Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

Statue of St. Therese as a Doctor of the Church, Carmelite Monastery, Philadelphia. In her right hand she holds the biretta, the symbol of the doctorate.

To celebrate this anniversary, please visit St. Therese of Lisieux, Doctor of the Universal Church  There you can see "The Science of Divine Love," the Apostolic Letter of St. John Paul II naming St. Therese a Doctor of the Church; his homily at the Doctoral Mass; an interview about Therese's doctorate with "Therese's bishop," Guy Gaucher, O.C.D., who died July 3, 2014; and other fascinating speeches, documents, and articles on this subject.

If you're especially interested in Therese's doctorate, please see Therese of Lisieux: Doctor of the Church - A Study of the Cause, Process, and Proclamation of October 19, 199 , a master's thesis by Mary Ellen Malolepszy that is available online.

Today, considering that St. Therese is a Doctor of the Church, I am struck by the lines she wrote to her priest-brother, Adolphe Roulland, on May 9, 1897:

.At times, when I am reading certain spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown through a thousand obstacles, surround­ed by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires; I close the learned book that 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 to me, I see it is sufficient to recognize one's nothingness and to abandon oneself as a child into God's arms.

 She is truly the doctor of the poor and the simple, showing that God can make Scripture "luminous" for the soul and can inspire us without the need for learned books.