"Prayer to Jesus in the Tabernacle" of St. Therese of Lisieux: July 16, 1895 

The statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel before which Pauline Martin was praying in St. Jacques Church in Lisieux on February 16, 1882 when she understood that she was called to Carmel. This statue is now in st. Pierre's Cathedral in Lisieux. My thanks to Corinne May for the photo.

Sister Martha of Jesus

In the Lisieux Carmel, July 16, 1895 was not only the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel but also the 30th birthday of Sister Martha of Jesus, a lay-sister eight years older than Therese who had entered Carmel about three months before Therese.  They had spent their time of formation together.  Sister Martha became so attached to Therese that she asked to stay in the novitiate permanently so that she might continue to benefit by Therese's good advice.

The "Prayer to Jesus in the Tabernacle"

Therese wrote the "Prayer to Jesus in the Tabernacle" as a birthday present for Sister Martha.    The lay-sisters, who got up even earlier than the other nuns and did much of the community's domestic work, were not obliged to stay up for Matins.  Sister Martha was the community's hard-working cook.  Her day ended with a visit to the Blessed Sacrament at about 8:00 p.m. In this visit she included her examination of conscience, and the editors of The Prayers of Saint Therese of Lisieux point out that the text suggests that she had asked Therese for a prayer to help in this examination.  

This prayer, written soon after Therese's "Offering of myself as a victim of holocaust to the Merciful Love of God," is important to understanding Therese and has, I believe, been somewhat overlooked to date.1 Thanks to the generosity of the Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites and the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, you can read it online.  Yet, because the introduction and the notes, which do not appear online, contribute much to our understanding of Sister Martha and of the prayer, I strongly recommend consulting the volume The Prayers of Saint Therese of Lisieux.

Sister Martha, who had lost her mother at age four, spent her childhood in two different orphanages, and lost her father when she was no more than twelve, was marked all her life by the lack of maternal affection and of a stable early home. Despite a sincere devotion, she found it hard to live peacefully with those around her.  Therese acknowledges the faults this sister will have to confront on many evenings:

If I were more united to You, more charitable with my sisters, more humble and more mortified, I would feel less sorrow when I talk with you in prayer.

Yet, in a personal Theresian note, "very far from becoming discouraged, I come to you with confidence."  The line "I beg You to act in me despite my resistance" speaks to the spirit of contradiction with which Sister Martha had to contend.  Therese assures her boldly that on "the last evening of my life" she will reach at once "the unending day of eternity, when I will place in your Divine Heart the struggles of exile!" This conviction that those who trust in love will go straight to heaven, which, as  we have seen, marked Therese in a conversation with Sister Febronie before the latter's death in 1892, seems to find more frequent expression starting in 1895. 

Sister Martha's later life

Therese's relationship with Sister Martha is vital to a full understanding of Therese and of her life in the community, and I hope to examine it further.  Despite her lack of formal education, Sister Martha was an important witness at both processes, speaking simply and in rich detail of what she observed in Therese during the nine years they spent together.  Happily, in the end Sister Martha received the grace of the confidence Therese modeled for her.  Before her death at age 51, she received the last sacraments on August 28, 1916.   She said:

During the ceremony I felt the presence of our little saint. It was like a heavenly voice that said in my ear, “You too, if you wish in spite of your poor life, you can go straight to heaven” and I understood that the greatest sinner could obtain this grace through confidence and humility.2 

 May the companion for whom Therese wrote this prayer draw us all to the same bold confidence that brought Sister Martha to the Divine Heart.

Footnotes:

1.  The autograph of the prayer was destroyed; we have only a copy, which was fortunately made to be submitted to the Process of Therese's writings before the autograph was burned.  Most of Sister Martha's private papers were burned after her death to prevent tuberculosis from spreading in the monastery.  See Sainte Therese de l'Enfant Jesus et de la Sainte-Face, Correspondance generale, T. 1 (Paris: Editions du Cerf and Desclee de Brouwer, 1992), p. 68, footnote 46.  Most unfortunately, this bonfire consumed other notes from Therese which had not been submitted to the Process.  No one copied them before destroying the oriiginals.  An oral tradition in the Lisieux Carmel maintains that some of the novices received many more notes from Therese than they contributed to the Process.  Sister Martha, however, included the text of this prayer in her oral testimony before the diocesan process.  That some of Therese's other notes to her were burned is a serious loss to the archive of Therese's correspondence.  

 2.  http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/les-novices/marthe-de-j%C3%A9sus/biographie, accessed July 16, 2020.

In July 1895: Therese has offered herself to Merciful Love on June 9.  She is now working as assistant to the portress and as a "remunerated painter," painting small objects for the community to sell.  in her scant free time, she is writing the first manuscript of her memoir.

In Carmel, the nuns, and, outside, the Guerin family were preparing for the entrance of Therese's cousin, Marie Guerin, who was to be called Sister Marie of the Eucharist.  Three years older than Therese, she had sensed a religious vocation since her first communion.  It was only on the day Therese received the veil, September 24, 1890, that her vocation to Carmel was confirmed.  Her parents, Isidore and Celine Guerin, loved the youngest of their two daughters very much.  Jeanne, their only other child, had married and moved to Caen, and they found the sacrifice of Marie very hard.

