FAQ about Therese's writing-desks > FAQ about Therese's writing-desk and writing > What did Therese keep in this first ecritoire that her novice mistress was not supposed to see?
Sister Marie of the Angels. Click the image for her death notice (the story of her life) and her testimony about Therese on the Archives of the Lisieux Carmel Web site
The first writing-desk was the focus of some tension between Therese and her novice mistress, Sister Marie of the Angels. Sister Marie of the Angels was a very good and very holy nun; as Therese wrote, “Our Novice Mistress was a saint, a perfect type of the first Carmelites.” About temporal things she was somewhat absent-minded. Once, in her later years, she walked in a procession where everyone else in the community was carrying a large candle, but she was holding her walking-stick up in the air, believing it was a candle.
When Sister Marie of the Angels happened to lose her pen or pencil or to run out of paper, she was in the habit of going to Therese’s writing-case to replace them. If Therese was in her cell at the time, everything went well. But, if Therese was absent, it could be awkward. Mother Gonzague had instructed Therese not to show to anyone else her letters to or from Father Almire Pichon, a Jesuit then in Canada who was a close friend of the Martin family and served as spiritual director to several of its members. So, if Sister Marie of the Angels noticed, in Therese’s writing-desk, a letter Therese had begun to Father Pichon, or a letter Therese had received from him, it caused some strain.
(This episode is reported in the death circular of Sister Marie of the Angels on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux).
Read Father Pichon's brief testimony at the process for Therese at the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.
Learn more about Father Pichon and the Martin family through the book The Hidden Way: The Life and Influence of Almire Pichon below.
Last updated on September 28, 2013 by Maureen O'Riordan