Carmelite wisdom to encourage & inspire
In life and death Pope Benedict XVI was a disciple of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, whose birthday 150 years ago we celebrate today. Father Quang D. Tran, SJ reflects on the influence of Benedict and Thérèse.
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To prepare for the Theresian Anniversary Year, we offer three reflections based on the writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The Day 3 reflection focuses on the theme of humility.
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To prepare for the Theresian Anniversary Year, we offer three reflections based on the writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The Day 2 reflection focuses on the theme of mercy.
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After St. Thérèse’s tearful encounter with Pope Leo XIII on 20 November 1887, her sister Céline wrote to Marie in the Lisieux Carmel to explain everything. Pauline then wrote to her father on 23 November: the Pope “saw the halo that already circles your forehead.”
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We often recall the words of St. Thérèse that the Virgin is “more Mother than Queen” but we don’t often hear the rest of the quote concerning her beneficence toward the saints in glory.
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"From careful study of the writings of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and from the resonance they have had in the Church," St. John Paul II indicates, "salient aspects can be noted of her "eminent doctrine", which is the fundamental element for conferring the title of Doctor of the Church."
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Blessed John Paul I was born on this day in 1912. In his beautiful letter to St. Thérèse that was published by Messaggero di San Antonio magazine, he writes: “I was seventeen when I read your autobiography. It struck me forcibly.”
St. Teresa of the Andes had an emergency appendectomy on 28 December 1914. Here we read the entry from her diary that describes her mother's December novena to St. Thérèse of Lisieux "because I'm very devoted to her."
St. Thérèse's biographer Conrad de Meester, o.c.d. reminds us that her “last breath came with her last words: “My God, I love you.” Now love had taken full possession of her being.”
Thanks for joining our novena! We close with St. Thérèse’s most famous poem, “Why I Love You, O Mary.” In the final stanzas she writes, “You who came to smile at me in the morning of my life, come smile at me again, Mother, it's evening now!”
Thérèse Martin was born at Alencon in 1873. At the age of fifteen, she entered the Carmel at Lisieux. She practiced heroic humility, evangelical simplicity, and trust in God, and taught the novices these virtues by word and example. She offered her life for the salvation of souls and the growth of the Church. She died on September 30, 1897. Canonized in 1925, she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1997.
St. Thérèse wrote one of her last poems for Sr. Thérèse of St. Augustine, the nun who displeased her the most. Today this poem teaches us that we can rest in the shade of the tree called “love” and savor its fruit: "abandonment".
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” urged the psalmist. St. Thérèse turns to her Guardian Angel as she responds: “With your celestial aid, in peace I await the other life, the joys that will last forever.”
If the psalmist prayed “for God alone my soul waits,” then St. Thérèse repeated that heartfelt cry with greater fervor: “My only peace, my only happiness, my only love is you, Lord!”
St. Thérèse described her sister Céline as someone who found God in all of nature, everywhere. In the poem, “Canticle of Céline”, which Thérèse wrote for her sister, Céline sings, “in Him I found peace forever!”
On the night before He died, Jesus spoke plainly to the disciples. St Thérèse notes that Jesus was “speaking without parable” to them. To the one who keeps God’s word, Jesus says: “We want him to remain, filled with peace, in our Love!”
“Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went,” is one section of St. Joseph’s theme music in the Gospels. St. Thérèse knows how to sing that song, too, in Carmelite style: “Joseph, O tender Father, protect Carmel!”
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord,” says St. Paul. St. Thérèse was a model of obedience to her father, St. Louis Martin. Speaking in the third person as she writes about their relationship, Thérèse reminds her father: “it was always your hand that guided her. O Papa! remember…”
“Do not worry about tomorrow,” Jesus said. Thérèse took his advice and wrote, “if I think about tomorrow, I fear my fickleness. I feel sadness and worry rising up in my heart.” Her solution to this problem? Living “just for today.”
In this, the 125th anniversary year of the death of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, each day we will share excerpts from her poetry that reveal her eminent doctrine and passionate desire "to love Jesus and to make him loved" as a Discalced Carmelite nun.
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Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. ~ St. Teresa of Avila
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