The Guerins were settled at their summer estate, La Musse, near Evreux, and were entertaining houseguests.  They knew it would be their last visit there with Marie.  On July 10, 1895, Madame Guerin wrote to her husband's oldest niece, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart (Marie Martin):

  For me, what increases my sorrow considerably is seeing my husband sad and suffering. He is however very admirable in his submission! But men are not made to suffer! Women can bear suffering for much longer. . . .

         But if you know a mother’s heart, you will see that in addition to her sorrow, she suffers more for her child than for herself; she trembles as the great day approaches. Poor little child, being raised to such a great grace!

          Dear Marie, do ask that I be given the gift of prayer so that God might make us saints and, if he is ready to accept my dear little one to be his Spouse, that she might become a little saint, and become more perfect every day. Well, my dear Marie, in a word, may Jesus pray in us.

     Read the full text of Madame Guerin's letter to Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, July 10, 1895, on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.  Stay tuned for another momentous event in the Martin-Guerin family circle before Marie's entrance. 

St. Therese and the Eucharist

in the Carmel of Lisieux

 At 14, St. Therese sent her gold bracelet to be melted down to form part of this monstrance for the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Montmartre in Paris.

In her account of the influenza epidemic that visited the Carmel in 1891-1892, what Therese remembers most vividly is “the ‘unspeakable privilege” of being allowed to receive the Eucharist daily.  To understand it better, we will look at Therese’s lifelong hunger for the Eucharist and at little-known details of her experience of receiving the Eucharist in Carmel.

Therese’s experience of the Eucharist in childhood

Therese was born into a family with a fervent Eucharistic spirituality.  Her parents attended Mass every day, and, as soon as the children were old enough, they accompanied Louis and Zelie.  In 1910 her sister Marie testified:

My parents received communion frequently, more than once a week, which was rather exceptional at that time.  At Lisieux, my father received communion four or five times a week.[1]

Sketch of Therese throwing petals in a Eucharistic procession from Thérèse, d. Lisieux. (1911). Soeur Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus et de la sainte face: religieuse carmélite, morte en odeur de sainteté au Carmel de Lisieux le 30 septembre, 1897, à l'âge de 24 ans. Paris: Libraire S.-Paul.

Therese was eleven when she made her First Communion.  Before that, her experience of the Eucharist consisted largely of gazing at the host at Benediction, praying in the presence of the tabernacle, and longing to receive the Eucharist.  She took part in Eucharistic processions (and she was elated if one of the petals she tossed up touched the monstrance) and visited the Blessed Sacrament every day.  Until she started school (about three months before her ninth birthday), she made these visits with her father, who was retired from business.  The two went for a walk almost every afternoon, and they never came home without visiting one of the town’s churches or chapels to pray before the Blessed Sacrament.[2]  This was how Therese first visited the Carmelite chapel.[3]

Therese wanted to receive the Eucharist

while she was very young

From the age of at least seven she had a great desire to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.  This desire deepened in the months leading up to May 1880, when Celine, then eleven, made her first communion.[4]  Every evening Pauline gave Celine a lesson to prepare her.  Whenever she was allowed to stay, Therese listened, saying that four years was not too long to prepare for her own first communion.[5]  Celine reports that on the day of her own first communion “Therese looked at me with a kind of holy respect, and hardly dared to touch me.”[6]  Therese remembered the day of Celine’s first communion as “one of the most beautiful” days of her life.[7] 

Celine at 12 and Therese at 8, October 1881, courtesy of the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux

In 1910 Leonie testified:

There was a rule at that time that one had to be ten before the preceding January 1 before one could be admitted to first communion.  Therese was born on 2 January, so she was put back a whole year.

Every year her longings were renewed, as first communion time came round.  I remember a very touching little incident, Therese was, I think, going on nine at the time.  Walking along the street with her sisters one day, she saw the bishop on his way to the station, and she said to us:  “Shall I go and ask his Lordship if I can make my first communion next year?  It’s hard being put back a year just because I was born on 2 January.”  I was very well aware of the anguish this caused her. . . . I am not afraid to say that the Servant of God was perfectly capable of making her first communion even well before she was seven . . .[8]

At Christmastime, too, Therese’s longing to receive intensified.  Marie testified:

At Christmas time, when she saw us go off to midnight Mass whilst she had to remain at home because she was too young, she said to me, “If you will take me with you, I, too, will go to communion.  I could slip in among the others, and no one will take any notice.”  She was very sad when I told her that it was impossible.[9]

Therese’s First Communion
and her frequent reception of the Eucharist as a laywoman

The grille where St. Therese received her First Communion at the Benedictine Abbey in 1884. Used with permission of The Far East.

