Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

"Lisieux basilica". Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Immediately after the liberation of Lisieux on August 24, 1944, two Canadian newspapermen interviewed the Carmelites and other townspeople and cabled the story to Canada.  Substantial excerpts from both stories about the "miracle of Lisieux" appeared in the Southern Cross, the newspaper of the diocese of Savannah, Georgia, on September 30, 1944. [Note: unfortunately, the archives of the Southern Cross have disappeared from the Web].

 "[On the night of June 8, 1944] [f]lames roared and crackled over blocks of the town, creeping nearer and nearer to the convent.  At the edge of the convent, perilously close to St. Therese's own chapel, the fire mysteriously slackened, then died out completely.  The townsfolk observed this, and today they are convinced that St. Therese herself intervened .  . . .

Devout brown-clad nuns of the Carmelite Order, to which Saint Therese belonged, today told me they believed the Saint had also intervened to spare the Basilica which bears her name. . . . I talked to Sister Anne of Jesus, aged 65 . . . to my surprise, I discovered the stooped, pale little nun was a Canadian, formerly Anne Goyer of Montreal . . . .

Tomorrow, a silent brown-garbed procession will walk quietly through the ruins of Lisieux, and the Carmelite nuns will once more step into silence and invisibility, which most will never leave again.

               Richard Sanburn, writing from Lisieux for the Ottawa Citizen

I found the nuns eating a simple meal on benches in one of the little side chapels, the chapel of the Virgin of the Smile.  In this and other side chapels of the crypt they have slept while men, women, and children have also been living and sleeping in close proximity, very different from the seclusion these women have known for years.  There were mattresses even on the flagged floor on each side of the altar.

                              Frederick Griffin, writing from Lisieux for the Toronto Star