Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, O.C.D. Sacred Keeper of the Gardens The Little Flower
Virgin, Nun, Mystic Doctor of the Church
Born	Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin 2 January 1873 Alençon[1]Orne,France
Died	30 September 1897(aged24) Lisieux,Calvados, France
Veneratedin	Catholic Church
Beatified	29 April 1923 byPope Pius XI
Canonized	17 May 1925 byPope Pius XI
Majorshrine	Basilica of St. Thérèse in Lisieux, France National Shrine of St. Thérèse(USA) Darien, IL. Diocesan Shrine and Parish of St. Therese Of The Child Jesus (Philippines) Antipolo City
Feast	1 October (General Roman Calendar) 3 October (Roman Martyrologyof theTridentine Calendar,[2]Melkite Catholic Church)
Attributes	Discalced Carmelitehabit,crucifix,roses
Patronage	Gardens of Vatican City Missionaries; France; Russia;HIV/AIDSsufferers; radio care-a-thons; florists and gardeners; loss of parents; tuberculosis; theRussicum; Alaska,Pasay City,Antipolo City,Philippines

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SaintThérèse of Lisieux(French:Sainte-Thérèse de Lisieux), bornMarie Françoise-Thérèse Martin(2 January 1873 – 30 September 1897), also known asSaint Thérèse of theChild Jesusand theHoly Face, O.C.D., was a FrenchCatholicDiscalced Carmelitenunwho is widely venerated in modern times. She is popularly known as "The Little Flower of Jesus", or simply "The Little Flower".

Thérèse has been a highly influential model of sanctity for Catholics and for others because of the simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life. Together with SaintFrancis of Assisi, she is one of the most popular saints in the history of the church.^{[3][4]Pope Saint Pius Xcalled her "the greatest saint of modern times".[5][6]}

Thérèse felt an earlycall to religious life, and overcoming various obstacles, in 1888 at the early age of 15, she became a nun and joined two of her elder sisters in thecloisteredCarmelite community ofLisieux,Normandy(her other sister Celine also later joined the order). After nine years as a Carmelite religious, having fulfilled various offices such assacristanand assistant to thenovice mistress, and having spent her last eighteen months in Carmel in anight of faith(the time she felt Jesus was absent and when she even felt tormented by doubts about the existence of God), Thérèse died aged 24, following a slow and painful fight againsttuberculosis.

Herfeast dayis 1 October in theGeneral Roman Calendar, and 3 October in theextraordinary form of the Roman Rite.^{[2]Thérèse is well-known throughout the world, with theBasilica of Lisieuxbeing the second-largest place of pilgrimage in France afterLourdes.}

Life[edit]

Family background[edit]

Zélie Martin, mother of Thérèse

She was born in Rue Saint-Blaise,Alençon, in France on 2 January 1873, the daughter ofMarie-Azélie Guérin, (usually called Zélie), andLouis Martin, a jeweler and watchmaker.^{[7]Both her parents were devout Catholics who would eventually become the first (and to date only) married couple canonized together by theRoman Catholic Church(by Pope Francis in 2015).}

Louis had tried to become acanon regular, wanting to enter theGreat St Bernard Hospice, but had been refused because he knew noLatin. Zélie, possessed of a strong, active temperament, wished to serve the sick, and had also considered enteringconsecrated life, but theprioressof thecanonesses regularof the Hôtel-Dieu in Alençon had discouraged her enquiry outright.^{[8]Disappointed, Zélie learned the trade oflacemaking. She excelled in it and set up her own business on Rue Saint-Blaise at age 22.[9]}

Louis and Zélie met in early 1858 and married on July 13 of that same year at theBasilica of Notre-Dame dAlençon. At first they decided to live as brother and sister in aperpetual continence, but when a confessor discouraged them in this, they changed their lifestyle and had nine children. From 1867–70 they lost 3 infants and five year old Hélène. All five of their surviving daughters became nuns:

• Marie (February 22, 1860, a Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, d. January 19, 1940),
• Pauline(September 7, 1861, in religion, Mother Agnes of Jesus in the Lisieux Carmel, d. July 28, 1951),
• Léonie(June 3, 1863, in religion Sister Françoise-Thérèse,VisitandineatCaen, d. June 16, 1941),
• Céline(April 28, 1869, a Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion, Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face, d. February 25, 1959), and finally
• Thérèse (Françoise-Thérèse)

"A dreamer and brooder, an idealist and romantic, [the father] gave touching and naïve pet names [to his daughters]: Marie was hisdiamond, Pauline hisnoble pearl, Célinethe bold one..But Thérèse was hispetite reine, little queen, to whom all treasures belonged".^[10]

Zélie was so successful in manufacturing lace that by 1870 Louis had sold his watchmaking shop to a nephew and handled the traveling and bookkeeping end of his wifes lacemaking business.

Birth and infancy[edit]

Louis Martin, father of Thérèse.

Soon after her birth in January 1873, the outlook for the survival of Thérèse Martin was very grim. Because of her frail condition, she was entrusted to awet nurse,^{[11]Rose Taillé, who had already nursed two of the Martin children. Rose had her own children and could not live with the Martins, so Thérèse was sent to live with her in the forests of theBocageatSemallé.}

On Holy Thursday, 2 April 1874, when she was 15 months old, she returned to Alençon where her family surrounded her with affection. "I hear the baby calling meMama!as she goes down the stairs. On every step, she calls outMama!and if I dont respond every time, she remains there without going either forward or back." (Madame Martin to Pauline, 21 November 1875) She was educated in a very Catholic environment, includingMassattendance at 5:30 AM, the strict observance of fasts, and prayer to the rhythm of the liturgical year. The Martins also practiced charity, visiting the sick and elderly and welcoming the occasional vagabond to their table. Even if she wasnt the model little girl her sisters later portrayed, Thérèse was very sensitive to this education. She played at being a nun. Described as generally a happy child,^{[12]she was emotional too, and often cried: "Céline is playing with the little one with some bricks... I have to correct poor baby who gets into frightful tantrums when she cant have her own way. She rolls in the floor in despair believing all is lost. Sometimes she is so overcome she almost chokes. Shes a nervous child, but she is very good, very intelligent, and remembers everything."[11]At 22, Thérèse, then a Carmelite, admitted: "I was far from being a perfect little girl".[13]}

Rue Saint-Blaises house at Alençon: The family home and Thérèses birthplace

From 1865 Zelie had complained of breast pain and in December 1876 a doctor told her of the seriousness of the tumour. Feeling the approach of death Madame Martin had written to Pauline in spring 1877, "You and Marie will have no difficulties with her upbringing. Her disposition is so good. She is a chosen spirit." In June 1877 she left forLourdeshoping to be cured, but the miracle did not happen: "The Mother of God has not healed me because my time is up, and because God wills me to repose elsewhere than on the earth." On 28 August 1877, Zélie died, aged 45. Her funeral was conducted in the Basilica of Notre-Dame dAlençon. Thérèse was barely 4 1/2 years old. Her mothers death dealt her a severe blow and later she would consider that "the first part of her life stopped that day".^{[citation needed]}

The basilica of Alençon where Saint Thérèse was baptized

She wrote: "Every detail of my mothers illness is still with me, specially her last weeks on earth." She remembered the bedroom scene where her dying mother received the last sacraments while Thérèse knelt and her father cried. She wrote: "When Mummy died, my happy disposition changed. I had been so lively and open; now I became diffident and oversensitive, crying if anyone looked at me. I was only happy if no one took notice of me... It was only in the intimacy of my own family, where everyone was wonderfully kind, that I could be more myself."^[14][15]

Thérèse (1876)

Three months after Zélie died, Louis Martin left Alençon, where he had spent his youth and marriage, and moved toLisieuxin theCalvadosDepartment ofNormandy, where Zélies pharmacist brother, Isidore Guérin lived with his wife and their two daughters, Jeanne and Marie. In her last months Zélie had given up the lace business; after her death, Louis sold it. Louis leased a pretty, spacious country house,Les Buissonnets, situated in a large garden on the slope of a hill overlooking the town. Looking back, Thérèse would see the move toLes Buissonnetsas 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 rediscovered my childhood character, and entered into the serious side of life".^{[16][pageneeded]In Lisieux, Pauline took on the role of ThérèsesMama. She took this role seriously, and Thérèse grew especially close to her, and to Céline, the sister closest to her in age.[11]}

Early years[edit]

Les Buissonnets, The Martin family house in Lisieux to which they moved in November 1877 following the death of Madame Martin. Thérèse lived here from 16 November 1877 to 9 April 1888, the day she entered Carmel.