When she started school at the Benedictine Abbey, Therese sacrificed her 15 minutes of recreation time every afternoon at one o’clock to pray before the tabernacle in the chapel.[10]   The care with which Therese prepared for her First Communion at the Abbey, and her description “Ah! How sweet was that first kiss of Jesus!”[11] are well known.  Afterward, her longing to receive again increased: “After her first communion, she lived only for the moment when she could receive our Lord a second time.”[12]  “She would count down the days until her next Communions, finding they were too wide apart.”[13]

During Therese’s lifetime, before the decree of Pope St. Pius X on frequent communion, confessors regulated the frequency with which their lay penitents received communion.  After she left school, Therese was permitted to receive Communion four or five times a week. At age twenty-two, she writes of how her audacity had grown since then.  Speaking of the spring of 1887, when she was fourteen, she writes:

 Therese at 13, in February 1886. Courtesy of the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux

 

 

 

 

 He gave Himself to me in Holy Communion more frequently than I would have dared hope.  I’d taken as a rule of conduct to receive, without missing a single one, the Communions my confessor permitted, allowing him to regulate the number and not asking.  At this time in my life, I didn’t have the boldness I now have, for I’m very sure a soul must tell her confessor the attraction she feels to receive her God.  It is not to remain in a golden ciborium that He comes to us each day from Heaven; it’s to find another Heaven, infinitely more dear to Him than the first: the Heaven of our soul, made to His image, the living temple of the adorable Trinity![14]

At the Lisieux Carmel:

no daily Communion under Mother Marie de Gonzague

Against the background of all these Eucharistic graces, and of the consolations she speaks of receiving in 1887, it must have been a shock to Therese when, on entering the religious life, she found herself not only suddenly plunged into dryness but also permanently denied frequent communion.  Mother Marie de Gonzague was responsible for this deprivation.  In 1888, when Therese entered, it was customary for the prioress, not the confessor, to decide how often each nun might receive communion.  Mother Gonzague sometimes abused her authority in the matter of Holy Communion.  In a document signed by five other nuns, Therese's sister Pauline, now Sister Agnes of Jesus, wrote:

What is much more dreadful is the way in which the Holy Eucharist was sometimes dispensed! Mother Marie de Gonzague once promised Communion as a reward to the Sister who would catch a rat! It would also be taken away for a trifle. How shameful this is to reveal![15]

“Receive communion often, very often;”

Therese prays to St. Joseph for that grace

 Therese, 16, in January 1889, courtesy of the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of LisieuxMother Gonzague was “afraid of daily communion.”[16]  Therese, however, continued to believe that Jesus intended to give Himself to us in the Eucharist every day.  In May 1889, when Therese was a 16-year-old novice, she wrote to her cousin, Marie Guerin, who planned to deprive herself of communion because of scruples about her reaction to the nude statues she saw at the exposition in Paris:

Dear little sister, receive Communion often, very often. . . . That is the only remedy if you want to be healed.[17]

Despite Therese’s heroic obedience, at least four witnesses attest that she continued fervently in this belief.  Not being allowed to receive Jesus every day was an acute personal deprivation to her.  Her sister Marie called it “her main source of suffering in Carmel.”[18]  Characteristically, to bring about a change in the custom, she turned to her usual weapon: prayer.  Several witnesses testify that she prayed to St. Joseph for this favor.  Sister Genevieve of St. Teresa:

In Carmel she prayed to Saint Joseph a lot to obtain for her the freedom to receive communion more frequently.  Pope Leo XIII’s decree transferring the regulation of this frequency from superiors to confessors filled her with joy.  She was always grateful to St. Joseph for this, for it was to him that she gave the credit for this decision.[19]

Sister Agnes of Jesus adds that Therese prayed specifically that the authority to regulate the communions of religious might be assigned to the confessor (as it customarily was for lay persons):

As a Carmelite, she turned to Saint Joseph to obtain the favour of daily Communion and the freedom of the confessor in this respect.^[20]

Therese triumphant: the 1891 Decree transfers to confessors

the authority to regulate the nuns’ Communions

Her prayer was answered when Pope Leo XIII issued what came to be called the “1891 Decree.”  Characteristically, Therese interpreted it as an intensely personal favor; Celine wrote that the decree “seemed to Therese a response to her ardent pleas.”[21]  Mother Agnes said the  granting of this prayer “considerably increased her faith in St. Joseph.”[22]

Actually dated December 17, 1890, the decree reserved to the confessor of a religious community the sole authority to regulate the frequency of the nuns’ communions.  The religious need only notify their prioress when the confessor had given them permission to receive, but the prioress had no authority to refuse.  According to Sister Agnes of Jesus, Therese was elated

Holy communion was her greatest desire and happiness.  When the 1891 Decree came out, she hoped that confessors would at last be free to allow those whom they thought fit for it to receive holy communion daily.  This was what the pope wanted, and she was delighted.  She sounded triumphant: “It’s not right for the frequency of holy communion to be regulated by the Mother Prioress; that is something that has always shocked me.”[23]

Mother Gonzague obstinate, Fr. Youf afraid:

daily Communion did not become the practice at Lisieux Carmel

Sadly, after nearly three years of deprivation, Therese was to suffer another cruel disappointment.  Pauline recounts what happened at the Lisieux Carmel:

When the Decrees of 1891 withdrew from Mother Superiors the right to regulate Communions in their communities, Mother Marie de Gonzague accepted the directives with respect and submission to the Church. Soon, however, when the confessor saw fit to allow some of the Sisters daily Communion and not others, her jealousy resurfaced. Father Youf was afraid, and the number of Communions once again became the same for all the nuns.[24]

Fr. Louis-Auguste Youf, chaplain to the Carmelites of Lisieux through Therese's whole religious life, courtesy of the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of LisieuxFather Louis-Auguste Youf (1842-1897) was the community’s chaplain and confessor throughout Therese’s religious life.  He was in poor health; Sister Marie of the Trinity said that he “suffered from cerebral anemia and could not bear to be asked for spiritual direction outside of confession.”[25]  He could not hold out against the fiery opposition of Mother Gonzague to daily communion.  Yet he felt keenly his inability to give this privilege to Therese.  Sister Agnes of Jesus:

Father Youf, our chaplain, spoke to me admiringly of her [Sister Therese] very often. “And to think,” he said to me one day, “I am not at liberty to allow such a perfect nun daily Communion!”[26]

How ironic that, although Therese’s prayer was answered for many other religious communities all over the world, she herself enjoyed the consolation of the daily Eucharist only for a couple of months during and after the influenza outbreak in Carmel.  Although, for almost the whole nine and a half years of her religious life, she had to go without the grace she so much desired, that did not prevent God from answering her prayer “to unite me so closely to Him that He live and act in me.”[27]  What hope that gives to all of us who, for whatever reason, cannot receive Jesus in the Eucharist frequently.

The influenza pandemic:“the unspeakable consolation of receiving Holy Communion every day”

It was, then, against the background of being forced to go without daily Eucharist for almost four years, from the ages of 15 to 19, that Therese finally received this joyful privilege during the outbreak of influenza.  What a paradox: the pandemic of 2020 has deprived us of the Eucharist, but the pandemic of the 1890s allowed Therese, who was constantly deprived of it, at last to receive Jesus every day.  While the life of the Carmel was disrupted and Mother Gonzague confined to bed in the infirmary, Fr. Youf was free to follow his inclinations.  Mother Marie of the Angels noted:

[SisterTherese] found him [Jesus] in the Eucharist where he never left her, so to receive communion every day was her dream; Father Youf, who had so much esteem for this privileged soul, granted her this favor for several months.[28]

In these notes Mother Marie tactfully does not state that Fr. Youf was free to grant this privilege only because of the pandemic, but she signed the document in which Mother Agnes detailed those circumstances.  Therese mentions no human agent, attributing everything to Jesus:

All through the time the community was undergoing this trial, I had the unspeakable consolation of receiving Holy Communion every day. Ah! this was ^[15] sweet indeed! Jesus spoiled me for a long time, much longer than He did His faithful spouses, for He permitted me to receive Him while the rest didn’t have this same happiness.[29]

This exceptional permission did not pass without remark.  Sister Agnes of Jesus, preparing to testify at the second Process, remembered that “a sister” said to Therese: “Why do you receive communion every day? We don't see how you deserve it any more than the others.”  Therese did not answer.[30]

Therese as sacristan:

“I was very fortunate, too, to touch the sacred vessels . . ."

Therese as sacristan, from Thérèse, d. Lisieux., Taylor, T. Nimmo. (1914). Soeur Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower of Jesus: a new and complete translation of L'historie d'une ame. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons.

Another grace associated with the Eucharist came to Therese because of the epidemic. When it broke out, she was assigned as aide to the sacristan.  We can deduce that, in that office, she never touched the Mass vessels without explicit authorization, for Mother Marie of the Angels wrote:

After she left the novitiate, I had her for some time as my aide in the sacristy.  In this office I could still admire how great her humility, her deference, her obedience were; she would never have offered herself for anything that could have put her forward, keeping herself very little and never touching the sacred vessels without my permission.  [my translation][31]

But during the epidemic, the full responsibility fell on Therese, for her supervisor, then Sister Stanislaus of the Sacred Hearts, was very ill:

I was very fortunate, too, to touch the sacred vessels and to prepare the little linen cloths destined to come in contact with Jesus. I felt that I should be very fervent and recalled frequently these words spoken to a holy deacon: “You are to be holy, you ^[20] who carry the vessels of the Lord.”[32]

Therese went to great lengths

to receive Holy Communion in Carmel

Although the privilege of daily Communion was withdrawn from Therese several months after the influenza epidemic and never granted again, she exerted herself to receive it on every possible occasion.  Even after she became ill, she dragged herself to the choir for Mass every communion morning:

Sister Therese of St. Augustine:

All the sisters who lived with her knew that, during the last years of her life, when her health was already broken, she used to get up for morning Mass after sleepless nights in pain, even during the worst cold of winter.[33]

Sister Marie of the Trinity reported that Therese would suffer anything rather than miss a communion.  One communion day, Therese was very sick and had been told to take some medicine, which would have meant she would have to miss her communion. 

Faced with this dilemma Sister Therese broke down and  cried, but she pleaded her cause so ably with Mother Prioress that not only was she allowed to postpone the medicine until after Mass, but from that day on the custom of missing holy communion in such cases was abolished.[34]

This testimony is more remarkable because, as Therese herself says, after the grace of Christmas 1886 she cried “rarely and with great difficulty.”[35]  Further, she was able to change a policy which till then had deprived the sick of communions they would otherwise have been granted.

Even in the last weeks in which she could walk, Therese exerted herself to get down to Mass.  Sister Agnes of Jesus remembers a day in May 1897 when, after a painful vesicatory treatment, Therese had attended Mass and received Communion.  Sister Agnes, upset by her little sister’s condition, followed Therese into her cell:

I shall always see her seated on her little bench, her back supported by a partition of rough boards.  She was quite exhausted and was gazing at me with a sad but very gentle look!  My tears redoubled, and, guessing how much I was causing her to suffer, I begged pardon on my knees. She said simply:

“This is not suffering too much to gain one Communion!” 

