On Tuesday, October 3, 2023, at 6:00 p.m., I will have the honor of speaking on Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin, St. Therese's parents, and on the Martin family for the Center for Carmelite Studies at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. This is part of a series of events the Center is sponsoring in honor of the 150th jubilee of St. Therese's birth and her recognition by UNESCO. Everyone is welcome.

The statue of Our Lady of Victories flanked by the portraits of Saints Louis and Zelie Martin. St. