juni 1888 verschwand Louis Martin aus seinem Haus und wurde Tage später im Postamt in Le Havre gefunden. Der Vorfall markierte den Beginn des Niedergangs ihres Vaters. Er starb am 29. Juli 1894.

Noviziat [ bearbeiten ]

c. 1888–1896 Therese von Lisieux, Fotografie,

Das Ende von Thereses Zeit als Postulantin kam am 10. Januar 1889 mit der Anlegung des Habits. Von dieser Zeit an trug sie das “raue, selbstgesponnene und braune Skapulier, weißes Tuch und Schleier, Ledergürtel mit Rosenkranz, wollene ‘Strümpfe’, Seilsandalen”. Nachdem sich der Gesundheitszustand ihres Vaters vorübergehend stabilisiert hatte, konnte er teilnehmen, obwohl ihr Vater zwölf Tage nach ihrer Zeremonie einen Schlaganfall erlitt und in ein privates Sanatorium, das Bon Sauveur in Caen, gebracht wurde, wo er drei Jahre blieb, bevor er 1892 nach Lisieux zurückkehrte. In dieser Zeit vertiefte Therese den Sinn für ihre Berufung; ein verborgenes Leben zu führen, zu beten und ihr Leiden für Priester aufzuopfern, sich selbst zu vergessen, diskrete Taten der Nächstenliebe zu steigern. Sie schrieb: „Ich bemühte mich besonders darum, kleine Tugenden zu üben, da ich nicht die Möglichkeit hatte, große zu tun […] In ihren Briefen aus dieser Zeit ihres Noviziats kam Therese immer wieder auf das Thema der Kleinheit zurück und bezeichnete sich selbst als eine Sandkorn, ein Bild, das sie von Pauline entlehnt hat… ‚Immer kleiner, leichter, um sich leichter vom Hauch der Liebe heben zu lassen‘.[52] Der Rest ihres Lebens würde von Rückzug und Subtraktion bestimmt sein.“

Sie vertiefte sich in das Werk von Johannes vom Kreuz, eine damals ungewöhnliche geistliche Lektüre, besonders für eine so junge Nonne. „Oh, welche Erkenntnisse habe ich aus den Werken unseres heiligen Vaters, des heiligen Johannes vom Kreuz, gewonnen! Als ich siebzehn und achtzehn war, hatte ich keine andere geistige Nahrung…“ Sie fühlte sich diesem klassischen Schriftsteller des Karmeliterordens verwandt (obwohl nichts sie zu den Schriften von Teresa von Avila hingezogen zu haben scheint), und mit Begeisterung las sie seine Werke, „Die Besteigung des Berges Karmel“, „Der Weg der Reinigung“, „Spiritueller Gesang“, „Lebendige Flamme der Liebe“. Passagen aus diesen Schriften sind in alles eingewoben, was sie selbst gesagt und geschrieben hat. Die Gottesfurcht, die sie bei gewissen Schwestern fand, lähmte sie. “Meine Natur ist so, dass Angst mich zurückschrecken lässt, mit LIEBE gehe ich nicht nur vorwärts, ich fliege”.

Mit dem neuen Namen, den eine Karmelitin beim Eintritt in den Orden erhält, gibt es immer einen Beinamen – zum Beispiel Teresa von Jesus, Elisabeth von der Dreifaltigkeit, Anna von den Engeln. Der Beiname hebt das Mysterium hervor, das sie mit besonderer Hingabe betrachten soll. “Thereses Namen in der Religion – sie hatte zwei – müssen zusammengenommen werden, um ihre religiöse Bedeutung zu definieren”. Der Vorname wurde ihr um neun von Mutter Marie de Gonzague vom Jesuskind versprochen und ihr bei ihrem Eintritt in das Kloster gegeben. An sich war die Verehrung der Kindheit Jesu ein karmelitisches Erbe des 17. Jahrhunderts – sie konzentrierte sich auf die überwältigende Demütigung der göttlichen Majestät, indem sie die Gestalt extremer Schwäche und Hilflosigkeit annahm. Das französische Oratorium von Jesus und Pierre de Bérulle erneuerte diese alte Andachtspraxis. Yet when she received the veil, Therese herself asked Mother Marie de Gonzague to confer upon her the second name of the Holy Face.[citation needed]

During the course of her novitiate, contemplation of the Holy Face was said to have nourished her inner life. This is an image representing the disfigured face of Jesus during the Passion. She meditated on certain passages from the prophet Isaiah (Chapter 53). Six weeks before her death she remarked to Pauline, “The words in Isaiah: ‘no stateliness here, no majesty, no beauty, […] one despised, left out of all human reckoning; How should we take any account of him, a man so despised ( Is 53:2–3)[57] – these words were the basis of my whole worship of the Holy Face. I, too, wanted to be without comeliness and beauty, unknown to all creatures.” On the eve of her profession she wrote to Sister Marie, “Tomorrow I shall be the bride of Jesus ‘whose face was hidden and whom no man knew’ – what a union and what a future!”. The meditation also helped her understand the humiliating situation of her father.

Usually the novitiate preceding profession lasted a year. Sister Therese hoped to make her final commitment on or after 11 January 1890 but, considered still too young for a final commitment, her profession was postponed. She would spend eight months longer than the standard year as an unprofessed novice. As 1889 ended, her old home in the world, Les Buissonnets, was dismantled, the furniture divided among the Guérins and the Carmel. It was not until 8 September 1890, aged 17 and a half, that she made her religious profession. The retreat in anticipation of her “irrevocable promises” was characterized by “absolute aridity” and on the eve of her profession she gave way to panic. She worried that “What she wanted was beyond her. Her vocation was a sham”.

Reassured by the novice mistress and mother Marie de Gonzague, the next day her religious profession went ahead, “an outpouring of peace flooded my soul, “that peace which surpasseth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7)”.[61] Against her heart she wore her letter of profession written during her retreat. “May creatures be nothing for me, and may I be nothing for them, but may You, Jesus, be everything! Let nobody be occupied with me, let me be looked upon as one to be trampled underfoot […] may Your will be done in me perfectly… Jesus, allow me to save very many souls; let no soul be lost today; let all the souls in purgatory be saved…” On September 24, the public ceremony followed filled with ‘sadness and bitterness’. “Therese found herself young enough, alone enough, to weep over the absence of Bishop Hugonin, Père Pichon, in Canada; and her own father, still confined in the asylum”. But Mother Marie de Gonzague wrote to the prioress of Tours, “The angelic child is seventeen and a half, with the sense of a 30 year old, the religious perfection of an old and accomplished novice, and possession of herself, she is a perfect nun”.

Life as a Carmelite [ edit ]

The years which followed were a maturation. Therese prayed without great sensitive emotions, she increased the small acts of charity and care for others, doing small services. She accepted criticism in silence, even unjust criticisms, and smiled at the sisters who were unpleasant to her. She always prayed for priests, and in particular for Father Hyacinthe Loyson, a famous preacher who had been a Sulpician and a Dominican novice before becoming a Carmelite and provincial of his order, but who had left the Catholic Church in 1869. Three years later he married a young Protestant widow, with whom he had a son. After his excommunication, he continued to travel around France giving lectures. While clerical papers called Loyson a “renegade monk” and Leon Bloy lampooned him, Therese prayed for her “brother”. She offered her last communion, 19 August 1897, for Father Loyson.[citation needed]

The chaplain to the Carmel, Father Youf, insisted a lot on the fear of Hell. The preachers during spiritual retreats at that time emphasised sin, the sufferings of purgatory, and those of hell. This did not help Therese who in 1891 experienced, “great inner trials of all kinds, even wondering sometimes whether heaven existed.” One phrase heard during a sermon made her weep: “No one knows if they are worthy of love or of hate.” However the retreat of October 1891 was preached by Father Alexis Prou, a Franciscan from Saint-Nazaire. “He specialized in large crowds (he preached in factories) and did not seem the right person to help Carmelites. Just one of them found comfort in his words, Sister Thèrèse of the Child Jesus […] [his] preaching on abandonment and mercy expanded her heart”.

This confirmed her own intuitions. She wrote, “My soul was like a book which the priest read better than I did. He launched me full sail on the waves of confidence and love which held such an attraction for me, but upon which I had not dared to venture. He told me that my faults did not offend God.” Her spiritual life drew more and more on the Gospels that she carried with her at all times. The piety of her time was fed more on commentaries, but Therese had asked Céline to get the Gospels and the Epistles of St Paul bound into a single small volume which she could carry on her heart. She said, “But it is especially the Gospels which sustain me during my hours of prayer, for in them I find what is necessary for my poor little soul. I am constantly discovering in them new lights, hidden and mysterious meanings.”[65]

Over time Therese realised that she felt no attraction to the exalted heights of “great souls”. She looked directly for the word of Jesus, which shed light on her prayers and on her daily life. Therese’s retreat in October 1892 pointed to a “downward” path for her. If asked where she lived, she would pause and quote, “The foxes have their lairs, the birds of heaven their nests, but I have no place to rest my head.” (Matthew 8:20). She wrote to Céline (letter 19 October 1892), “Jesus raised us above all the fragile things of this world whose image passes away. Like Zacchaeus, we climbed a tree to see Jesus and now let us listen to what he is saying to us. Make haste to descend, I must lodge today at your house. Well, Jesus tells us to descend?” “A question here of the interior,” she qualified in her letter, lest Céline think she meant renouncing food or shelter. “Therese knew her virtues, even her love, to be flawed, flawed by self, a mirror too clouded to reflect the divine.” She continued to seek to discover the means, “more efficiently to strip herself of self”. “No doubt, [our hearts] are already empty of creatures, but, alas, I feel mine is not entirely empty of myself, and it is for this reason that Jesus tells me to descend.”[67]

Election of Mother Agnes [ edit ]

On 20 February 1893, Pauline was elected prioress of Carmel and became “Mother Agnes”. She appointed the former prioress as novice mistress and made Therese her assistant. The work of guiding the novices would fall primarily to Therese. She repeated how important respect for the Rule was: “When any break the rule, this is not a reason to justify ourselves. Each must act as if the perfection of the Order depended on her personal conduct.” She also affirmed the essential role of obedience in religious life. She said, “When you stop watching the infallible compass [of obedience], as quickly the mind wanders in arid lands where the water of grace is soon lacking.”[citation needed]

Over the next few years she revealed a talent for clarifying doctrine to those who had not received as much education as she. A kaleidoscope, whose three mirrors transform scraps of coloured paper into beautiful designs, provided an inspired illustration for the Holy Trinity. “As long as our actions, even the smallest, do not fall away from the focus of Divine Love, the Holy Trinity, symbolized by the three mirrors, allows them to reflect wonderful beauty. Jesus, who regards us through the little lens, that is to say, through Himself, always sees beauty in everything we do. But if we left the focus of inexpressible love, what would He see? Bits of straw […] dirty, worthless actions”. “Another cherished image was that of the newly invented elevator, a vehicle Therese used many times over to describe God’s grace, a force that lifts us to heights we can’t reach on our own”. · [70] Martha of Jesus, a novice who spent her childhood in a series of orphanages and who was described by all as emotionally unbalanced, with a violent temper, gave witness during the beatification process of the ‘unusual dedication and presence of her young teacher. “Therese deliberately ‘sought out the company of those nuns whose temperaments she found hardest to bear.’ What merit was there in acting charitably toward people whom one loved naturally? Therese went out of her way to spend time with, and therefore to love, the people she found repellent. It was an effective means of achieving interior poverty, a way to remove a place to rest her head”.

In September 1893, Therese, having been a temporarily professed for the standard three years, asked not to be promoted but to continue a novice indefinitely. As a novice she would always have to ask permission of the other, full sisters. She would never be elected to any position of importance. Remaining closely associated with the other novices, she could continue to care for her spiritual charges. In 1841 Jules Michelet devoted the major part of the fifth volume of his History of France to a favourable presentation of the epic of Joan of Arc. Félix Dupanloup worked relentlessly for the glorification of Joan who, on 8 May 1429 had liberated Orléans, the city of which he became bishop in 1849. Therese wrote two plays in honour of her childhood heroine, the first about Joan’s response to the heavenly voices calling her to battle, the second about her resulting martyrdom.[citation needed]

1894 brought a national celebration of Joan of Arc. On 27 January, Leo XIII authorized the introduction of her cause of beatification, declaring Joan, the shepherdess from Lorraine “venerable”. Thérèse used Henri Wallon’s history of Joan of Arc – a book her uncle Isidore had given to the Carmel – to help her write two plays, “pious recreations”, “small theatrical pieces performed by a few nuns for the rest of the community, on the occasion of certain feast days”. The first of these, The Mission of Joan of Arc, was performed at the Carmel on 21 January 1894, and the second, Joan of Arc Accomplishes her Mission, exactly one year later, on 21 January 1895. In the estimation of one of her biographers, Ida Görres, they “are scarcely veiled self-portraits”. On 29 July 1894, Louis Martin died.

The “little way” [ edit ]

Therese entered the Carmel of Lisieux with the determination to become a saint. However, by the end of 1894, six years as a Carmelite made her realize how small and insignificant she felt. She saw the limitations of all her efforts. She remained small and very far off from the unfailing love that she would wish to practice. She is said to have understood then that it was from insignificance that she had to learn to ask God’s help. Along with her camera, Céline had brought notebooks with her, passages from the Old Testament, which Therese did not have in Carmel. (The Louvain Bible, the translation authorized for French Catholics, did not include the Old Testament). In the notebooks Therese found a passage from Proverbs that struck her with particular force: “Whosoever is a little one, let him come to me” (Proverbs 9:4).[72]

She was struck by another passage from the Book of Isaiah: “you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you. As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you.” (Isaiah 66:12–13)[73] She concluded that Jesus would carry her to the summit of sanctity. The smallness of Therese, her limits, became in this way grounds for joy, rather than discouragement. Not until Manuscript C of her autobiography did she give this discovery the name of little way, “petite voie”[74]

I will seek out a means of getting to Heaven by a little way – very short and very straight little way that is wholly new. We live in an age of inventions; nowadays the rich need not trouble to climb the stairs, they have lifts instead. Well, I mean to try and find a lift by which I may be raised unto God, for I am too tiny to climb the steep stairway of perfection. […] Thine Arms, then, O Jesus, are the lift which must raise me up even unto Heaven. To get there I need not grow. On the contrary, I must remain little, I must become still less[75]

In her quest for sanctity and in order to attain holiness and to express her love of God, she believed that it was not necessary to accomplish heroic acts or great deeds.[76] She wrote, “Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.”

The little way of Therese is the foundation of her spirituality.[77] Within the Catholic Church Thérèse’s way was known for some time as “the little way of spiritual childhood,”[8][76][78][79][80] but Therese actually wrote “little way” only three times,[74] and she never wrote the phrase “spiritual childhood.” It was her sister Pauline who, after Therese’s death, adopted the phrase “the little way of spiritual childhood” to interpret Therese’s path.[81] Years after Therese’s death, a Carmelite of Lisieux asked Pauline about this phrase and Pauline answered spontaneously “But you know well that Therese never used it! It is mine.” In May 1897, Therese wrote to Father Adolphe Roulland, “My way is all confidence and love.” To Maurice Bellière she wrote, “and I, with my way, will do more than you, so I hope that one day Jesus will make you walk by the same way as me.”

Sometimes, when I read spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires. I close the learned book which is breaking my head and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons; perfection seems simple; I see that it is enough to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself, like a child, into God’s arms. Leaving to great souls, to great minds, the beautiful books I cannot understand, I rejoice to be little because only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet.[citation needed]

Merciful love [ edit ]

At the end of the second play that Therese had written on Joan of Arc, the costume she wore almost caught fire. The alcohol stoves used to represent the stake at Rouen set fire to the screen behind which Therese stood. Therese did not flinch but the incident marked her. The theme of fire would assume an increasing importance in her writings. On 9 June 1895, during a Mass celebrating the feast of the Holy Trinity, Therese had a sudden inspiration that she must offer herself as a sacrificial victim to merciful love. At this time some nuns offered themselves as a victim to God’s justice. In her cell she drew up an ‘Act of Oblation’ for herself and for Céline, and on 11 June, the two of them knelt before the miraculous Virgin and Therese read the document she had written and signed. “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You Lord to count my works.”

According to biographer, Ida Görres, the document echoed the happiness she had felt when Father Alexis Prou, the Franciscan preacher, had assured her that her faults did not cause God sorrow. In the Oblation she wrote, “If through weakness I should chance to fall, may a glance from Your Eyes straightway cleanse my soul, and consume all my imperfections – as fire transforms all things into itself”.[83]

Father Adolphe Roulland of the Society of Foreign Missions

In August 1895 the four Martin sisters were joined in the convent by their cousin, Marie Guerin, who became Sister Marie of the Eucharist. Léonie, after several attempts, became Sister Françoise-Thérèse, a nun in the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary in Caen, where she died in 1941.

At age 14, Therese understood her vocation was to pray for priests, to be “an apostle to apostles”. In September 1890, at her canonical examination before she professed her religious vows, she was asked why she had come to Carmel. She answered “I came to save souls, and especially to pray for priests”. Throughout her life she prayed fervently for priests, and she corresponded with and prayed for a young priest, Adolphe Roulland, and a young seminarian, Maurice Bellière. She wrote to her sister “Our mission as Carmelites is to form evangelical workers who will save thousands of souls whose mothers we shall be.”[48]

In October 1895 a young seminarian and subdeacon of the White Fathers, Abbé Bellière, asked the Carmel of Lisieux for a nun who would support – by prayer and sacrifice – his missionary work, and the souls that were in the future to be entrusted to him. Mother Agnes designated Therese. She never met Father Bellière but ten letters passed between them.

A year later Father Adolphe Roulland (1870–1934) of the Society of Foreign Missions requested the same service of the Lisieux Carmel. Once more Therese was assigned the duties of spiritual sister. “It is quite clear that Therese, in spite of all her reverence for the priestly office, in both cases felt herself to be the teacher and the giver. It is she who consoles and warns, encourages and praises, answers questions, offers corroboration, and instructs the priests in the meaning of her little way”.

Last years[ edit ]

Therese’s final years were marked by a steady decline that she bore resolutely and without complaint. Tuberculosis was the key element of Therese’s final suffering, but she saw that as part of her spiritual journey. After observing a rigorous Lenten fast in 1896, she went to bed on the eve of Good Friday and felt a joyous sensation. She wrote: “Oh! how sweet this memory really is! […] I had scarcely laid my head upon the pillow when I felt something like a bubbling stream mounting to my lips. I didn’t know what it was.” The next morning her handkerchief was soaked in blood and she understood her fate. Coughing up of blood meant tuberculosis, and tuberculosis meant death.[86] She wrote, “I thought immediately of the joyful thing that I had to learn, so I went over to the window. I was able to see that I was not mistaken. Ah! my soul was filled with a great consolation; I was interiorly persuaded that Jesus, on the anniversary of His own death, wanted to have me hear His first call!”

Therese corresponded with a Carmelite mission in what was then French Indochina and was invited to join them, but, because of her sickness, could not travel. Tuberculosis slowly devoured her flesh. When she was near death, “Her physical suffering kept increasing so that even the doctor himself was driven to exclaim, “Ah! If you only knew what this young nun was suffering!” During the last hours of Therese’s life, she said, “I would never have believed it was possible to suffer so much, never, never!” In July 1897, she made a final move to the monastery infirmary. On August 19, 1897, she received her last communion. She died on 30 September 1897, aged 24. On her deathbed, she is reported to have said, “I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me.” Her last words were, “My God, I love you!”

Therese was buried on 4 October 1897, in the Carmelite plot, in the municipal cemetery at Lisieux, where her parents had been buried. Her body was exhumed in September 1910 and the remains placed in a lead coffin and transferred to another tomb.[90] In March 1923, however, before she was beatified, her body was returned to the Carmel of Lisieux, where it remains. The figure of Therese in the glass coffin is not her actual body but a gisant statue based on drawings and photos by Céline after Therese’s death. It contains her ribcage and other remnants of her body.

Spirituality [ edit ]

To the right and to the left, I throw to my little birds the good grain that God places in my hands. And then I let things take their course! I busy myself with it no more. Sometimes, it’s just as though I had thrown nothing; at other times, it does some good. But God tells me: ‘Give, give always, without being concerned with the results’.

Together with Francis of Assisi, Therese of Lisieux is one of the most popular Roman Catholic saints since apostolic times. She is approachable, due in part to her historical proximity. Barbara Stewart, writing for The New York Times, once called Therese “the Emily Dickinson of Roman Catholic sainthood”.[92]

As a Doctor of the Church, she is the subject of much theological comment and study, and, as a young woman whose message has touched the lives of millions, she remains the focus of much popular devotion.[93] She was a highly influential model of sanctity for Catholics in the first half of the twentieth century because of the simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life.

Therese was devoted to Eucharistic adoration and on 26 February 1895, shortly before she died wrote from memory and without a rough draft her poetic masterpiece “To Live by Love” which she had composed during Eucharistic adoration. During her life, the poem was sent to various religious communities and was included in a notebook of her poems.[96]

Therese lived a hidden life and “wanted to be unknown”, yet became popular after her death through her spiritual autobiography. She also left letters, poems, religious plays, prayers, and her last conversations were recorded by her sisters. Paintings and photographs – mostly the work of her sister Céline – further led to her becoming known.

Therese said on her death-bed, “I only love simplicity. I have a horror of pretence”, and she spoke out against some of the claims made concerning the lives of saints written in her day, “We should not say improbable things, or things we do not know. We must see their real, and not their imagined lives”. The depth of her spirituality, of which she said, “my way is all confidence and love”, has inspired many believers up to the current day. In the face of her littleness she trusted to God her sanctity. She wanted to go to heaven by an entirely new little way. “I wanted to find an elevator that would raise me to Jesus”. The elevator, she wrote, would be the arms of Jesus lifting her in all her littleness.[98]

Holy Face of Jesus devotion [ edit ]

The devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus was promoted by another Carmelite nun, Sister Marie of St Peter in Tours, France in 1844. Then by Leo Dupont, also known as the Apostle of the Holy Face who formed the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face in Tours in 1851.[99][100] Therese joined this confraternity on April 26, 1885.[101] Her parents, Louis and Zélie Martin, had also prayed at the Oratory of the Holy Face, originally established by Dupont in Tours.[102] This devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus was based on images of the Veil of Veronica, as promoted by Dupont, rather than the Shroud of Turin, which image first appeared on a photographic negative in 1898.

On 10 January 1889, she was given the habit and received the name Therese of the Child Jesus. On 8 September 1890, Therese took her vows. The ceremony of “taking the veil” followed on the 24th, when she added to her name in religion of the Holy Face, a title which was to become increasingly important in the development and character of her inner life. In his “A l’ecole de Therese de Lisieux: maitresse de la vie spirituelle”, Bishop Guy Gaucher emphasizes that Therese saw the devotions to the Child Jesus and to the Holy Face as so completely linked that she signed herself “Thérèse de l’Enfant Jesus de la Sainte Face” – Therese of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face. In her poem My Heaven down here, composed in 1895, Therese expressed the notion that by the divine union of love, the soul takes on the semblance of Christ. By contemplating the sufferings associated with the Holy Face of Jesus, she felt she could become closer to Christ. She wrote the words “Make me resemble you, Jesus!” on a small card and attached a stamp with an image of the Holy Face. She pinned the prayer in a small container over her heart.

Therese wrote many prayers to express her devotion to the Holy Face. In August 1895, in her “Canticle to the Holy Face,” she wrote: “Jesus, Your ineffable image is the star which guides my steps. Ah, You know, Your sweet Face is for me Heaven on earth. My love discovers the charms of Your Face adorned with tears. I smile through my own tears when I contemplate Your sorrows.”

Therese emphasised God’s mercy in both the birth and the passion narratives in the Gospel. She wrote, “He sees it disfigured, covered with blood! … unrecognizable! … And yet the divine Child does not tremble; this is what He chooses to show His love”.

She composed the Holy Face Prayer for Sinners: “Eternal Father, since Thou hast given me for my inheritance the adorable Face of Thy Divine Son, I offer that face to Thee and I beg Thee, in exchange for this coin of infinite value, to forget the ingratitude of souls dedicated to Thee and to pardon all poor sinners.”[106] Over the decades, her poems and prayers helped to spread the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.

The Story of a Soul ( L’Histoire d’une Âme ) by Therese of Lisieux, édition 1940 Cover page of) by Therese of Lisieux, édition 1940

Therese is best known today for her spiritual memoir, L’histoire d’une âme (The Story of a Soul). It is a compilation of three separate manuscripts. The first, in 1895 is a memoir of her childhood, written under obedience to the Prioress, Mother Agnes of Jesus, her older sister Pauline. Mother Agnes gave the order after being prompted by their eldest sister, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart.[108]

The second is a three-page letter, written in September 1896, at the request of her eldest sister Marie, who, aware of the seriousness of Therese’s illness, asked her to set down her “little doctrine”. In June 1897, Mother Agnes asked Mother Marie de Gonzague, who had succeeded her as prioress, to allow Therese to write another memoir with more details of her religious life (ostensibly as a help in the later composition of an anticipated obituary).[109]

While on her deathbed Therese made a number of references to the book’s future appeal and benefit to souls. She authorized Pauline to make any changes deemed necessary. It was heavily edited by Pauline (Mother Agnes), who made more than seven thousand revisions to Therese’s manuscript and presented it as a biography of her sister. Aside from considerations of style, Mother Marie de Gonzague had ordered Pauline to alter the first two sections of the manuscript to make them appear as if they were addressed to Mother Marie as well. The book was sent out as the customary “circular” advising other Carmels of a nun’s death and requesting their prayers. However, it received a much wider circulation, as copies were lent out and passed around.

Since 1973, two centenary editions of Therese’s original, unedited manuscripts, including The Story of a Soul, her letters, poems,[110] prayers and the plays she wrote for the monastery recreations have been published in French. ICS Publications has issued a complete critical edition of her writings: Story of a Soul, Last Conversations, and the two volumes of her letters were translated by John Clarke, O.C.D.; The Poetry of Saint Thérèse by Donald Kinney, O.C.D.; The Prayers of St. Thérèse by Alethea Kane, O.C.D.; and The Religious Plays of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by David Dwyer and Susan Conroy.

Development of a devotion to Saint Therese [ edit ]

Therese of Lisieux statue at the Community Mausoleum of All Saints Cemetery , Des Plaines, Illinois

Sign advertising a choice of 250 medals of Saint Therese on sale in Lisieux

Céline Martin entered the Lisieux convent on 14 September 1894. With Mother Agnes’ permission, she brought her camera to Carmel, and developing materials. “The indulgence was not by any means usual. Also outside of the normal would be the destiny of those photographs Céline would make in the Carmel, images that would be scrutinized and reproduced too many times to count. Even when the images are poorly reproduced, her eyes arrest us. Described as blue, described as gray, they look darker in photographs. Céline’s pictures of her sister contributed to the extraordinary cult of personality that formed in the years after Therese’s death”.[112]

In 1902, the Polish Carmelite Father Raphael Kalinowski translated her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, into Polish.[113] As early as 1912 Father Thomas N. Taylor, a teacher at the Diocese of Glasgow seminary, wrote a short hagiography on Thérèse, two years before the case for her canonization would be opened. Taylor went on to become a significant proponent of devotion to “The Little Flower” in Scotland.[114] As pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in Carfin, Lanarkshire, he built a replica of the Grotto at Lourdes and included a small shrine honoring Thérèse with a statue donated by the Legion of Mary. Carfin became a site of pilgrimages.[115]

Recognition [ edit ]

Canonization[ edit ]

The canonization of Saint Therese in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome

The impact of The Story of a Soul, a collection of her autobiographical manuscripts, printed and distributed a year after her death to an initially very limited audience, was significant. Pope Pius XI made her the “star of his pontificate”. Pius X signed the decree for the opening of the process of canonization on 10 June 1914.

Pope Benedict XV, in order to hasten the process, dispensed with the usual fifty-year delay required between death and beatification. On 14 August 1921, he promulgated the decree on the heroic virtues of Therese declaring her “Venerable”. She was beatified on 29 April 1923.[90]

Therese was canonized on 17 May 1925 by Pope Pius XI, only 28 years after her death.[117] Therese was declared a saint five years and a day after Joan of Arc. However, the 1925 celebration for Therese “far outshone” that for the legendary heroine of France. At the time, Pope Pius XI revived the old custom of covering St. Peter’s with torches and tallow lamps. According to one account, “Ropes, lamps and tallows were pulled from the dusty storerooms where they had been packed away for 55 years. A few old workmen who remembered how it was done the last time – in 1870 – directed 300 men for two weeks as they climbed about fastening lamps to St. Peter’s dome.” The New York Times ran a front-page story about the occasion titled, “All Rome Admires St. Peter’s Aglow for a New Saint”. According to the Times, over 60,000 people, estimated to be the largest crowd inside St. Peter’s Basilica since the coronation of Pope Pius X, 22 years before, witnessed the canonization ceremonies. In the evening, 500,000 pilgrims pressed into the lit square.

She rapidly became one of the most popular saints of the twentieth century. Her feast day was added to the General Roman Calendar in 1927 for celebration on October 3.[120] In 1969, 42 years later, Pope Paul VI moved it to October 1, the day after her dies natalis (birthday to heaven).[121]

Therese of Lisieux is the patron saint of aviators, florists, illness(es) and missions. She is also considered by Catholics to be the patron saint of Russia,[citation needed] although the Russian Orthodox Church does not recognize either her canonization or her patronage. In 1927, Pope Pius XI named Saint Therese co-patron of the missions, with Saint Francis Xavier. In 1944 Pope Pius XII decreed her a co-patron of France with Saint Joan of Arc.[122] The principal patron of France is the Blessed Virgin Mary.

By the Apostolic Letter Divini Amoris Scientia (The Science of Divine Love) of 19 October 1997, Pope John Paul II declared her the thirty-third Doctor of the Church,[123] the youngest person, and one of only four women so named, the others being Teresa of Ávila, Catherine of Siena and Hildegard of Bingen.

Devotion to Therese has developed around the world. According to some biographies of Édith Piaf, in 1922 the singer – at the time, an unknown seven-year-old girl – was cured from blindness after a pilgrimage to the grave of Therese, who at the time was not yet formally canonized.[125]

Canonization of her parents [ edit ]

Zélie and Louis Martin were the first spouses to be proposed for canonization as a couple and the first to be canonized together. In 2004, the Archbishop of Milan accepted the unexpected cure of Pietro Schiliro, an Italian child born near Milan in 2002 with a lung disorder, as a miracle attributable to their intercession. Announced by Cardinal Saraiva Martins on 12 July 2008, at the ceremonies marking the 150th anniversary of the marriage of the Venerable Zélie and Louis Martin, their beatification as a couple took place on 19 October 2008,[126] in Lisieux.

In 2011, the letters of Blessed Zélie and Louis Martin were published in English as A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, 1863–1885.[48] On 7 January 2013, in Valencia, Spain, the diocesan process opened to examine a “presumed miracle” attributed to their intercession: the healing of a newborn girl, Carmen Pérez Pons, who was born prematurely four days after their beatification and who inexplicably recovered from severe bleeding of the brain and other complications.[126]

On 21 May 2013, the diocesan process to examine the miracle closed and the dossier was sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. Louis and Zélie Martin were canonized on 18 October 2015.[127]

Canonization cause of her sister Léonie [ edit ]

Therese’s older sister, Léonie Martin, the only one of the five sisters who did not become a Carmelite nun, is also a candidate for sainthood. Leonie attempted the religious life three times before her fourth and final entrance in 1899 to the convent of the Visitation in Caen. She took the name Sister Françoise-Thérèse and was a fervent disciple of Therese’s way. She died in 1941 in Caen, where her tomb in the crypt of the Visitation Monastery may be visited by the public.[128] On 25 March 2012, Mgr Jean-Claude Boulanger, Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux, granted the imprimatur for a prayer asking that Leonie might be declared venerable.[129] On 2 July 2015, the diocesan inquiry into Leonie’s life and possible sanctity was opened at the chapel of the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen. She is now styled Leonie Martin, Servant of God.

Relics of Saint Therese [ edit ]

Detail of a first-class carne relic of Saint Therese of Lisieux

The relics of Saint Therese have been on an international pilgrimage since 1994.[130] The tour included not only first-class relics, but also the saint’s religious habit, her rosary, and several other items. They were brought to Ireland in the summer of 2001.[131] That same year they travelled to Canada. Although Cardinal Basil Hume had declined to endorse proposals for a tour in 1997, her relics finally visited England and Wales in late September and early October 2009, including an overnight stop at the Anglican York Minster on her feast day, 1 October. A quarter of a million people venerated them.[132]

Ron Garan, who was on the May 31–June 14 Discovery shuttle mission in 2008, took a relic of Saint Therese with him, which had been given to him by the Carmelites of New Caney, Texas. The Carmelites-based this on the wish of Therese “to preach the Gospel on all five continents simultaneously and even to the most remote isles.”[133]

On 27 June 2010, relics of Saint Therese went on their first visit to South Africa in conjunction with the 2010 FIFA World Cup. They remained in the country until October 5, 2010.[134]

The writing-desk Therese used at Carmel (an artifact as opposed to a relic) toured the United States in September and October 2013, sponsored by the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States.[135]

In November 2013, a new reliquary containing the relics of Saint Therese and of her parents, was presented to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia by the Magnificat Foundation.[136] It was first exposed for veneration at the Magnificat Day on 9 November 2013.

The National Shrine of St. Therese in Darien, Illinois, has the largest collection of relics and personal artifacts of the saint outside of Lisieux.[137]

Episcopal Veneration [ edit ]

In 2022, Thérèse was officially added to the Episcopal Church liturgical calendar with a feast day on 1 October.[138]

legacy[ edit ]

The Basilica of St. Thérèse in her home town of Lisieux was consecrated on 11 July 1954 and has become a centre for pilgrims from all over the world. It was originally dedicated in 1937 by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII. The basilica can seat 3,000 people.[139]

Religious congregations [ edit ]

Reliquiary in the Carmel in Lisieux

Works inspired by Thérèse [ edit ]

In films

In music

Devotees of Therese [ edit ]

Over the years, a number of prominent people have become devotees of Saint Therese of Lisieux.

These include (but are not limited to) the following names listed in alphabetical order (either “name in religion” or “first name + surname”).

Religious personalities [ edit ]

Frauen

men

Lay personalities [ edit ]

Frauen

men

work [edit]

St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1922). The Story of a Soul. Translated by Taylor, Thomas N. (1873-1963) London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1912; 8th ed., 1922)

Modern editions and English translations

See also[edit]

Notes [edit]

References[edit]

quotes[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, also called St. Teresa of the Child Jesus or the Little Flower, original name Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin, (born 2 January 1873, Alençon, France – died 30 September 1897, Lisieux; canonized in May November 1925; feast day October 1), Carmelite whose services to her Roman Catholic order, although outwardly unremarkable, were later recognized for her exemplary spiritual achievements. She was appointed Church Doctor by Pope John Paul II in 1997. She is the patron saint of missions and florists.

Therese was the youngest of nine children, five of whom survived infancy. After her mother died of breast cancer in 1877, Thérèse moved to Lisieux with her family. In the deeply religious atmosphere of her homeland, her piety developed early and intensely. All four of her older sisters became nuns, and at the age of 15 she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux, having been refused admission a year earlier. Despite suffering from depression, scruples – a groundless sense of guilt – and, in the end, religious doubts, she kept the Rule perfectly, maintaining a smiling, pleasant and selfless manner. Before her death from tuberculosis, she admitted that due to her difficult nature, not a single one day had passed without a fight. Her burial place in Lisieux became a place of pilgrimage, and a basilica was built there with her name on it (1929–54).

The story of Thérèse’s spiritual development was told in a collection of her epistolary essays commissioned by the prioresses and published in 1898 under the title Histoire d’une âme (‘History of a Soul’). Her popularity is largely a result of this work, which expresses her loving quest for holiness in ordinary life. Saint Thérèse defined her Lesser Way teaching as “the way of spiritual infancy, the way of trust and absolute devotion”. She was in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. canonized and was the youngest person to be appointed church doctor.

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In 2015, Thérèse’s parents, Saints Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin, were canonized by Pope Francis I; They were the first spouses to be canonized together as a couple.

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“LIttle Thérèse” was her answer when asked what she wanted to be called, because “I am a very small soul who can only offer very small things to God.”

For her, childhood and heaven are two inseparable words.

“I have given up my desire to grow up because I feel unable to earn my living, which is eternal life… My only concern has been to gather flowers of love and sacrifices and offer them to God for His good pleasure” , quotes Mary Fabyan Windeatt in The Little Flower, The Story of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus.

As the spiritual child of St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa held to his motto that “love alone is requited by love.”

To Fr. Maurice Bathelemy Balliere, an aspiring missionary priest commissioned by the Mother Prioress to pray for Therese, wrote: “I cannot fear a God so small. He is only love and mercy.”

The word “small” is repeated in the writings of Saint Thérèse in 1981. It encompasses their basic attitude about what man’s response should be to the love of God, who “made himself small to man, a swaddled child.”

The Martins, a family of faith and piety

SAINT Thérèse was born on January 2, 1873 to Louis Joseph Aloysius Stanislau Martin and Zélie Marie Guerin. Louis wanted to become a monk at Saint Bernard Seminary but was turned down because he didn’t know Latin.

Zelie wanted to become a nun in Saint Vincent de Paul. A deeply religious woman with an overflowing love for the sick and poor was not received at St. Vincent de Paul. The superior told her bluntly, “Religious life is not God’s will for you.”

John Beevers, in Saint Thérèse, The Little Flower: The Making af a Saint, quoted Zelie’s reaction: “Lord, as I am not worthy to be your bride, I will marry. I beg you, give me many children and consecrate them all to you.”

Louie at 35 and Zélie at 26 were married at Notre Dame Cathedral in France. On January 2, 1873, Marie Françoise Thérèse Martin, the youngest of nine children, was born. Only five of their children survived to adulthood and became nuns, four Carmelite nuns and one Visitandine.

Treated as a family favorite, she was a lively and happy child. When Thérèse was four years old, Zélie died and the family settled in Lisieux with Pauline as a young mother.

Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face, her eldest sister, tells in My Sister Saint Thérèse that Therese read the lives of saints as a child.

As to how the readings inspired her, Thérèse wrote: “They increased my longing for the good and the beautiful, guided and enraptured my youth… inspired a glimpse of the ideal of holiness.”

At school, teachers and classmates thought she was “odd, even meticulously faithful” to rules.

In her autobiography, she described her school days as “the saddest of my life”.

She had her first communion on May 8, 1884 and her confirmation on June 14. Her total openness to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to spiritual teachers, was the beginning of her mystical life and the grace of perseverance to suffer.

On Christmas Eve 1886 she had a mystical vision of the baby Jesus.

“My reputation is love”

SAINT Thérèse of Lisieux, patroness of foreign missions, never went beyond Altencon, apart from a trip to Rome on November 4, 1887 with her father and sister Celine to ask permission of the Holy Father, Leo XIII to enter religious life immediately . In the summer of 1882 she applied for admission to the Carmel in Lisieux. She was nine years old. The French Catholic Paper reports what the Pope said in Kathryn Harrison in Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: His Holiness encouraged her “to be patient, to pray much, to seek counsel from God and from her conscience. This caused the young girl to burst into sobs.”

On December 2, 1887, she sent a message to the bishop saying, “Through you Jesus will fulfill His promise.”

On New Year’s Day, 1888, she was informed that she had been accepted, but on April 9, 1889, she finally entered Carmel because of her old age and failing health.

She was greeted by Marie and Pauline, her older sisters, now Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart and Sister Agnes of Jesus.

She welcomed the stillness, simplicity and poverty, the songs and the life of prayer, and was convinced that her vocation was to be a Carmelite unto death.

To be a saint like St. Teresa of Ávila, she performed in an extraordinary way all the ordinary daily tasks that were entrusted to her. She was even scolded by Father Blino, who exclaimed: “What pride and arrogance! Limit yourself to correcting your mistakes; see that you no longer offend the good God; Make small strides each day and moderate your rash desires.”

She lived a life of simplicity and humility and also wanted to be a martyr. Aware that prayer and action complement each other in evangelization, if she cannot devote her life to the growth of the Church and the salvation of souls, it must be for love.

In her spiritual biography, The Story of a Soul, she wrote: “O Jesus, I have finally found my place in the Church: my calling is love.”

She received her holy robe on January 10, 1889, a week after her 16th birthday, and the black veil on September 24, 1890 to complete the professorship of the Order.

She took the name Thérèse of the Child Jesus, a name she desired when she was 9 years old.

In Thérèse Martin: The Story of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Rosemary Haughton wrote that she added “and of the Holy Face” to her religious name because she loved Jesus as a baby and the face of Jesus during his passion. It was a face streaked with blood from a crown of thorns, bruised and swollen from the soldiers’ blows, covered with sweat and dust. This is the mystical vision she saw on Christmas Day, 1886, and it was clearly imprinted on her mind and soul.

Although her health has never been very good since she entered Carmel, she lived a life of utter abandonment and at the age of 20 accepted the task of becoming a mistress of novices.

“Tall and strong with the looks of a child… she hides the wisdom, the perfection, the ingenuity of a 50 year old… Little innocent thing that would be given to God without confession… but full of mischief to play with anyone she pleases , makes you weep with devotion and just as easily laugh,” is how Saint Thérèse was described by her Subprioress at the age of 20.

Theresian suffering

On April 4, 1896, she coughed up blood but downplayed her suffering.

The congregation was used to her coughing fits, sore throat, fever and occasional fatigue as she never complained about anything.

Her diary reflected her Easter sufferings: “I came to Carmel to save souls and especially to pray for priests, I prefer sacrifice to ecstasy.”

On May 18, 1897, she was relieved of all her duties and later confined to the infirmary, her emaciated body reduced to a wretched condition.

She confided to her sister Pauline, “If you only knew what horrible thoughts possessed me,” and asked her not to leave toxic drugs within her reach.

Rev. Pere Godefrey Madelaine, the congregation’s confessor, went through “the dark night of her soul” advising her to copy the creed and wear it over her eyes of atheism, her astute intelligence recognized the power of his arguments and simply confronted her with a fierce, unyielding faith,” Patrick Ahern described as she struggled with neurosis in Maurice and Thérèse, the inspirational letters between her and a struggling young priest.

The sufferings did not spoil their gracious cheerfulness to brighten the spirit of the community of sisters aware of their imminent death. When the divine thief comes to “take me, take the candle in my hand, but please do not take the candlestick. It’s too ugly,” she said, jokingly.

And when a box of artificial lilies was delivered for her stretcher, she exclaimed, “Finally, they’re really for me.” By September 12, her feet were swollen. Her weakness and pain were so great that she began to cry.

In Thérèse of Lisieux, Patricia O’Connor, who wrote an exhaustive account of her Easter sufferings, quoted Dr. De Corniere, who cannot understand how she lives on. “Her face has not changed despite her great suffering. I’ve never seen that in anyone else.”

On September 30, all the sisters were called to her bedside and were allowed to stay for two hours, watching, praying, waiting.

Thérèse, still awake, shocked the prioress: “Mother! Isn’t that a torture,” and Mother Gonsaga said, “Yes.”

Therese looked at the crucifix and said, “I love you.” And the infirmary bell rang, causing the nurses to go back into the room and kneel.

At 7:20 p.m. On September 30, 1897, Thérèse lifted her head, eyes up, amazed and happy, and exhaled one last time.

She was on May 17, 1925 by Pope Pius XI. canonized in the presence of all her four sisters.

Pope Pius X called her “the greatest saint of modern times.”

Like Saint Teresa of Avila, also a Carmelite, Saint Thérèse was declared a Doctor of the Church.

Her feast day is October 1st.

Santiago is a former Regional Director of the National Capital Region Ministry of Education. She is currently a faculty member at Mater Redemptoris College in Laguna.

Photo credit: Healingflowers.net

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Saint Teresa of Lisieux, also known as the Little Flower, lived her life with childlike simplicity… Giving herself completely to God’s eternal love, she learned to do all things, big and small, with great love. And I hope these beautiful lessons and the meaning behind them inspire you to do the same.

24 Life Changing Lessons from St. Therese of Lisieux

1. Let’s love, because that’s what our hearts are made for. ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

2. An innocent soul never loves God as much as a penitent one.

“I have often heard in retreats and elsewhere that an innocent soul never loves God as much as a penitent one, and how I long to prove that is not true.” ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

3. Don’t miss an opportunity to make a small sacrifice…

“…here by a smiling look, there by a kind word; always doing the smallest right and doing everything out of love… A word or a smile is often enough to breathe new life into a despairing soul.” ~ St. Thérèse de Lisieux

4. Love can achieve anything…

“…Things that are impossible become easy where love is at work.” ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

5. Everything we achieve, no matter how brilliant, is worth nothing without love.

“I have understood that everything we achieve, no matter how brilliant, is worth nothing without love.” ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

6. Trust and trust alone should lead us to love. ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

Photo taken in Assisi, Italy

7. Nothing is small in the sight of God. Do everything you do with love.

“I have understood that love embraces all vocations – that love is everything, and because it is eternal, embraces all times and places.” ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

8. God does not take years to accomplish His work of love in a soul.

“The good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul; A ray from His heart can in a moment make His flower blossom for eternity.” ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

9. Cast your eyes on a multitude of little souls.

“I beg you, cast your eyes on a crowd of little souls; choose from this world, I beg you, a legion of small sacrifices worthy of your love.”

10. It pleases Him to create great saints…

“…who can be compared to the lilies or the rose; but He has also made little ones who must be content to be daisies or violets, snuggling at His feet to please His eyes should He choose to look at them. The happier they are to be what He wants, the more perfect they are.” ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

11. Kindness is my only guiding star.

“…In its light I sail a straight path, I have my motto written on my sail: ‘Live in love… To live in love is to sail forever, spreading seeds of joy and peace in hearts.”

12. May you be content to know that you are a child of God. ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

The photo was taken in Assisi, Italy.

13. Joy does not reside in the things around us, but in the depths of the soul.

. “I have learned from experience that joy lies not in things around us, but in the depths of the soul, that it can be had in the dark of a dungeon as well as in a king’s palace.”

14. If every little flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its beauty.

“The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not deprive the little violet of its fragrance, nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every little flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its beauty.” ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

15. Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will…

“… and to be exactly what God wants us to be.” ~ St. Thérèse de Lisieux

16. When you love, you don’t calculate. ~ St. Thérèse de Lisieux

“God would never give me desires that cannot be realized; so, despite my smallness, I can hope to be a saint.” ― St. Thérèse de Lisieux, Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux

“When I die I will send down a shower of roses from heaven, I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.” ― St. Therese of Lisieux

17. Charity consists in bearing all the faults of our neighbors.

“I know now that true charity consists in enduring all the faults of our neighbors – not being surprised at their weakness, but edifying over their least virtues.” ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

18. I can feed on nothing but the truth. ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

The staircase leading to the top of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Assisi, Italy.

19. Just live from moment to moment.

“If I were not simply living from moment to moment, it would be impossible for me to be patient, but I look only to the present, I forget the past, and I am careful not to anticipate the future.” ~ St. Therese de Lisieux

20. If a little flower could speak, it would simply tell us everything that God has done for it…

“If a little flower could speak, it seems to me, it would simply tell us everything that God has done for it, without hiding any of its gifts. It would not, under the pretense of humility, say that it was not beautiful, or that it had no sweet fragrance, that the sun had withered its petals, or that the storm had bruised its stalk, if it knew that such were not the case.” ~ St. Therese de Lisieux

21. All my strength lies in prayer and sacrifice.

“…these are my invincible arms; they can move hearts far better than words, I know that from experience.”

22. It is better to let everyone have their own opinion than to engage in arguments. ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

23. Surely the power of prayer is wonderful.

“…You could compare it to a queen who always has free access to the king and can get whatever she asks for.”

“I don’t have the courage to force myself to look for beautiful prayers in books; Not knowing what to choose, I behave like children who can’t read; I simply tell God what I want to say to him, and he always understands me.”

23. A soul in a state of grace has nothing to fear from cowardly demons. ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

Bonus: quotes from St. Therese of Lisieux

“In each new fight, when the enemy tries to challenge me, I behave bravely: knowing that a duel is an unworthy act, I turn my back on the opponent without ever looking him in the face; then I run to my Jesus and tell him that I am willing to shed every drop of blood to testify to my faith that there is a heaven soul, the beautiful heaven that awaits me, so that he will deign to give him for the to open eternity to the poor unbelievers.”

“Love is demonstrated by actions.”

“I am convinced that if you have a great desire for Communion, you should tell your minister, because Our Lord does not come down from heaven every day to abide in a golden ciborium; He comes to find another heaven, the heaven of our souls, where he likes to dwell.”

“When charity is ingrained in the soul, it shows itself outwardly: there is such a gracious way of refusing what we cannot give that the refusal is as pleasing as the gift.”

“He whose heart is always awake has taught me that he works miracles, that this faith so feeble may be strengthened, while he works miracles for a soul whose faith is but a tiny mustard seed; but for his intimate friends, for his mother, he worked no miracles until he had tested her faith.”

“Each prayer is more beautiful than the others. I can’t say them all and I don’t know which one to choose, I like children who can’t read, I just tell God what I want to say without using nice sentences and he always understands me. For me, prayer is a longing of the heart, it is a simple look at heaven, it is something great, supernatural that expands my soul and connects me to Jesus.”

I know it now: yes, all my hopes will be fulfilled… yes… the Lord will work miracles for me that will infinitely surpass my immeasurable desires.”

“Only God can see what is at the bottom of our hearts; we are half blind.”

“I don’t see very well what else I will have in heaven than now. I’ll see the good God, that’s true; but as far as being with Him is concerned, I am already with Him on earth.”

~Love, Luminita💫

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St. Thérèse of Lisieux, also called St. Teresa of the Child Jesus or the Little Flower, original name Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin, (born 2 January 1873, Alençon, France – died 30 September 1897, Lisieux; canonized in May November 1925; feast day October 1), Carmelite whose services to her Roman Catholic order, although outwardly unremarkable, were later recognized for her exemplary spiritual achievements. She was appointed Church Doctor by Pope John Paul II in 1997. She is the patron saint of missions and florists.

Therese was the youngest of nine children, five of whom survived infancy. After her mother died of breast cancer in 1877, Thérèse moved to Lisieux with her family. In the deeply religious atmosphere of her homeland, her piety developed early and intensely. All four of her older sisters became nuns, and at the age of 15 she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux, having been refused admission a year earlier. Despite suffering from depression, scruples – a groundless sense of guilt – and, in the end, religious doubts, she kept the Rule perfectly, maintaining a smiling, pleasant and selfless manner. Before her death from tuberculosis, she admitted that due to her difficult nature, not a single one day had passed without a fight. Her burial place in Lisieux became a place of pilgrimage, and a basilica was built there with her name on it (1929–54).

The story of Thérèse’s spiritual development was told in a collection of her epistolary essays commissioned by the prioresses and published in 1898 under the title Histoire d’une âme (‘History of a Soul’). Her popularity is largely a result of this work, which expresses her loving quest for holiness in ordinary life. Saint Thérèse defined her Lesser Way teaching as “the way of spiritual infancy, the way of trust and absolute devotion”. She was in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. canonized and was the youngest person to be appointed church doctor.

New from Britannica New from Britannica Laughter produced by tickling is called Gargalesis, and apart from primates the only animal known to experience it is the rat. See all the good facts

In 2015, Thérèse’s parents, Saints Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin, were canonized by Pope Francis I; They were the first spouses to be canonized together as a couple.

Mother Teresa sought inspiration in daily prayer during a life of Catholic devotion and service. Her beatification as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta in 2003 made her one of the most popular figures in the Church in recent times. The daily prayer she recited reminds believers that as they love and care for those most in need, they are drawn closer to the love of Christ.

Who Was Mother Teresa?

The woman who would eventually become a Catholic saint was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997) in Skopje, Macedonia. She grew up in a devout Catholic home, where her mother often invited the poor and destitute to dinner. At age 12, Agnes received what she later described as her first calling to serve the Catholic Church during a visit to a shrine. Inspired, she left home at 18 to attend the Sisters of Loretto Convent in Ireland and took the name of Sister Mary Teresa.

In 1931 she began teaching at a Catholic school in Calcutta, India, focusing much of her energies on working with girls in the impoverished city. With her profession of vows in 1937, Teresa assumed the title of Mother, as usual. Mother Teresa, as she was now known, continued to work at the school and eventually became its principal.

It was a second calling from God that Mother Teresa said changed her life. During a tour of India in 1946, Christ commanded her to give up teaching and minister to the poorest and sickest of Calcutta. With the completion of her educational ministry and the approval of her superiors, Mother Teresa began the work that would lead her to found the Missionaries of Charity in 1950. She spent the rest of her life among the poor and abandoned in India.

your daily prayer

This spirit of Christian charity pervades this prayer that Mother Teresa prayed daily. It reminds us that the reason we attend to the physical needs of others is that out of love for them we long to bring their souls to Christ.

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance wherever I go. Flood my soul with your spirit and your love. Penetrate my whole being and conquer it so completely that my whole life is but a gleam of yours. Shine through me and be within me so that every soul I come in contact with can feel Your presence within my soul. Let them look up and no longer see me, only Jesus. Stay with me and then I will begin to shine like you, to shine in such a way that I am a light for others. Amen.

By reciting this daily prayer, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta reminds us that Christians must act as Christ did so that others may not only hear His words, but see Him in everything we do.

faith in action

To serve Christ, believers must be like Blessed Teresa and put their faith into practice. At the Triumph of the Cross Conference in Asheville, N.C., September 2008, Fr. Ray Williams shared a story about Mother Teresa that illustrates this point well.

One day a cameraman was filming Mother Teresa for a documentary while she was caring for some of Kolkata’s most miserable poor. As she cleaned a man’s wounds, mopping up the pus and bandaging his wounds, the cameraman blurted out, “I wouldn’t do that if you gave me a million dollars.” To which Mother Teresa replied, “Neither would I.”

In other words, the rational considerations of the economy, in which every transaction must be able to be monetized, are leaving those most in need – the poor, the sick, the disabled, the elderly – behind. Christian charity rises above economic considerations, out of love for Christ and through him to our fellow human beings.

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What is St Anthony’s prayer?

O Holy St. Anthony, gentlest of Saints, your love for God and Charity for His creatures, made you worthy, when on earth, to possess miraculous powers. Encouraged by this thought, I implore you to obtain for me… [Mention your request here].

Struggle to Pray the Rosary? St. Thérèse of Lisieux Struggled Too

Saint Therese Chaplet (Little Flower Rosary)

Saint Therese Chaplet (Little Flower Rosary)

Saint Therese Chaplet (Little Flower Rosary)

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Chaplet of St. Théresè of Lisieux “My mission – to make God …

Chaplet of. St. Théresè of Lisieux. “My mission – to make God loved – will begin after my death, I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.

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Source: www.hrccr.com

Date Published: 2/1/2022

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Saint Therese The Little Flower Chaplet – Virgo Sacrata

“Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.“.

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Source: www.virgosacrata.com

Date Published: 4/2/2022

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How to pray the St. Therese Little Flower Rosary Chaplet

To pray this Rosary, say on the first bead: Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus, Patroness of Missions, pray for us! On each of the remaining twenty-four beads …

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Source: www.heavenlydivinecustomrosary.com

Date Published: 4/16/2022

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CHAPLET OF SAINT THERESA – The Liturgy Archive

The Chaplet of Saint Theresa (the Little Flower Rosary) consists of 24 beads which commemorate the 24 years of her life, plus one additional bead.

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Source: www.liturgies.net

Date Published: 2/9/2022

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St. Therese Relic Chaplet – Society of the Little Flower

Praying St. Therese’s Chaplet has been powerful in many people’s experience. She answers their prayers. Made of 25 brown wooden beads, the Little Flower …

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Source: www.littleflower.org

Date Published: 7/30/2022

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St. Therese of Liseaux the Little Flower Rosary Chaplet

To pray this Rosary Chaplet, say on the first bead: Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus, Patroness of Missions, pray for us! On each of the remaining twenty-four …

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Source: cfpholyangels.com

Date Published: 9/11/2022

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Chaplet of Saint Therese of Lisieux – rosary-making.com

Chaplet of Saint Therese of Lisieux. The Chaplet has 24 beads and one medal of St. Therese. To begin the Chaplet pray: St. Therese of The Child Jesus, …

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Source: www.rosary-making.com

Date Published: 10/22/2021

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RosaryAndChaplets.Com: Saint Therese Chaplet, Prayer

The use of this chaplet is encouraged by the Carmelite Fathers. This chaplet consists of 25 beads. The 24 beads commemorating the 24 years of Saint Therese’s …

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Date Published: 2/3/2021

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St. Therese Relic Chaplet | The Society of the Little Flower

Praying St. Therese’s Chaplet has been powerful in many people’s experience. She answers their prayers. Made of 25 brown wooden beads, the Little Flower …

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Source: www.littleflower.org.uk

Date Published: 1/6/2021

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Saint Therese of Lisieux Prayer

Saint Therese of Lisieux, also known as “The Little Flower”, and Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, whom Holy Mother Church has called the “Prodigy of Miracles”. . . the greatest saint of modern times.”

Many believers know St. Therese from her autobiography “Story of a Soul”. She described her life as a “small path of spiritual childhood”. She explains this spirituality beautifully in her autobiography: “Jesus laid the book of nature before me. I understand how beautiful are all the flowers God created, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the fragrance of the violet or the glorious simplicity of the daisy. I understand that if all the flowers wanted to be roses and the fields were no longer adorned with small wild flowers, nature would lose its spring beauty. So it is in the world of souls, the garden of Jesus. He has made smaller ones, and these must content themselves with being daisies or violets, destined to please God’s gaze as He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, to be what He wants us to be.”

Miraculous Invocation of Saint Therese

O glorious Saint Teresa, raised up by Almighty God to help and counsel mankind, I invoke your wondrous intercession. You are so powerful in meeting all the needs of body and soul that Our Holy Mother Church proclaims you a “Prodigy of Miracles…the greatest Saints of modern times.” Now I plead with you to answer my request (mention prayer requests) and fulfill your promises to spend heaven doing good on earth… letting a shower of roses fall from heaven. From now on, dear flower, I will fulfill your request “to be made known everywhere” and will never stop leading others to Jesus through you. Amen

Rosary of St. Therese (rosary with small flowers)

Handmade St. Therese wreaths. Click on the image to view available wreaths from the Virgo Sacrata shop.

Make the sign of the cross and say on the first bead:

“St. Teresa of the Child Jesus, Patroness of the Missions, pray for us!”

Say “The Glory be…” on each of the remaining 24 beads to honor the Holy Trinity in gratitude for bestowing upon us the Little Saint who only lived 24 years on this earth.

“Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, so it is now and always will be, world without end. Amen.”

Closing prayer to St. Therese:

“St. Therese, the little flower, please pick me a rose from the heavenly garden and send it to me with a message of love. Ask God to grant me the favor I ask of you and tell Him that I will love Him more and more every day. Amen”

Their supplications can be presented to the Carmelites at the National Shrine of Saint Therese.

“Until the end of the world I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.”

~ St. Therese of the Child Jesus

How to Pray: St. Therese Novena – Hallow: Catholic Prayer App

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, often called “The Little Flower”, inspires us to live in simplicity and to put love at the forefront of everyday life. We pray the St. Theresa Novena to strengthen our trust in God’s love for us.

Let us not tire of prayer: trust works wonders. St. Thérèse of Lisieux (The Little Flower)

Who was Saint Therese?

childhood

St. Thérèse was born in France in 1873 to Zelie and Louis Martin. The youngest of five siblings, St. Thérèse was stubborn but devout from an early age. She was quite bright, but because of that she often got bored at school. Around the age of 9, Thérèse became ill with no effective treatment; She prayed for healing from her illness. As she turned to a statue of the Virgin Mary smiling down at her, Therese was healed. She wrote, “Mary’s face radiated kindness and love.”

Her inclination towards religious life became even more ardent after this healing, despite being so young. She longed to draw closer to Christ. By the age of 13, two of her older sisters had already entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux, and Saint Therese longed to be there with them. During a pilgrimage to Italy, she asked the local bishop and even Pope Leo XIII. He said to her, “Go, go, you will enter if God wills.”

She entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux in 1888 at the age of 15. She grew up in peace, humility and love. In 1896 she contracted tuberculosis. She wrote the story of a soul in the months leading up to her death. She died in 1897 and praised God until her last moment on earth.

“The Little Way”

The rich spirituality of St. Thérèse of Lisieux is now known as the “Little Way”. The modern saint resonates so easily with many of us because of the sheer ordinariness of her life, even though she lived it in extraordinary ways. Her “Little Way” to Christ consisted of small steps to find holiness in everyday life. She dedicated her life to spiritual simplicity – she focused on loving God.

“If every little flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its beauty.” St. Therese of Lisieux

By dedicating her little path to God, she truly “lived prosper where you are planted.”

canonization

St. Therese was 1925 by Pope Pius XI. canonized. She was then the youngest saint ever to be canonized – she died at the young age of 24. Her parents Zelie and Louis Martin were also canonized. In 2015, they were canonized by Pope Francis as the first and only couple to be canonized together.

Saints Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin practiced Christian service in the family and day by day they created an environment of faith and love that encouraged the vocations of their daughters, including Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus. Pope Francis

A church teacher

Before that, however, Pope Saint John Paul II honored Saint Teresa for her spiritual contribution to the Church. In 1997 he proclaimed Saint Therese the Doctor of the Universal Church. A Doctor of the Church is a Saint whose writings and teachings are recognized by the Church as having made a major contribution to Catholicism. With this title, the Church considers its work to be true and useful.

St. Thérèse von Lisieux not only grasped and described the deep truth of love as the center and heart of the Church, but lived it intensively in her short life. It is precisely this convergence of doctrine and concrete experience, of truth and life, of doctrine and practice, that shines with particular brilliance in this saint, making her an attractive model, especially for young people and for those who seek the true meaning of her Life. Holy Pope John Paul II, October 19, 1997

Pope Saint John Paul II recognized that Saint Teresa, although she died young, understood the “divine love that surrounds and pervades every human endeavor.” Her unwavering trust in God continues to inspire us in our daily lives today.

Today there are 36 recognized Doctors of the Church, among whom Saint Thérèse sits in heaven. However, only four of them are church doctors – Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Teresa of Avila (patron saint of sanctuary) and Saint Therese of Lisieux.

Why pray the Teresa novena?

We pray in this novena to become more like Saint Teresa – finding beauty in the simplicity of life, trusting God with all our hearts and living a life of love. St. Therese was a remarkably humble and young follower and friend of Jesus. We pray in the footsteps of her little walk of loving God and seeking kindness as she did.

In a time like ours, so often marked by a transitory and hedonistic culture, this new Doctor of the Church is proving remarkably effective in enlightening the minds and hearts of those who hunger and thirst for truth and love. Holy Pope John Paul II, October 19, 1997

When should we pray the St. Theresa Novena?

We can pray the St. Therese novena whenever we need guidance to increase our confidence in God’s love for us. Whether it is to discover our own “little way” in this world or to seek simplicity, we can pray this novena and ask for Saint Thérèse’s intercession in our lives.

The St. Therese novena is customarily prayed before the feast day of St. Therese on October 1, the day she died of tuberculosis.

On Hallow we pray with the Pray More Novena version of the St. Thérèse Novena.

Time needed: 15 minutes. How to Pray: St. Therese Novena Begin with the Sign of the Cross In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Invoke the Holy Spirit Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of believers and ignite in them the fire of divine love. Call St. Thérèse to dear St. Thérèse of Lisieux, you said you would spend your time in heaven doing good on earth.

Her trust in God was complete. Pray that He would increase my confidence in His goodness and mercy as I make the following requests… [name your requests] Ask Saint Therese to pray for you Pray for me that, like you, I may be great and innocent trust in the loving promises of our God. Pray that I will live my life in harmony with God’s plan for me and that one day I will see the face of God whom you loved so dearly.

Saint Therese, you were faithful to God until your death. Pray for me to be faithful to our loving God. May my life bring peace and love to the world through faithful endurance in love for God our Savior. Speak to God Loving God, you blessed Saint Thérèse with the capacity for great love. Help me to believe in your unconditional love for each of your children, especially me. Say the Daily Prayer Your guide at Hallow will lead you through each day of the novena. Rest with today’s intention to pray to God through the intercession of St. Getting closer to Thérèse of Lisieux. No more glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, so it is now and always will be, world without end. Amen.

This novena is one of our upcoming community challenges and we couldn’t be more excited to pray with you to increase our faith in God’s love for us. Meanwhile, join Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus in The Chosen, to pray the Novena of Surrender, the 54-Day Novena, the Novena of St. Joseph, and the Divine Mercy Novena.

How to pray: More prayers

Struggle to Pray the Rosary? St. Thérèse of Lisieux Struggled Too

The month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary every year. During this month special emphasis is placed on praying the Rosary more frequently. This time of year is a beautiful time to discover or rediscover the power of praying the rosary.

As is often the case in the life of prayer, the rosary can sometimes be a challenge. It can be difficult to pay attention and we can easily get distracted. If you’ve ever had trouble praying the Rosary, don’t be discouraged, you’re in good company. Even one of the greatest saints in the Church found praying the rosary a challenge.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus

October begins with the feast day of St. Thérèse of Lisieux on the first of the month. Thérèse, often called the little flower, was a French woman who lived from 1873 to 1897. The youngest of five children, Thérèse entered the Carmelite Convent in Lisieux, France, at the age of just 15. Nine years later, Thérèse died of tuberculosis at the age of 24.

In the nine simple and secret years in the Carmelite monastery, Therese grew in love, wisdom and holiness. She is now a Doctor of the Church and continues to proclaim Jesus to the world through her autobiography.

Sometimes when we look at the lives of the saints, we see the wonderful things they have done and we forget that they are human too. They have wrestled with the same things we encounter in our own lives. They have experienced joys, sorrows, triumphs and hardships just as we have.

St. Therese is no exception. Depression and conscientiousness have been challenges for her throughout her life. She even struggled to love some of the sisters in her convent, which angered and irritated her. Therese also found it difficult to pray the rosary well.

Therese’s fight

In her autobiography Story of a Soul, Thérèse tells of the difficulties she had with the rosary.

When I’m alone (I’m ashamed to admit it), praying the rosary is harder for me than carrying a penance. I think I said that so badly! In vain I force myself to ponder the mysteries of the rosary; I can’t focus on her. Story of a Soul, 243

If you’ve ever been discouraged because you couldn’t concentrate on the mysteries of the rosary, take heart! A church teacher also fought.

Therese recognized this challenge in her prayer life and instead of giving up, she decided to put her trust in Our Lady. Here is what Therese says:

For a long time I was in despair at this lack of devotion, which amazed me, for I love the Blessed Virgin so much that it should be easy for me to say prayers in her honor that are so pleasing to her. Now I’m less desolate; I think that since the Queen of Heaven is my MOTHER she must see my good will and she is content with that. Story of a Soul, 243-244

Although Therese had trouble concentrating while praying the rosary, she didn’t give up. Rather, she trusted in Our Lady, knowing that Our Lady knew Teresa’s intentions.

lessons for us

Thérèse teaches us two great lessons in this brief passage from her autobiography. First, it teaches us that it’s okay to fight. Fights are not a sign of lack of love. You are part of the journey and Jesus and His Blessed Mother understand that.

Second, Thérèse teaches us not to be discouraged but to persevere and trust. Like Therese, don’t let things that challenge you keep you from praying. Persevering through the struggle, knowing that Our Lady is your mother too and that she sees and rejoices in your good intentions.

To learn more about Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus and her spirituality, you should read her autobiography, Story of a Soul, which you can find on Amazon.

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