Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

Image: Wikipedia

We might imagine that, in the hallowed Lisieux Carmel, there was no laughter.  This story of how the celebration of a national civic holiday dramatically invaded the Carmel shows us how the nuns, especially Therese, could laugh.  It also allows us to get to know Therese’s novice mistress, Mother Marie of the Angels, who played a brave role in this irresistibly comic episode.

July 14 in France

After Bastille Day (the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution on July 14, 1789) was declared the "national holiday of the Republic" in 1880, it was celebrated all over France every year:

From the outset, the emphasis was on the patriotic and military character of the event, expressing France’s recovery from the defeat of 1870. Every commune or locality in France held its own celebration, starting with a torchlight parade on the evening of the 13th. The next morning, church bells or gun salutes announced the military parade, which is followed by a luncheon, spectacles and games, with dancing and fireworks ending the day.¹

Mother Marie of the Angels

The town of Lisieux, in the province of Calvados, organized its own celebration, centered on the town square before St. Pierre’s Cathedral, where the pharmacy owned by Therese’s uncle, Isidore Guerin, was located.  One year, sometime between 1888 and 1895, while Sister Therese of the Child Jesus was living in the Carmel, the "spectacles and games" there in the afternoon forced their way into the Carmel in a surprising fashion.  The heroine of the episode was Therese's novice mistress, Mother Marie of the Angels (1845-1924).  Born Jeanne de Chaumontel, she was the daughter of a count who was a knight of the Legion of Honor.  Several times, during her religious life, she displayed the courage of the true aristocrat.  Marie of the Angels testified at both processes for Therese; she lived to see her novice beatified, but died in 1924, before the canonization.  Writing her obituary circular, Therese’s sister Pauline, Mother Agnes, recounted some of these incidents.

The Flood

On July 7, 1875, long before Therese entered, a catastrophic flood devastated the lower parts of Lisieux.  (Zelie's letters show that she sent a contribution to the fund for the flood relief²).  After eight hours of torrential rain, the flood violently damaged the Carmel, which was located in the valley of the Orbiquet River.  In less than 15 minutes, the flood filled the monastery with oily sludge.  Several nuns almost died trying to rescue the poultry and the laundry, and the public chapel, where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved, was flooded.  The nuns could reach it only if someone could fit through the “little Communion grille” [see it by clicking and scrolling to the bottom left of the page] which divided the nuns’ choir from the sanctuary of the chapel.  Marie of the Angels, the thinnest of all the nuns, wriggled through the grille and rescued the Sacrament.  Upstairs, the nuns knelt in prayer before the tabernacle all night.³

The Fire

Pauline tells how, after Therese entered, Marie of the Angels intrepidly extinguished a fire which could have destroyed the monastery:

One day Sister Marie of the Angels admired the composure of her holy Novice at the beginning of a fire who was only imitating the intrepid Mistress that nothing frightened. A container of gas had caught fire in the work area of the lamps; our courageous Sister slipped into the little room that was filled with flames. She was soon surrounded by them. Invoking the Blessed Virgin, she soon extinguished the fire but not without burning her hands in such a way that she had to wear bandages very painfully for weeks to heal.⁴

Facing the Demon

In this story of July 14, Sister Marie of the Angels showed courage in facing what she believed was a supernatural enemy.  Her bravery was no less admirable because she was mistaken.  We do not know the year, but the incident took place sometime before Therese’s cousin, Marie Guerin, entered in August 1895.  She heard the story and saved it up to tell her father on July 17, 1896, shortly after her first Bastille Day in Carmel.  Having lived in the apartment above the pharmacy, which directly overlooked the town square, she and her father were familiar with how the holidays were celebrated:

You know and can remember, dear darling Father, that on 14th July and other public holidays, small balloons used to be let loose before the big balloons to amuse the crowd, among others little men, puppets and others of different colours, about the size of a 9 or 10-year-old child. You can remember these little balloon men, can’t you?... It’s absolutely vital for my story… One of these little balloon men came and ran aground one 14th July in the inner courtyard of the Carmel. Mother Sub-Prioress (Sister Marie of the Angels, first launderer, at least during Thérèse’s noviciat) and other Sisters who were working in one of the rooms saw this little man descend into the inner courtyard. Fear seized them, they turned pale and didn’t dare move…

They had never seen the like before… Finally they decided to go outside with a broom wanting to slay the little man.⁵

[Marie tells how, when Mother Marie of the Angels struck down the “little man” with a stick, he repeatedly bobbed up from the ground, face first, and appeared to be bowing to her :]

But the more they hit the latter, the more he tried to fly away and, like a balloon, didn’t stay put and kept bowing to Mother Sub-Prioress who, seized with fear, shouted: “It’s the devil!... It’s the devil!... we must kill it!... we must kill it!...”⁶

Later, in 1924, Pauline wrote that the “little man” looked like a “frightful midget coming down. It was dressed in a flesh-colored suit that was so tight that it appeared to be nude.”  When Marie of the Angels hit it with the stick, it “seemed to mock her and answered with deep bows and a calm smile that she deemed satanic. She cried, “Throw holy water on it!”⁷  Marie Guerin continues:

Well, the more they chased him, the more the little man followed Mother Sub-Prioress, bowing to her. He even mounted to the first floor terrace [above the cloister].  This panicked everyone further, then he came down… and, still convinced it was the devil, another Sister went to fetch the holy water and sprinkler!!!... While Mother Sub-Prioress was chasing the little man, Mother Heart of Jesus (Miss Pichery) sprayed him and made the signs of the cross. All the while this little game was going on, and it went on a long time, the sprinkler produced the desired effect. At last, by dint of chasing the unfortunate balloon, they eventually burst it. Then Mother Sub-Prioress saw that her famous devil was simply a balloon. Everyone laughed hard, apparently, and for a very long time, its carcass was hung in a tree like a trophy and to scare away birds.⁸

 Pauline concludes: “Sister Therese of the Child Jesus laughed until she cried.”  She adds that, soon afterward, the town authorities sent a representative to the Carmel to apologize and to ask whether one of the balloons that had escaped from the square had disturbed the nuns.  The portress answered as best she could without telling the drama of the exorcism.⁹

To picture the peaceful cloister courtyard that was disturbed by this "frightful midget" sailing down from the heavens, with Mother Marie of the Angels chasing the balloon and hitting it with her stick while Mother Heart of Jesus sprinkled it and crossed herself, view this video, courtesy of the Carmel of Lisieux, which shows the courtyard starting at 1:27:

Entrance of the monastery from Carmel de Lisieux on Vimeo.

 We can imagine how the nuns laughingly told the story of this “exorcism” to Marie Guerin and to later postulants. 

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I am especially grateful to the Carmel of Lisieux for digitizing its archives, translating them into English, and displaying them on the marvelous Web site of the Carmel of Lisieux.  Without them,  I could never have researched and written this article.

1  From "The 14th of July: Bastille Day," on the Web site "France Diplomacy," accessed July 14, 2021.

² From Zelie to her sister-in-law, Celine Guerin, July 11, 1875.  See A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885," tr. Ann Connors Hess, edited Dr. Frances Renda.  Staten Island, New York: Society of St. Paul/Alba House, 2011, p. 181.

³  Obituary circular of Sister Marie of the Angels, on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, accessed July 14, 2021.

⁴ Ibid., accessed July 14, 2021.

^5.  Letter of Sister Marie of the Eucharist to her father, Isidore Guerin, July 17, 1896, on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.  Accessed July 14, 2021.

^6.  Ibid., accessed July 14, 2021.

^7.  Obituary circular of Sister Marie of the Angels^, on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, accessed July 14, 2021.

⁸ Letter of Sister Marie of the Eucharist to her father, Isidore Guerin, July 17, 1896, on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.  Accessed July 14, 2021.

⁹  Ibid., accessed July 14, 2021.