Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

St. Teresa of Avila praying before an image of Christ captive. (Licensed from Shutterstock Images)

On August 15, 1895, the feast of the Assumption (which was her personal feast-day), Therese's cousin Marie Guerin entered the Carmel of Lisieux.  Marie, at 25 a little less than three years older than Therese, was the younger daughter of Isidore Guerin, the brother of Therese's mother, St. Zelie, and his wife, Celine. Marie was lively, witty, affectionate, sensitive, and gifted with a beautiful soprano voice.

The feast of the Assumption

Even before her entrance, Marie had kept the feast of the Assumption as her personal feast-day (what is now sometimes called a "name day").  Before Celine's entrance in 1894, Marie had posed for Celine, who took a photograph of Marie to serve as a model for a painting of the Assumption Celine painted for the chapel of the Benedictines at Bayeux.  (if you click on the link to the photograph on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, you will find a link to Celine's resulting painting).

Madame Guerin had written Pauline, who was then prioress, asking deferentially that Marie's entrance might be set for her feast, August 15.  Marie's mother and father, both fervent Catholics, found her vocation a privilege, but they were deeply saddened by losing her.  Their older daughter, Jeanne, had married five years before and moved to Caen with her husband, and Marie's entrance left them bereft. 

Therese as assistant novice mistress

 From the time of Pauline's election as prioress in 1893, she confided privately to Therese the formation of the novices (Martha of Jesus, Marie-Madeleine of the Blessed Sacrament, Marie of the Trinity, Genevieve of St. Therese (her sister Celine), and now Marie Guerin, who took the name Marie of the Eucharist).  Mother Gonzague held the title of novice mistress; Therese was dubbed "senior novice" and assigned merely to help her, but Pauline said later that she was, in fact, depending on Therese to form all the novices.  Marie Guerin, the last to enter during Therese's lifetime, brought the number of novices to five: an injection of youth and energy to the community. 

Therese's poem "Canticle of a Soul Having Found the Place of Its Rest"

It was the custom for the new postulant to sing something for the community at evening recreation on the day of her entrance.  To showcase her cousin's lovely voice, Therese composed the poem "Canticle of a Soul Having Found the Place of Its Rest."  As usual, she wrote with sensitivity to the person and the occasion, but also expressed her own desires:

O Jesus! on this day. you have fulfilled all my desires.

From now on, near the Eucharist, I shall be able

To sacrifice myself in silence, to wait for Heaven in peace.

Keeping myself open to the rays of the divine Host,

In this furnace of love, I shall be consumed,

And like a seraphim, Lord, I shall love you.*

Sister Therese of St. Augustine left us testimony about what Therese meant by "loving like a seraph" in the "furnace of love."   At the 1910 Process, she testified:

In Sister Therese, the love of God dominated everything else; her dream was to die of love.  But then she would add:  "To die of love, we must live by love."  So she strove to develop this love day by day, because she wanted it to be of the highest quality.  Her ambition was to love like a seraph, to be consumed by the devouring flames of pure love without feeling them, so that her self-sacrifice would be as complete as possible.**

"Living on Love!," Therese's poem from February 1895

In this "Canticle," Therese sets forth some elements of a programme of life for her cousin.  But on the same day she left on Marie's bed in her new cell, the manuscript surrounded by flowers. a copy of her earlier poem "Living on Love!," written during the Forty Hours Devotion in February 1895.  This composition sets forth a far more powerful and detailed spiritual itinerary, rooted in the gospels and unlimited in scope.  Celine called it "the king" of Therese's poems.  The editors write of "the solemn fervor of this love poem," and its 15 stanzas are inexhaustible.  Here I quote only stanza five:

Living on Love is giving without limit

Without claiming any wages here below.

Ah! I give without counting, truly sure

That when one loves, one does not keep count!...

Overflowing with tenderness, I have given everything,

To His Divine Heart..... lightly I run.

I have nothing left but my only wealth:

Living on Love.***

1895: a year of grace for Therese

Marie's entrance enhanced the richness of the year 1895, the year of "the Mercies of the Lord" for Therese.  In 1894 she had been delivered from her father's long trial and now felt his closeness.  Then her deep desire of having Celine, her inseparable companion, join her in Carmel had been fulfilled.  After her rich play "Joan of Arc Accomplishing Her Mission," she had, at the request of Pauline, her prioress, begun to review her life and write her "thoughts on the graces God has granted" to her.  This review brought the graces of the past vividly before her.  In February Celine received the Habit, and her father's virtues were evoked in the sermon on that occasion.  Later in February Therese was inspired to write her great poem "Living on Love."  On June 9 she received the great grace of being inspired to offer herself, with Celine, to the Merciful Love of God.  During the summer she persuaded her oldest sister, Marie, to offer herself as well.  Now her cousin was coming to fulfill her vocation.

In the community context, the Martin sisters were rather prominent at this time.  The community had elected Pauline, Mother Agnes of Jesus, prioress  in 1893, at the early age of 31.  This was a great grace for Therese.  Their oldest sister, Marie of the Sacred Heart, was "provisoire" (in charge of procuring food for  the community).  Therese was charged with helping to form the novices, and her poems and religious plays were beginning to make her a little more known among some of the nuns.  Only a few suspected the fire of love burning in her heart.

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* "The Poetry of Saint Therese of Lisieux," tr. Donald Kinney, O.C.D.  (Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, 1996), p. 112.

**  "St. Therese of Lisieux by Those Who Knew Her," ed. and tr. Christopher O'Mahony, O.C.D.  (Dublin: Veritas Press, 1973, p. 193.

***  The Poetry of Saint Therese of Lisieux, op. cit., p. 90.