Thérèse was taught at home until she was eight and a half, and then entered the school kept by the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of Notre Dame du Pre in Lisieux. Thérèse, taught well and carefully by Marie and Pauline, found herself at the top of the class, except for writing and arithmetic. However, because of her young age and high grades, she was bullied. The one who bullied her the most was a girl of fourteen who did poorly at school. Thérèse suffered very much as a result of her sensitivity, and she cried in silence. Furthermore, the boisterous games at recreation were not to her taste. She preferred to tell stories or look after the little ones in the infants class. "The five years I spent at school were the saddest of my life, and if my dear Céline had not been with me I could not have stayed there for a single month without falling ill." Céline informs us, "She now developed a fondness for hiding,^{[17]she did not want to be observed, for she sincerely considered herself inferior".[18]On her free days she became more and more attached to Marie Guérin, the younger of her two cousins in Lisieux. The two girls would play at beinganchorites, asthe great Teresahad once played with her brother. And every evening she plunged into the family circle. "Fortunately I could go home every evening and then I cheered up. I used to jump on Fathers knee and tell him what marks I had, and when he kissed me all my troubles were forgotten...I needed this sort of encouragement so much." Yet the tension of the double life and the daily self-conquest placed a strain on Thérèse. Going to school became more and more difficult.}

Thérèse aged 8, 1881

When she was nine years old, in October 1882, her sister Pauline, who had acted as a "second mother" to her, entered the Carmelite monastery at Lisieux. Thérèse was devastated. She understood that Pauline was cloistered and that she would never come back. "I said in the depths of my heart: Pauline is lost to me!" The shock reawakened in her the trauma caused by her mothers death. She also wanted to join the Carmelites, but was told she was too young. Yet Thérèse so impressed Mother Marie Gonzague, theprioressat the time of Paulines entry to the community that she wrote to comfort her, calling Thérèse "my future little daughter".^{[citation needed]}

Illness[edit]

At this time, Thérèse was often sick; she began to suffer from nervous tremors, perhapsSt. Vituss Dance. The tremors started one night after her uncle took her for a walk and began to talk about Zélie. Assuming that she was cold, the family covered Therese with blankets, but the tremors continued; she clenched her teeth and could not speak. The family called Dr. Notta, who could make no diagnosis.^{[19]In 1882, Dr. Gayral diagnosed that Thérèse "reacts to an emotional frustration with a neurotic attack".[20]}

An alarmed, but cloistered, Pauline began to write letters to Thérèse and attempted various strategies to intervene. Eventually Thérèse recovered after she had turned to gaze at the statue of theVirgin Maryplaced in Maries room, where Thérèse had been moved.^{[21]She reported on 13 May 1883 that she had seen the Virgin smile at her.[22]She wrote: "Our Blessed Lady has come to me, she has smiled upon me. How happy I am."[23]However, when Thérèse told the Carmelite nuns about this vision at the request of her eldest sister Marie, she found herself assailed by their questions and she lost confidence. Self-doubt made her begin to question what had happened. "I thought Ihad lied– I was unable to look upon myself without a feeling ofprofound horror."[24]"For a long time after my cure, I thought that my sickness was deliberate and this was a real martyrdom for my soul".[25]Her concerns over this continued until November 1887.}

In October 1886 her oldest sister, Marie, entered the same Carmelite monastery, adding to Thérèses grief. The warm atmosphere atLes Buissonnets, so necessary to her, was disappearing. Now only she and Céline remained with their father. Her frequent tears made some friends think she had aweak characterand the Guérins indeed shared this opinion.^{[citation needed]}

Thérèse also suffered fromscruples, a condition experienced by other saints such asAlphonsus Liguori, also aDoctor of the ChurchandIgnatius Loyola, the founder of theJesuits. She wrote: "One would have to pass through this martyrdom to understand it well, and for me to express what I experienced for a year and a half would be impossible".^[26]

Complete conversion: Christmas 1886[edit]

Thérèse in 1886, age 13

Christmas Eve of 1886 was a turning point in the life of Thérèse; she called it her "complete conversion." Years later she stated that on that night she overcame the pressures she had faced since the death of her mother and said that "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".^[27]

That night, Louis Martin and his daughters, Léonie, Céline and Thérèse, attended the midnight mass at the cathedral in Lisieux— "but there was very little heart left in them. On 1 December, Léonie, covered ineczemaand hiding her hair under a shortmantilla, had returned toLes Buissonnetsafter just seven weeks of thePoor Claresregime in Alençon", and her sisters were helping her get over her sense of failure and humiliation. Back atLes Buissonnetsas every year, Thérèse "as was the custom for French children, had left her shoes on the hearth, empty in anticipation of gifts, not from Father Christmas but from the Child Jesus, who was imagined to travel through the air bearing toys and cakes."^{[28]While she and Celine were going up the stairs she heard her father, "perhaps exhausted by the hour, or this reminder of the relentless emotional demands of his weepy youngest daughter", say with some irritation "Therese is far too old for this now. Fortunately this will be the last year!" Thérèse had begun to cry and Céline advised her not to go back downstairs immediately. Then, suddenly, Thérèse pulled herself together and wiped her tears. She ran down the stairs, knelt by the fireplace and unwrapped her surprises as jubilantly as ever. In her account, nine years later, of 1895: "In an instant Jesus, content with my good will, accomplished the work I had not been able to do in ten years." After nine sad years she had "recovered the strength of soul she had lost" when her mother died and, she said, "she was to retain it forever". She discovered the joy in self-forgetfulness and added, "I felt, in a word, charity enter my heart, the need to forget myself to make others happy—Since this blessed night I was not defeated in any battle, but instead I went from victory to victory and began, so to speak, "to run a giants course" (Psalms19:5).}

According to Ida Görres, "Thérèse instantly understood what had happened to her when she won this banal littlevictoryover her sensitivity, which she had borne for so long; ...freedom is found in resolutely looking away from oneself.. and the fact that a person can cast himself away from himself reveals again that being good,victoryis pure grace, a sudden gift..It cannot be coerced, and yet it can be received only by the patiently prepared heart".^{[29]BiographerKathryn Harrison: "After all, in the past shehadtried to control herself, had tried with all her being and had failed. Grace, alchemy,masochism: through whatever lens we view her transport, Thérèses night of illumination presented both its power and its danger. It would guide her steps between the mortal and the divine, between living and dying, destruction and apotheosis. It would take her exactly where she intended to go".[30]}

The character of the saint and the early forces that shaped her personality have been the subject of analysis, particularly in recent years. Apart from the family doctor who observed her in the 19th century, all other conclusions are inevitably speculative. For instance, authorIda Görres, whose formal studies had focused on church history andhagiography, wrote a psychological analysis of the saints character. Some authors suggest that Thérèse had a strongly neurotic aspect to her personality for most of her life.^{[31][32][33][34]Harrison, concluded that, "her temperament was not formed for compromise or moderation...a life spent not taming but directing her appetite and her will, a life perhaps shortened by the force of her desire and ambition."[28]}

Imitation of Christ, Rome, and entry to Carmel[edit]

15th-century manuscript ofThe Imitation of Christ,Royal Library of Belgium

1887 Police Mugshot of Henri Pranzini

Before she was fourteen, when she started to experience a period of calm, Thérèse started to readThe Imitation of Christ. She read theImitationintently, as if the author traced each sentence for her: "The Kingdom of God is within you... Turn thee with thy whole heart unto the Lord; and forsake this wretched world: and thy soul shall find rest."^{[35]She kept the book with her constantly and wrote later that this book and parts of another book of a very different character, lectures by Abbé Arminjon onThe End of This World, and the Mysteries of the World to Come, nourished her during this critical period.[36]Thereafter she began to read other books, mostly on history and science.[37]}

In May 1887, Thérèse approached her 63-year-old father Louis, who was recovering from a small stroke, while he sat in the garden one Sunday afternoon and told him that she wanted 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 picked a little white flower, root intact, and gave it to her, explaining the care with which God brought it into being and preserved it until that day. Thérèse later wrote: "while I listened I believed I was hearing my own story". To Therese, the flower seemed a symbol of herself, "destined to live in another soil". Thérèse renewed her attempts to join the Carmel, but the priest-superior of the monastery would not allow it on account of her youth.

Thérèse at age 15. For her journey to Mgr Hugonin, Bishop of Bayeux, to seek permission to enter Carmel at Christmas 1887 Thérèse had put up her hair for the first time, a symbol for being "grown-up".A photograph taken in April 1888 shows a fresh, firm, girlish face..The familiar flowing locks are combed sternly back and up, piled in a hard littlechignonon the top of her head.^[38]

During the summer, French newspapers were filled with the story ofHenri Pranzini, convicted of the brutal murder of two women and a child. To the outraged public Pranzini represented all that threatened the decent way of life in France. In July and August 1887 Thérèse prayed hard for the conversion of Pranzini, so his soul could be saved, yet Pranzini showed no remorse. At the end of August, the newspapers reported that just as Pranzinis neck was placed on the guillotine, he had grabbed acrucifixand kissed it three times. Thérèse was ecstatic and believed that her prayers had saved him. She continued to pray for Pranzini after his death.^[39]

Leo XIII– In November 1887 when Thérèse met him, he was an old man of seventy-seven.

In November 1887, Louis took Céline and Thérèse on a diocesan pilgrimage to Rome for the priestly jubilee of PopeLeoXIII. The cost of the trip enforced a strict selection, a quarter of the pilgrims belonged to the nobility. The birth, in 1871, of theFrench Third Republichad marked a decline of the conservative rights power. Forced onto the defensive, the royalist bourgeoisie perceived a strong Church as an important means of safeguarding Frances integrity and its future. The rise of a militant nationalist Catholicism, a trend that would, in 1894, result in the anti-Semitic scapegoating and trumped-up treason conviction ofAlfred Dreyfuswas a development that Thérèse did not at all perceive. Still a sheltered child, Thérèse lived in ignorance of political events and motivations.^[40]

She did notice, however, the social ambition and vanity, adding "Céline and I found ourselves mixing with members of the aristocracy; but we were not impressed..the words of theImitation, do not be solicitous for the shadow of a great name, were not lost on me, and I realised that real nobility is in the soul, not in a name".^{[41]On 20 November 1887, during a generalaudiencewithLeo XIII, Thérèse, in her turn, approached the Pope, knelt, and asked him to allow her to enter Carmel at 15. The Pope said: "Well, my child, do what the superiors decide.... You will enter if it is Gods Will" and he blessed Thérèse. She refused to leave his feet, and the Swiss Guard had to carry her out of the room.[42]}

The trip continued: they visitedPompeii,Naples,Assisi; then it was back viaPisaandGenoa. The pilgrimage of nearly a month came at a timely point for her burgeoning personality. She "learnt more than in many years of study". For the first and last time in her life, she left her native Normandy. Notably she, "who only knew priests in the exercise of their ministry was in their company, heard their conversations, not always edifying—and saw their shortcomings for herself".^[43]

She had understood that she had to pray and give her life for sinners like Pranzini. But Carmel prayed especially for priests and this had surprised her since their souls seemed to her to be "as pure as crystal". A month spent with many priests taught her that they are "weak and feeble men". She wrote later: "I met many saintly priests that month, but I also found that in spite of being above angels by their supreme dignity, they were none the less men and still subject to human weakness. If the holy priests, the salt of the earth, as Jesus calls them in the Gospel, have to be prayed for, what about the lukewarm? Again, as Jesus says, If the salt shall lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? I understood my vocation in Italy." For the first time too she had associated with young men. "In her brotherless existence, masculinity had been represented only by her father, her Uncle Guérin and various priests. Now she had her first and only experiences. Céline declared at the beatification proceedings that one of the young men in the pilgrimage group "developed a tender affection for her". Thérèse confessed to her sister, "It is high time for Jesus to remove me from the poisonous breath of the world...I feel that my heart is easily caught by tenderness, and where others fall, I would fall too. We are no stronger than the others".^{[44]Soon after that, theBishop of Bayeuxauthorized the prioress to receive Thérèse. On 9 April 1888 she became a Carmelitepostulant.}

The Little Flower in Carmel[edit]

The monastery Thérèse entered was an old-established house with a great tradition. In 1838 two nuns from thePoitiersCarmel had been sent out to found the house of Lisieux. One of them, Mother Geneviève of St Teresa, was still living when Thérèse entered... the second wing, containing the cells and sickrooms in which she was to live and die, had been standing only ten years... "What she found was a community of very aged nuns, some odd and cranky, some sick and troubled, some lukewarm and complacent. Almost all of the sisters came from the petty bourgeois and artisan class. The Prioress and Novice Mistress were of oldNormannobility. Probably the Martin sisters alone represented the new class of the rising bourgeoisie".^[45]

Lisieux Carmel in 1888[edit]

The Carmelite order had been reformed in the sixteenth century byTeresa of Ávila, essentially devoted to personal and collective prayer. The nuns of Lisieux followed a strict regimen that allowed for only one meal a day for seven months of the year, and little free time. Only one room of the building was heated.The times of silence and of solitude were many but the foundress had also planned for time for work and relaxation in common—the austerity of the life should not hinder sisterly and joyful relations. Founded in 1838, the Carmel of Lisieux in 1888 had 26 religious, from very different classes and backgrounds. For the majority of the life of Thérèse, the prioress would be Mother Marie de Gonzague, born Marie-Adéle-Rosalie Davy de Virville. When Thérèse entered the convent Mother Marie was 54, a woman of changeable humour, jealous of her authority, used sometimes in a capricious manner; this had for effect, a certain laxity in the observance of established rules. "In the sixties and seventies of the [nineteenth] century an aristocrat in the flesh counted for far more in a petty bourgeois convent than we can realize nowadays... the superiors appointed Marie de Gonzague to the highest offices as soon as her novitiate was finished... in 1874 began the long series of terms as Prioress".^[46]

Postulancy[edit]

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Thérèses time as a postulant began with her welcome into the Carmel, Monday, 9 April 1888.^{[47]She felt peace after she received communion that day and later wrote, "At last my desires were realized, 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".CITEREFSaint_ThérèseTaylor_(tr.)2006}

From her childhood, Thérèse had dreamed of thedesertto which God would some day lead her. Now she had entered that desert. Though she was now reunited with Marie and Pauline, from the first day she began her struggle to win and keep her distance from her sisters. Right at the start Marie de Gonzague, the prioress, had turned the postulant Thérèse over to her eldest sister Marie, who was to teach her to follow theDivine Office. Later she appointed Thérèse assistant to Pauline in the refectory. And when her cousin Marie Guerin also entered, she employed the two together in thesacristy.^{[citation needed]}

Thérèse adhered strictly to the rule which forbade all superfluous talk during work. She saw her sisters together only in the hours of common recreation after meals. At such times she would sit down beside whomever she happened to be near, or beside a nun whom she had observed to be downcast, disregarding the tacit and sometimes expressed sensitivity and even jealousy of her biological sisters. "We must apologize to the others for our being four under one roof", she was in the habit of remarking. "When I am dead, you must be very careful not to lead a family life with one another...I did not come to Carmel to be with my sisters; on the contrary, I saw clearly that their presence would cost me dear, for I was determined not to give way to nature."^{[citation needed]}

Although the novice mistress, Sister Marie of the Angels, found Thérèse slow, the young postulant adapted well to her new environment. She wrote, "Illusions, the Good Lord gave me the grace to have none on entering Carmel. I found religious life as I had figured, no sacrifice astonished me." She sought above all to conform to the rules and customs of the Carmelites that she learnt each day with her four religious of the novitiate.

She chose a spiritual director, aJesuit, Father Pichon. At their first meeting, 28 May 1888, she made a general confession going back over all her past sins. She came away from it profoundly relieved. The priest who had himself suffered fromscruples, understood her and reassured her.^{[48]A few months later, he left for Canada, and Thérèse would only be able to ask his advice by letter and his replies were rare. (On 4 July 1897, she confided to Pauline, Father Pichon treated me too much like a child; nonetheless he did me a lot of good too by saying that I never committed a mortal sin.) During her time as a postulant, Thérèse had to endure some bullying from other sisters because of her lack of aptitude for handicrafts and manual work. Sister St Vincent de Paul, the finest embroiderer in the community made her feel awkward and even called her the big nanny goat. Thérèse was in fact the tallest in the family, 1.62 metres (approx. 53"). Pauline, the shortest, was no more than 1.54m tall (approx.5).}

Like all religious she discovered the ups and downs related to differences in temperament, character, problems of sensitivities or infirmities. After nine years she wrote plainly, "the lack of judgment, education, the touchiness of some characters, all these things do not make life very pleasant. I know very well that these moral weaknesses are chronic, that there is no hope of cure". But the greatest suffering came from outside Carmel. On 23 June 1888, Louis Martin disappeared from his home and was found days later, in the post office inLe Havre. The incident marked the onset of her fathers decline. He died on July 29, 1894.

Novitiate (10 January 1889 – 24 September 1890)[edit]

Certain passages from the prophetIsaiah(Chapter 53) helped her during her long novitiate..(Photograph: fragment of Isaiah found amongst theDead Sea Scrolls).^[49]

Thérèse of Lisieux, photograph, ca 1888–1896

The end of Thérèses time as a postulant arrived on the January 10, 1889, with her taking of the habit. From that time she wore the rough homespun and brownscapular, whitewimpleand veil, leather belt withrosary, woollen stockings, rope sandals".^{[50]Her fathers health having temporarily stabilized he was able to attend, though twelve days after her ceremony her father suffered a stroke and was taken to a private sanatorium, the Bon Sauveur atCaen, where he remained for three years before returning to Lisieux in 1892. In this period Thérèse deepened the sense of her vocation; to lead a hidden life, to pray and offer her suffering for priests, to forget herself, to increase discreet acts of charity. She wrote, "I applied myself especially to practice little virtues, not having the facility to perform great ones ... In her letters from this period of her novitiate, Thérèse returned over and over to the theme of littleness, referring to herself as a grain of sand, an image she borrowed from Pauline...Always littler, lighter, in order to be lifted more easily by the breeze of love.[51]The remainder of her life would be defined by retreat and subtraction".[52]}

She absorbed the work ofJohn of the Cross, spiritual reading uncommon at the time, especially for such a young nun. "Oh! what insights I have gained from the works of our holy father, St. John of the Cross! When I was seventeen and eighteen, I had no other spiritual nourishment..." She felt a kinship with this classic writer of the Carmelite Order (though nothing seems to have drawn her to the writing ofTeresa of Avila), and with enthusiasm she read his works,TheAscent of Mount Carmel, theWay of Purification, theSpiritual Canticle, theLiving Flame of Love. Passages from these writings are woven into everything she herself said and wrote.^{[53]The fear of God, which she found in certain sisters, paralyzed her. "My nature is such that fear makes me recoil, with LOVE not only do I go forward, I fly".[54]}

With the new name a Carmelite receives when she enters the Order, there is always an epithet – example, Teresa of Jesus,Elizabeth of the Trinity, Anne of the Angels. The epithet singles out the Mystery which she is supposed to contemplate with special devotion. "Thérèses names in religion – she had two of them – must be taken together to define her religious significance".^{[55]The first name was promised to her at nine, by Mother Marie de Gonzague,of the Child Jesus, and was given to her at her entry into the convent. In itself, veneration of the childhood of Jesus was a Carmelite heritage of the seventeenth century – it concentrated upon the staggering humiliation of divine majesty in assuming the shape of extreme weakness and helplessness. The FrenchOratory of JesusandPierre de Bérullerenewed this old devotional practice. Yet when she received the veil, Thérèse herself asked Mother Marie de Gonzague to confer upon her the second nameof the Holy Face.[citation needed]}

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During the course of her novitiate, contemplation of the Holy Face had nourished her inner life. This is an image representing the disfigured face of Jesus during His Passion. And she meditated on certain passages from the prophetIsaiah(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) – 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."^{[56]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!".[57]The meditation also helped her understand the humiliating situation of her father.}

Usually the novitiate preceding profession lasted a year. Sister Thérèse 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 worldLes 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".^[58]

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) 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. "Thérèse 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".^{[59]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".}

The Discreet life of a Carmelite (September 1890 – February 1893)[edit]

The years which followed were those of a maturation of her vocation. Thérèse prayed without great sensitive emotions, she multiplied the small acts of charity and care for others, doing small services, without making a show of them. She accepted criticism in silence, even unjust criticisms, and smiled at the sisters who were unpleasant to her. She prayed always much for priests, and in particular for FatherHyacinthe Loyson, a famous preacher who had been aSulpicianand aDominicannovice 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 excommunication had been pronounced against him, he continued to travel round France giving lectures. While clerical papers called Loyson a "renegade monk" andLeon Bloylampooned him, Thérèse prayed for her "brother". She offered her last communion, 19 August 1897, for Father Loyson.^{[citation needed]}

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