To repeat the phrase is nothing; one had to hear her state it.[36]

Therese prophesied that the nuns would receive Holy Communion daily; the prophecy was fulfilled after her death

During her lifetime, Therese did not prevail against Mother Gonzague’s fierce and constant opposition to the practice of daily Communion.  But, although she was little given to prophecy, she promised that the nuns would enjoy that privilege after her death.  Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart:

Some time before her death, she told Mother Marie de Gonzague, who was afraid of daily Communion, “Mother, when I get to heaven, I will make you change your opinion.”  And that is exactly what happened.[37]

Fr. Zacharie-Jules-Eugene Hodierne, chaplain of the Carmelites from October 1897 until 1900. Courtesy of the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.Sister Therese of St. Augustine recounts that Therese said to her sister Marie: “It won’t always be like that.  The time may come when we will have Fr. Hodierne as chaplain, and he will give us holy communion every day.”  Marie answered, “What makes you think Fr. Hodierne will be our chaplain?  There’s nothing to indicate that he will.”  Therese responded:  “I suppose not, but I hope he will come, and we’ll be very pleased with him.”[38]  In fact, Fr. Youf died a week after Therese.  A week after that, on October 15, 1897, Fr. Hodierne was appointed chaplain.  “For his very first instruction he took as his text the words “Come and eat my bread” (Prov. 9:5).  It was an invitation to daily communion, and he made it without any of us telling him about this desire of ours.”[39]

We can imagine how Therese, who suffered more from being refused daily communion than from anything else, and who on most days heard the words of consecration without being able to receive, rejoiced at being able to procure this grace for her sisters.

*    *    *

In part 8, the final section of this series we will consider, among other things, how Therese rose to the occasion during the epidemic and how the diminished community faced its future. 

[1] St. Therese of Lisieux by those who knew her, ed. and tr. Christopher O’Mahony, O.C.D.  Dublin: Veritas Press, 1973, p. 84

[2] Ibid., p. 138.

[3] Story of a Soul, 3^rd ed., ed. and tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  (Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, 1996), p. 36

[4] Sister Marie-Joseph of the Cross, O.S.B. (Marcelline Huse, the housemaid of Therese’s Guerin cousins) testified that she noticed how much Therese longed to receive when her sister Celine and her cousin Jeanne Guerin made their first communions, and how much she felt being unable to receive on Sundays and feasts when her family did so. St. Therese of Lisieux by those who knew her, op. cit., p. 185.

[5] Ibid., p. 39.

[6] Ibid., p. 96.

[7] Story of a Soul, op. cit., p. 57.

[8] St. Therese by those who knew her, op. cit., pp. 173-174.

[9] Ibid., p. 88.

[10] Ibid., p. 138.

[11] Story of a Soul, op. cit., p. 77.

[12] Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, O.C.D. in St. Therese by those who knew her, op. cit., p. 91.

[13] Sister Agnes of Jesus, O.C.D. at the Apostolic Process, paragraph 422:  http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/6-agnes-de-jesus, accessed 6/15/2020.

[14] Story of a Soul, op. cit., pp. 104.

[15] Sister Agnes of Jesus, “In What Milieu Sister Therese Was Sanctified at the Lisieux Carmel,” Apostolic Process, http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/6-agnes-de-jesus, accessed 6/15/2020.

[16] Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart in St. Therese by those who knew her, op. cit., p. 96.

[17] LT 92, to Marie Guerin, May 30, 1889, from The Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux, Volume I,  (Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelite Friars, 1982), p. 569.

[18] St. Therese by those who knew her, op. cit., p. 96.  See also, in the same work, Sister Marie of the Trinity:  “She had a burning desire for holy communion; the inability to receive it daily was the greatest suffering she had to endure,” p. 233.  Sister Agnes of Jesus, Sister Genevieve of St. Teresa (p. 154), Sister Therese of St. Augustine (p. 191), and Mother Marie of the Angels (Preparatory Notes for the Apostolic Process at http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/la-maîtresse-des-novices/marie-des-anges2/plusieurs-témoignages-de-marie-des-anges/notes-préparatoires , accessed 6/23/2020), also testified to Therese’s deep desire to receive communion daily.

[19] Sister Genevieve of St. Teresa in St Therese of Lisieux by those who knew her, op. cit., p. 140.  See also, Sister Agnes of Jesus, Apostolic Process, http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/6-agnes-de-jesus, accessed 6/15/2020, and Mother Marie of the Angels, Preparatory Notes for the Apostolic Process, http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/la-maîtresse-des-novices/marie-des-anges2/plusieurs-témoignages-de-marie-des-anges/notes-préparatoires, accessed 6/15/2020.

[20] Sister Agnes of Jesus, Apostolic Process, http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/6-agnes-de-jesus, accessed 6/15/2020.

[21] Sister Genevieve of St. Teresa, Conseils et souvenirs, http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/la-famille/sr-genevi%C3%A8ve-c%C3%A9line/plusieurs-t%C3%A9moignages-de-sr-genevi%C3%A8ve-c%C3%A9line/conseils-et-souvenirs, accessed 6/18/2020.

[22] Sister Agnes of Jesus, Apostolic Process, http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/6-agnes-de-jesus, accessed 6/15/2020.

[23] Sister Agnes of Jesus, O.C.D. in St. Therese of Lisieux by those who knew her, op. cit., p. 39.

[24] Sister Agnes of Jesus, Apostolic Process, “The Milieu in which Sister Therese of the Child Jesus Sanctified Herself at the Carmel of Lisieux,” http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/6-agnes-de-jesus, accessed 6/15/2020. 

[25] St. Therese of Lisieux by those who knew her, op. cit., p. 247.

[26] Sister Agnes of Jesus, Apostolic Process, http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/6-agnes-de-jesus at paragraph 519, accessed 6/15/2020.

[27] Story of a Soul, op. cit., p. 257.

[28]  Mother Marie of the Angels, Preparatory Notes for the Apostolic Process, http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/la-maîtresse-des-novices/marie-des-anges2/plusieurs-témoignages-de-marie-des-anges/notes-préparatoires, accessed 6/15/2020.

[29] Story of a Soul, op. cit., p. 172.

[30] Sister Agnes of Jesus, NPPA (Preparatory Notes for the Apostolic Process) under the heading “Practice of humility.”  Cited in Sainte Therese de Lisieux (1873-1897), by Guy Gaucher, O.C.D. (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 2010) at page 352.

[31] Mother Marie of the Angels, NPPA, Preparatory Notes for the Apostolic Process, http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/la-ma%C3%AEtresse-des-novices/marie-des-anges2/plusieurs-t%C3%A9moignages-de-marie-des-anges/notes-pr%C3%A9paratoires, accessed 6/15/2020.  Translation copyright Maureen O’Riordan 2020; all rights reserved.

[32] Story of a Soul, op. cit.., p. 172.

[33] St. Therese of Lisieux by those who knew her, op. cit., p. 191.

[34] Ibid., p. 233

[35] /Story of a Soul, op. cit., 97.

[36] St. Therese of Lisieux: Her Last Conversations, ed. and tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  (Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., 1977), p. 256.

[37] St. Therese by those who knew her, op. cit., p. 96.

[38] Ibid., pp. 191.

[39] Ibid., pp. 191-192.

Sister Madeleine of the Blessed Sacrament, 1817-1892

Therese finds Sister Madeleine dead 

We left the Lisieux Carmel on Monday evening, January 4, 1892, when Mother Febronie, the subprioress, died, accompanied by Therese and by the infirmarian, Sister Aimee of Jesus.  The next morning, as Celine recorded, the friends of Carmel gathered for the funeral of Sister Saint-Joseph of Jesus, the foundation’s first postulant.  Two mornings later, on Thursday, January 7, Therese discovered that Sister Madeleine of the Blessed Sacrament, the oldest of the Carmel’s four lay-sisters, or, as the French called them, “converse,” had died during the night.  [Lay-sisters did not recite the Divine Office; they recited simpler prayers instead and did more of the community’s heavy domestic work.  They wore white veils].  In Story of a Soul Therese writes:

One morning upon arising I had a presentiment that Sister Magdalene was dead; the dormitory was in darkness, and no one was coming out of the cells. I decided to enter Sister Magdalene’s cell since the door was wide open.[1] I saw her fully dressed and lying across her bed. I didn’t have the least bit of fear. When I saw that she didn’t have a blessed candle, I went to fetch one for her, along with a wreath of roses.[2]

The Carmel has documented that, at one o’clock in the morning (Therese would have arisen several hours later, at 5:45 a.m.), another nun or nuns, who presumably had found Sister Madeleine dead, had washed her body and dressed her for burial, a ceremony known as the “toilette mortuaire.”[3]  (This explains why her body was clothed in the full habit at dawn, when Therese found her).  The name of the nun or nuns who rendered Sister Madeleine this service was not recorded.  Had another sister been  with her at the moment of her death, Mother Gonzague would have described her final moments in her circular, so we can infer that she died during the night; one hopes that she slipped away in her sleep.  Because almost all the other nuns were sick, it was impossible to maintain a vigil of prayer by the dead sister’s body; Therese wrote: “As soon as a Sister breathed her last, we were obliged to leave her alone.”[4]  Sister Saint-Joseph had, at least, the chaplain and Therese with her, perhaps one or two others; Sister Febronie was accompanied by Sister Aimee of Jesus and Therese; but God came for Sister Madeleine like “the Thief,” as Therese later called him.  On discovering Sister Madeleine’s body, Therese, as sacristan, noticed the absence of the Paschal candle it was customary to place near the body of a dead sister and of the wreath of roses the nuns wore on their Clothing, Profession, and jubilee days, as well as after their death, and she supplied them both. Then she went down to the choir for the usual morning prayer in silence, near Sister Febronie’s coffin.  Sister Febronie’s funeral had already been set for the next day, Friday, January 8^th.

Before looking at the death circular and the double funeral, let’s look at Sister Madeleine’s life.  This task is made much harder because, like Sister Saint-Joseph, she had asked that, in her circular, nothing be said about her life.  But what can we glean about the woman who was in the Carmel almost fifty years and lived with Therese for nearly three years?

Desiree Toutain's youth

  Saint Martin de la Lieue: the church and the river, where Louis Martin often fished  Photo credit: Wikipedia

Desiree Toutain was born in the tiny hamlet of Saint-Hippolyte-des-Pres, near Lisieux, on May 27, 1817, the first child of Marc-Frédéric Toutain, 29, of Beuvilliers, a linen worker, and Luce-Victoire-Jacquette, Lepage, widow, 34, of Lisieux, "owner." They are farmers; perhaps the young widow had become the owner of farmland through the death of her first husband.  The extended Toutain family was already well established as textile workers in Beuvillers.  They had kept the faith throughout the French Revolution, and Desiree’s mother had saved the life of a persecuted priest.  In 1821 Desiree’s parents gave her a little brother, Frederick Isidore, who would become the father of one of Therese’s Benedictine schoolteachers, Madame St. Benoit.[5]  Desiree came from a hard-working family; she cannot have had many years of school, for the Carmel’s Chronicle mentions that “Sister Madeleine could barely write.”  When the family faced money troubles, she had to leave her father’s house and go to her brothers in Paris; they hoped to find her a job there.  As soon as she could, she returned to her father’s house, now in Saint-Martin-de-la-Lieue, which had absorbed the small hamlet where she was born.  Like Sister Febronie, who entered four months before her, Desiree had taken Father Sauvage as her spiritual director.  He recognized her vocation.  But, devout as the family was, her father absolutely refused to approve her entering this new monastery, so poor and so austere.  In the end, she ran away from his house just before her 25^th birthday and was received as a postulant by Mother Genevieve, the new prioress, on Pentecost Sunday, May 15, 1842. 

Sister Madeleine of the Blessed Sacrament

Sister Madeleine was made her way with the two other postulants and five novices then in formation.  She received the habit on July 4, 1843 and made profession on July 10, 1844.   Research yields only a little about her 49 years in Carmel.  Unlike Sister Febronie, she did not live quite long enough to celebrate her 50th jubilee, so we can’t deduce anything from any songs written for that occasion.  The foundation’s Chronicle reports that she was as good as gold: 

My Sister Madeleine with her character that was a bit lively made amends with a heart of gold and deep humility. She was so charitable, so good for the sick, not sparing herself when it came to spending the night near them. Such an excellent judgment that even her Prioresses asked for her opinion.[6]

Sister Madeleine as cook: the miracle of the butter

Sister Madeleine served the community as its cook, and the monastery was so poor that she was often hard pressed to feed the nuns.

One day, the cook [Sister Madeleine] came to tell [Mother Genevieve] that the supply of butter was exhausted.  “My child, I haven’t a farthing,” she answered quietly, “but if there is a little butter still left, go on using it, and let us put our trust in God.”  From the moment the prodigy of Elias was repeated, and Sister Madeleine, even more astonished than was the widow of Sarepta at the sight of her inexhaustible pot of flour, came at the end of two months to her Prioress, saying: “Mother, I really can’t understand it; my little piece of butter is always in the same state! What does it mean? I had only enough for two days, and now, however much I use, it never grows less.”  Be at peace,” was the answer, “your little stock is on the point of being finished.”  And, in fact, some days later an alms was given to the Convent and Sister Madeleine found the pot empty.[7]

Click to see a period photo of a corner of the kitchen where Sister Madeleine worked.

Therese’s sister Marie of the Sacred Heart and Sister Madeleine

Therese’s sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, who often helped in the garden, mentions Sister Madeleine twice in letters to her father:

[I am] a very good gardener, whatever Sr. Madeleine says. This evening at recreation, the two of us had such fun (teasing each other). She says I burn my cuttings in the sun. It doesn’t surprise me, for she soaks hers every night in a bucket of cold water to get them to take root, so she finds my method funny.

Well, it was like the story of the two Invalids… do you remember? I said to her: “Sr. Madeleine, I accustom my flowers to hardship, they know me… the strongest survive; my cuttings and I resemble each other, we muddle through, thanks to God.[8]

Again, when Louis had given the monastery one of his frequent gifts of a big catch of fish:

Thank you darling Father! Thank you, thank you! More lovely fish… you lavish us with too many gifts. . . . .

Sr. Madeleine is delighted, she serves us portions worthy of “Mère Fanchon[9]”. It’s really filling! And there are no stocking-sized portions.[10]

Sister Madeleine’s remark: a great grace for Therese

 Therese as a novice, the month before this conversation took place

Sister Madeleine, with a “heart of gold,” looked out especially for the novices, and Pauline reports that, in 1897, Therese recalled a remark Sister Madeleine had made which, juxtaposed with a contrary remark by another lay-sister, impressed Therese deeply and was the occasion of a significant blessing for her.  The conversation took place in February 1889, when Therese was 16.  The “Yellow Notebook” of Sister Agnes of Jesus says that on July 25, 1897 Therese said to Sister Agnes (her sister Pauline):

Listen to this little, very funny story: One day, after I received the Habit, Sister St. Vincent de Paul saw me with Mother Prioress, and she exclaimed: 'Oh! how well she looks! Is this big girl strong! Is she plump!' I left, quite humbled by the compliment, when Sister Magdalene stopped me in front of the kitchen and said: 'But what is becoming of you, poor little Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus! You are fading away before our eyes! If you continue at this pace, with an appearance that makes one tremble, you won't observe the Rule very long!' I couldn't get over hearing, one after the other, two such contrary appraisals. Ever since that moment, I have never attached any importance to the opinion of creatures, and this impression has so developed in me that, at this present time, reproaches and compliments glide over me without leaving the slightest imprint.[11]

“An expression of joy and peace covered the faces” of the dead

As Sister Madeleine was the last sister whom Therese saw in death during the epidemic, let’s look again at Therese’s reaction to the appearance of her sisters after they died:

It was without effort that the dying passed on to a better life, and immediately after their death an expression of joy and peace covered their faces and gave the impression almost that they were only asleep. Surely this was true because, after the image of this world has passed away, they will awaken to enjoy eternally the delights reserved for the Elect.[12]

Seeing this expression three times in six days on the faces of the women with whom she had lived made a deep impression on Therese, then scarcely 19, and confirmed her childhood belief that death was the gateway to eternal joy.  One can hear an echo of what Louis and Zelie often repeated:  “Oh, the Homeland! the Homeland!”

