Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

Teresa of Calcutta

To enter into the “thirst of Jesus,” then, is to touch the most radical and absolute level of desire.  It is to experience, not just conceptually but in the most intimate ground of one's created being, what Emmanuel Levinas called "the idea of Infinity"  that awakens the most imperious desire--in his words, "not a Desire that the possession of the Desirable slakes, but the Desire for the Infinite which the desirable arouses rather than satisfies."

On the occasion of the canonization of Mother Teresa, I recommend this article by Mary Frohlich, editor of Saint Therese of Lisieux: Essential Writings.  With the distinction that characterizes all her work, she explores the theme that linked Mother Teresa to her patron saint, herese of Lisieux. This article, first published in New Theology Review in November 2008, may now be read online.

Read "'The Thirst of Jesus' in the Vocations of Mother Teresa and Therese of Lisieux." 

United in the bond of sainthood, may St. Therese and her newest canonized disciple continue to quench the thirst of Jesus. 

See in one volume some of the texts of the saint who inspired Teresa of Calcutta:

Saint Therese of Lisieux: Essential Writings, edited by Mary Frohlich

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