Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

The Capture of Saigon by the French, February 28, 1859, paintd by Antoine Morel-Fatio. Public domain..

July 29, 1895

July 29, 1895 was an eventful day in the Carmel of Lisieux.  It was the first anniversary of the death of St. Therese's father, the now-canonized St. Louis Martin.  It was the feast of St. Martha, a special feast celebrated in honor of the lay sisters, and in 1895 Therese played the role of Jesus in a play she had written, Jesus at Bethany.  On top of that, Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart, a nun from the Carmel of Saigon who had lived at Lisieux since 1883, returned to the Saigon Carmel that day.

The Carmel of Saigon and Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart

After the French conquered Saigon in 1859, more missionaries began to go there.  The Lisieux Carmel, which had a fervent missionary consciousness, supplied, on request, four "foundresses" for the Carmel of Saigon in 1861.  They founded the Carmel in "really heroic conditions."  Two of them, whose health could not adapt to the vastly different climate, returned to France, but the community remained and began to receive native applicants.  Among them was Maria de Souza, born in Macao in 1850 of a Portuguese father and a Chinese mother.  She entered the Saigon Carmel in 1874, when baby Therese in far-off France was a year old.  [See a photo of the Saigon Carmel on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux]. Professed in 1876 as Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart, she had a strong desire to transfer to a French Carmel.  The Lisieux Carmel received her in June 1883, about a month after the Blessed Virgin had obtained the cure of ten-year-old Therese. 

Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart and Sister Therese at the Carmel of Lisieux

Indochina, then called "Cochin-China," became a French colony in 1887, a year before Therese entered at Lisieux.  Sister Anne, a member of the community for almost five years, welcomed Therese when she entered on April 9, 1888.  Eight days later Sister Anne gave Therese a holy card on the theme of "the cradle as the first altar of sacrifice," no doubt because the postulant was given the name "Therese of the Child Jesus."  On it Sister Anne inscribed Therese's name, her own name, and the words "United in prayer and sacrifice."  The text on the reverse was titled "The sacrifices of the new law of love."  Later Therese drew a graph on this holy card, using the design, which she adapted, for her painting "The Dream of the Child Jesus." 

In 1893 Mother Marie of the Angels, creating a word picture of each Carmelite of Lisieux for the Visitation at Le Mans, wrote:

Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart, who came from Saigon. A real Chinese type, whose mother is Chinese and whose father is Portuguese.  Filled with spirit, knowledge, and talents, she works wonderfully, but her little strength doesn't allow her to be assigned jobs.  Fervent as a seraph, and truly edifies us by her bravery and her devotion.1

 Just as several of the French foundresses could not adjust to the drastic change in climate, Sister Anne never adapted from the heat of Saigon to the cold and fogs of Normandy.  Her health continued to deteriorate, and she had to give up her dream of remaining at Lisieux.  On July 29, 1895 she had to return to the Carmel of Saigon.

St. Therese's possible departure for Indochina

After she left, the bond (strong since 1861) between the Carmel of Lisieux and that of Saigon remained powerful.  In the second half of 1896, the Saigon Carmel was asking for "foundresses" [French citizens,necessary to make a new foundation in the colony of Cochin-China] for a new monastery at Hanoi.  Mother Gonzague considered sending MotherAgnes of Jesus, then Sister Genevieve (Celine) and Sister Marie of the Trinity, and finally Therese herself.  In November 1896, the Carnelites began a novena to now-St. Theophane Venard to know whether God wanted Therese to go to Indochina.  During the novena, her health grew worse, and she never transferred there.

St. Therese's letter to Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart in Saigon

On May 2, 1897, a special feast day at the Lisieux Carmel, Therese, at the suggestion of her prioress, Marie de Gonzague, wrote a letter to Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart in Saigon.  She wrote:

I recall with joy the years I spent in your company. . . . The hot sun of Saigon is nothing in comparison with the fire burning in your soul.  Oh, Sister! I beg you, ask Jesus that I myself also may love Him and that i may make Him loved.2

Therese sends her respectful good wishes to the new prioress, who had succeeded Mother Philomena of the Immaculate Conception from Lisieux; Mother Philomena had died in 1895. 

When Therese was in the infirmary, her sister Celine, Sister Genevieve, seeing her so ill, remarked "When I think that they are still waiting for you in Saigon!"  Therese answered:  "I'll go there very soon; if you only knew how quickly I will go!"  The chapel in the Carmel of Saigon today contains a replica of Therese's shrine at Lisieux. 

Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart's one testimony about St.Therese

Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart was to die in Saigon in 1920.  Unfortunately, neither the Carmel of Saigon nor the Lisieux Carmel prepared an obituary circular for her.  For what is known and for her photo, see Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart on the Web site of the Archives of the Carnel of Lisieux.  Yet Sister Anne lived long enough to offer a valuable testimony about St. Therese.  Toward the end of Sister Anne's life, when the not-yet-canonized "the Servant of God, Sister Therese of the Child Jesus" had taken the world by storm and it was known that Sister Anne had lived with her in France for seven years, she was often asked about Sister Therese, and she answered in words that show how well Therese succeeded in her desire to live a completely hidden life:

There is nothing to say about her;she was very good and very self-effacing; one would not notice her; never would I have suspected her sanctity.3

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1.  Sainte Therese de l'Enfant Jesus at de la Sainte-Face, Correspondance generale, T. II.  Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1992, pp. 1174-1175.  Translation copyright Maureen O'Riordan 2020.

2  Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux, Vol. II: 1890-1897.  Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelite Friars, 1988, pp. 1090-1091.

3.  Ibid., p. 1091, note 2.

I thank the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux for digitizing Therese's letter to Sister Anne of the Sacred Heart and for making it possible to link to her photo and biography, to the holy card she gave Therese, and to the paintiing Therese produced from that holy card.