Sister Madeleine’s death circular; the double funeral for her and Sister Febronie on January 8

The funeral Mass for Sister Febronie suddenly became a double funeral for Febronie and Madeleine, who had entered only four months apart in 1842.  The friends of the Carmel were shocked, on arrival, to find two coffins!  By this time almost the whole community was sick in bed.  Only six or seven of the twenty-two surviving nuns were able to attend the funeral, and then at a cost of great effort on their part.  Mother Gonzague, still in the infirmary, wrote the briefest of circulars.

Soul of faith and devotion, We will stop, my Reverend Mother. We are so broken that it would be impossible for us to write of the untiring devotion of this heart, as big as it was generous in the service of God and her mothers and sisters.[13]

I encourage you to visit Sister Madeleine’s circular on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux to read the touching words Madeleine herself left as a farewell to her prioress and her sisters.

Mother Gonzague continued:

Our venerable Mother Geneviève seemed to have wanted to call the three eldest of her daughters! If there is rejoicing in Heaven, there is sadness in Carmel!...

What heartbreak for us to see to see this morning coming out of our dear cloister, these two coffins that ourselves were not able to be around, being detained in the infirmary.[14]

She signed herself “from death’s garden.” 

Click to see the enclosure door, through which the two coffins were carried that morning.

Sister Madeleine of the Blessed Sacrament was the last of the three elders God called during the influenza epidemic.  The sick nuns began to recover slowly.  In Part 7, we will look at Therese’s experience of the Eucharist during the epidemic.

[1] The Carmelites usually did not enter another nun’s cell.

[2] Story of a Soul, 3^rd ed., tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelite Friars, 1996, p. 171.

[3] Biographie de Soeur Madeleine, Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux at http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/carmel/index.php/les-bonnes-vieilles/madelein-du-st-sacrement/biographie, accessed 6/7/2020.

[4] Story of a Soul, op. cit., p. 171.

[5] On Tuesday, January 5, after the funeral Mass of Sister Saint-Joseph, Celine Martin wrote to her cousin Jeanne LaNeele:  “There are still two of the three sick ones whom they despair of saving, among them Sister Madeleine, aunt of Madame St. Benoît at the Abbey, and another religious whom I do not know.”  [Celine must have been referring to the most severely ill when she says ‘three,” for 13 sisters were already ill as of December 31].  This letter is on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux at http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/celine-martin-soeur-genevieve/2809-de-celine-a-jeanne-la-neele-5-janvier-1892, accessed 6/5/2020.

[6] See the appendix to Sister Madeleine’s obituary circular at http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/les-bonnes-vieilles/madelein-du-st-sacrement/circulaire-de-madeleine-du-st-sacrement, accessed 6/9/2020.

[7] The Foundation of the Carmel of Lisieux and the Reverend Mother Genevieve of St.Teresa, tr. by a Religious of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. Calvados, France: Carmel of Lisieux; London, St. Anselm Society; Philadelphia, Pa., Carmelite Convent, 1913, pp. 88-89.

[8] Letter of Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart to her father, Louis Martin, August 23, 1887 at http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/aout-1887/5143-de-marie-marie-du-sacre-coeur-a-son-pere-m-martin-23-aout-1887, accessed 6/7/2020.

[9] I believe this is a literary allusion, perhaps to a story they’d read at Les Buissonnets.

[10] Letter of Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart to her father, M. Martin, second half of 1887 at http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/marie-martin-marie-du-sacree-coeur-msc/5070-de-marie-marie-du-sacre-coeur-a-son-pere-m-martin-deuxieme-semestre-1887, accessed 6/7/2020.

[11] St. Therese of Lisieux: Her Last Conversations, tr. John Clarke, O.C.D. Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., 1977, pp. 111-112.

[12] Story of a Soul, op. cit., p. 172.  Note that, although the Clarke translation writes that the expressions of the dead women gave the impression “almost that they were only asleep,” the French reads “on aurait dit un douce sommeil,” that is, gave the impression of “a sweet sleep” (our italics).

[13] Circular of Sister Madeleine of the Blessed Sacrament, Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/les-bonnes-vieilles/madelein-du-st-sacrement/circulaire-de-madeleine-du-st-sacrement, accessed 6/7/2020.

 [14] Ibid.

On June 9, 1895, St. Therese, then a 22-year-old professed nun in the Carmel of Lisieux, was suddenly inspired to offer herself as a victim to the Merciful Love of God.  Two days later she expressed the offering in a written prayer, the critical edition of which is one of the gems of the book The Prayers of Saint Therese of Lisieux (see right).   This offering was one of the greatest graces of her short life.

• Where was Therese when she was inspired to offer herself?
• What did she do immediately afterward?
• Who were the first persons she told about it?
• What did she write about "that happy day?"
• What words did she use to formulate the prayer later?
• What happened on June 11?  Where?

To find out: