With great joy we commence our Summer School on the theme of ‘The Teachings of the Little Flower: Celebrating the Centenary of the Canonisation of St. Thérèse of Lisieux’. My talk is to set the scene: her life, her family, her vocation – especially as known through her memoirs written by order of her superiors at the Carmelite Convent, and published after her death under the wonderful title, Story of a Soul. If you haven’t read it, I do greatly encourage you. The title comes from the opening words of her manuscript: ‘Springtime story of a little white flower written by herself and dedicated to the Reverend Mother Agnes of Jesus.’ (Mother Agnes, the prioress, was actually Thérèse’s sister, Pauline.) ‘It is to you, dear Mother, to you who are doubly my Mother, that I come to confide the story of my soul.’

The Little Flower

In the opening passages Thérèse explains this image of the little flower: ‘Jesus set before me the book of nature; I understood how all the flowers He has created are beautiful, how the splendour of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers. And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus’ garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances when He looks down at his feet.’

‘Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be. I understood, too, that Our Lord’s love is revealed as perfectly in the most simple soul who resists His grace in nothing as in the most excellent soul… Just as the sun shines simultaneously on the tall cedars and on each little flower as though it were alone on the earth, so Our Lord is occupied particularly with each soul as though there were no others like it. And just as in nature all the seasons are arranged in such a way as to make the humblest daisy bloom on a set day, in the same way, everything works out for the good of each soul.’

‘It seems to me that if a little flower could speak, it would tell simply what God has done for it without trying to hide its blessings…The flower about to tell her story rejoices at having to publish the totally gratuitous gifts of Jesus. She knows that nothing in herself was capable of attracting the divine glances, and His mercy alone brought about everything that is good in her.’ So: the ‘Little Flower’.

The Honours of the Church

During her life Thérèse was unknown but with the publication of Story of a Soul the great spread of her spiritual teaching began. This year, as I said, is the centenary of her canonisation in 1925. And very quickly, she was one of the most well-known and well-loved of all the saints. Her Basilica in Lisieux today receives more than two million visitors a year – in France, second in popularity only to Lourdes as a place of pilgrimage. Then there is the whole history of the honours given to her by the Church.

In 2023 – the 150^th anniversary of her birth in 1873 – Pope Francis published his Apostolic Exhortation on St Thérèse, C’est la Confiance, subtitled ‘On confidence in the merciful love of God’. Early in the Exhortation, he goes through the honours given to her by the succession of popes: ‘Thérèse met Pope Leo XIII during a pilgrimage to Rome in 1887 and asked his permission to enter the Carmel at the age of fifteen. Not long after her death, Saint Pius X, sensing her spiritual grandeur, stated that she would become the greatest saint of modern times.

‘Thérèse was declared Venerable in 1921 by Pope Benedict XV, who, in praising her virtues, saw them embodied in her “little way” of spiritual childhood. She was beatified a century ago [on 29 April 1923 by Pope Pius XI] and then canonised on 17 May 1925 by [the same pope], who thanked the Lord for granting that she be the first Blessed whom he raised to the honour of the altars and the first Saint whom he canonised. In 1927, the same Pope declared her the Patroness of the Missions.

‘Thérèse was proclaimed one of the patron saints of France in 1944 by Venerable Pius XII, who on several occasions developed the theme of spiritual childhood. Saint Paul VI liked to recall that he was baptised on 30 September 1897, the day of her death, and on the centenary of her birth he wrote a Letter on her teaching to the Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux. On 2 June 1980, during his first Apostolic Journey to France, Saint John Paul II visited the Basilica dedicated to her, and in 1997 declared her a Doctor of the Church. He also referred to Thérèse as “an expert in the scientia amoris” [the science of love].

‘Pope Benedict XVI returned to the subject of her “science of love” and proposed it as “a guide for all, especially those in the people of God who carry out their ministry as theologians”. Finally, in 2015,’ Pope Francis writes, ‘I had the joy of canonising her parents, Louis and Zélie, during the Synod on the Family.’

We can add that in 1944 she was named one of the patron saints of Australia; and she has quite a number of other patronages. So: a whole series of honours after her death.

The Story of a Soul – Thérèse’s Childhood

But now we go back to the beginning. In a worldly sense, the story of her life is quickly told. She was born in 1873, Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin, in the town of Alençon, Normandy, in northern France; and after her mother’s death in 1877, the family moved to Lisieux. Thérèse obtained special permission to enter the cloistered Carmelites of Lisieux aged 15; her four sisters also became nuns. Thérèse had hoped to be sent to the foreign missions, but came to realise her calling was to be ‘love in the heart of the Church’. Having struggled with various anxieties in the spiritual life, she developed her approach of the ‘little way’, the way of spiritual childhood – growing in holiness through childlike and humble confidence in God’s love and mercy. She died in 1897, aged 24.

But the spiritual story that she recounts in her memoirs tells us so much more. And first, we go back to her parents, Louis and Zélie Martin – as we know, now saints themselves, the first saints to be canonised together as a married couple, ten years ago this year. St Louis was born in 1823. He wanted to become a monk but was rejected because he failed to learn Latin, so he became a watchmaker. And St Zélie – Azélie-Marie Guerin – born in 1831, wanted to become a nun, but was rejected because of health difficulties.

God had other plans in store for them. Zélie became a lacemaker, and she and Louis married in Alençon in 1858. They had nine children, though only five survived childhood – three died as babies and another aged 5, all in the space of four years. Thérèse was the youngest. Her older sisters who survived childhood and all became nuns were Marie, Pauline, Léonie and Céline. Marie, Pauline and Céline were all Carmelites at Lisieux, and Léonie was a Visitandine nun. Unlike St Thérèse they all lived into old age, dying in the 1940s and 1950s. Léonie herself is now ‘Servant of God’, and her cause for beatification is proceeding.

Thérèse was born on 2^nd January 1873 and was baptised just two days later. We read that at the age of one, she was saying her prayers ‘like an angel’ and singing little songs; and when she was two, one time she escaped from home to go to Mass. Thérèse writes, ‘from the age of three I began refusing nothing that God was asking from me.’ When she was four, she was doing a chaplet of penances. We know quite a few saints who were sinners first, but Thérèse wasn’t really one of them, at least not in a major way. She had her childhood faults of course. Her mother wrote of her when she was three, ‘she has in her an almost invincible stubbornness, however, she has a heart of gold, she is very affectionate and very honest’.

But now came the sadness of the death of her mother from breast cancer in 1877, when Zélie was only 45 and Thérèse was only four. Thérèse would write, ‘Every detail of my mother's illness is still with me, specially her last weeks on earth.’ Her father then brought the family to Lisieux, also in Normandy – then, as now, a town of about 20,000 people. Thérèse entered a more difficult and sadder phase of her life. ‘My happy disposition completely changed after Mama’s death. I, once so full of life, became timid and retiring, sensitive to an excessive degree. One look was enough to reduce me to tears, and the only way I was content was to be left alone completely.’

When she was eight she went to school, where in most subjects she did very well in her studies; but she was bullied. She would write, ‘The five years I spent at school were the saddest of my life, and if my dear Céline [the beloved sister who was closest to her in age] had not been with me I could not have stayed there for a single month without falling ill.’ And she was often sick and had nervous tremors.

This is when, in 1883, she had the experience of seeing the statue of Our Lady in her room smile at her. She wrote: ‘All of a sudden the Blessed Virgin appeared beautiful to me, so beautiful that never had I seen anything so attractive; her face was suffused with an ineffable benevolence and tenderness, but what penetrated to the very depths of my soul was the ravishing smile of the Blessed Virgin. At that instant, all my pain disappeared.’

In these years her older sisters Pauline and Marie entered the Carmel of Lisieux – Pauline in 1882 and Marie in 1886 – and Thérèse missed them greatly. When Pauline entered, already Thérèse wanted to join the Carmelites herself. She was told she was too young – only about ten. But the prioress wrote to comfort her, calling her ‘my little daughter Thérèse of the Child Jesus’; and that would be the religious name she was given when she did eventually enter Carmel.

Another source of suffering was that for one and a half years she suffered greatly from a scrupulous conscience. She also writes of herself at this time, ‘I was really unbearable because of my extreme touchiness.’ But what she called her complete conversion came on Christmas Eve, 1886. ‘God worked a little 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 have me come forth from the swaddling clothes and imperfections of childhood.’ ‘The work I had been unable to do in ten years was done by Jesus in one instant, contenting himself with my good will which was never lacking…I felt charity enter into my soul, and the need to forget myself and to please others; since then I've been happy!’ With this grace she overcame her sensitivity. At this time she read the Imitation of Christ, and formed the desire to enter Carmel straight away.

Here we also learn more about the image of ‘the Little Flower’. Thérèse summoned up the courage to tell her beloved father of her determination to enter Carmel. They were both in tears, knowing the sacrifice this would mean: lifelong separation. She writes: ‘Going up to a low wall, he pointed to some little white flowers, like lilies in miniature, and plucking one of them, he gave it to me, explaining the care with which God brought it into being and preserved it to that very day. While I listened I believed I was hearing my own story, so great was the resemblance between what Jesus had done for the little flower and little Thérèse… I placed the little white flower in my copy of the Imitation at the chapter entitled: “One must love Jesus above all things,” and there it is still…’

It was at this time, in 1887, that she had the experience, recorded in Story of a Soul, of the conversion of the convicted murderer Henri Pranzini, for which she was praying intently. She wrote how she had absolute confidence in the mercy of Jesus. The criminal seemed to be going unrepentant to his execution, without confession.  But Thérèse learned with great emotion that after mounting the scaffold to be guillotined, ‘suddenly, seized by an inspiration, [he] turned, took hold of the crucifix the priest was holding out to him and kissed the sacred wounds three times!’  She wrote: ‘After this unique grace, my desire to save souls grows each day.’

A diocesan pilgrimage to Rome at this time with her father and her sister Céline had a deep effect on her. On 20 November 1887, in the audience with Pope Leo XIII, she seized her opportunity.

She writes: ‘They told us on the Pope’s behalf that it was forbidden to speak, as this would prolong the audience too much…A moment later I was at the Holy Father’s feet. I kissed his slipper and he presented his hand, but instead of kissing it I joined my own and lifting tear-filled eyes to his face, I cried out: “Most Holy Father, I have a great favour to ask you!” “Holy Father, in honour of your Jubilee, permit me to enter Carmel at the age of fifteen!” The Vicar General said, “Most Holy Father, this is a child who wants to enter Carmel at the age of fifteen, but the Superiors are considering the matter at the moment.” “Well, my child,” the Holy Father replied, looking at me kindly, “do what the Superiors tell you!” Resting my hands on his knees, I made a final effort, saying in a suppliant voice: “Oh! Holy Father, if you say yes, everybody will agree!” He gazed at me steadily, speaking these words and stressing each syllable: “Go… go…You will enter if God wills it!”’ Even then, she would not leave and had to be carried out of the room.

The Story of a Soul – Life in Carmel

But not too much later, the local Bishop authorised Thérèse to be received at the Carmel of Lisieux, and on 9 April 1888 she was admitted as a postulant. The Carmel of Lisieux had been founded in 1838; when Thérèse entered, it had 26 nuns. She writes in Story of a Soul: ‘At last my desires were realised, and I cannot describe the deep sweet peace which filled my soul. This peace has remained with me during the eight and a half years of my life here, and has never left me even amid the greatest trials.’

In these early years there was the sadness of her father’s decline. Louis had two strokes in 1889, and died in 1894, aged 70. Louis and Zélie were beatified together in 2008 and canonised in 2015. Their feast day is 12 July. That is not the date of either of their deaths; but 13 July is the date on which they were married – so I suspect that is the reason.

On 10 January 1889 Thérèse became a novice and took the habit, receiving the name, ‘of the Child Jesus.’ And on 8 September 1890 at the age of 17, she made her religious profession. When she took the veil on 24 September, she added a second religious name, ‘of the Holy Face’. So her full name in religion was, ‘Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face.’ In her novitiate, contemplation of the Holy Face of Christ during his Passion had taken an important role.

The central insight of her spirituality that developed in the convent is ‘the little way.’ In Story of a Soul she writes: ‘I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness. It is impossible for me to grow up, and so I must bear with myself such as I am, with all my imperfections. But I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short, and totally new.’

When Mother Agnes asked her, ‘And what is this little way you want to teach to souls?’ Thérèse answered: ‘It is the way of spiritual childhood, the way of trust and absolute surrender.’

In a letter in the last months of her life, she wrote, ‘Sometimes when I read certain spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown through a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a host of illusions, my poor mind gets tired very quickly, I close the learned book which breaks my head and dries up my heart and I take the Holy Scripture. So everything seems luminous to me, a single word reveals infinite horizons to my soul, perfection seems easy to me, I see that it suffices to recognise one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself like a child in the arms of the Good Lord.’

The Popes have taken up this teaching. Benedict XV, when pronouncing her heroic virtues in 1921, stated that ‘in spiritual childhood is the secret of sanctity for all the faithful of the Catholic world.’ ‘There is a call to all the faithful of every nation, no matter what their age, sex, or state of life, to enter wholeheartedly into the Little Way which led Sister Thérèse to the summit of heroic virtue. It is our desire that the secret of sanctity of Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus be revealed to all our children.’ At her beatification Pope Pius XI declared: ‘We earnestly desire that all the faithful should study her in order to copy her, becoming children themselves; since otherwise they cannot, according to the words of the Master, arrive at the kingdom of heaven.’ So: the Little Way.

The Final Trial

Thérèse’s last years came on quickly. On the eve of Good Friday 1896, she coughed up blood – and that meant tuberculosis. Her physical sufferings kept increasing, to the point that she was able to say in her last days, ‘I would never have believed it was possible to suffer so much, never, never!’ But also, ‘I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me.’

And in the midst of this, in the final months came great spiritual suffering, the great trial against the faith. The beautiful words of Pope Francis: ‘Thérèse experienced faith most powerfully and surely in the midst of the dark night and especially amid the darkness of Calvary’, culminating ‘in the final months of her life, in the great “trial against the faith” …When she wrote that Jesus allowed her soul “to be invaded by the thickest darkness”, she was evoking the darkness of atheism and the rejection of the Christian faith’ that presented itself to her soul. (C’est la Confiance 25)

‘Yet darkness’, the Holy Father declares, ‘cannot overcome the light…Her account reveals the heroic nature of her faith, her triumph in spiritual combat with the most powerful temptations. She felt herself a sister to atheists, seated with them at table, like Jesus who sat with sinners. She interceded for them, ever renewing her own act of faith, in constant loving communion with the Lord.’ (C’est la Confiance 26)

‘My God, I love you!’

But in this closing time of her life on earth, there was also the anticipation of her heaven. We remember her famous words: ‘My heaven will be spent on earth until the end of the world. Yes, I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth’ … ‘It will be like a shower of roses.’ She died on 30^th September 1897, aged 24. Her last words: ‘My God, I love you!’

‘A century and a half after her birth’, Pope Francis declares, ‘Thérèse is more alive than ever in the pilgrim Church, in the heart of God’s people. She accompanies us on our pilgrim way, doing good on earth, as she had so greatly desired.’ (C’est la Confiance 53) And the Holy Father prays: ‘Dear Saint Thérèse, the Church needs to radiate the brightness, the fragrance and the joy of the Gospel. Send us your roses! Help us to be, like yourself, ever confident in God’s immense love for us, so that we may imitate each day your “little way” of holiness.’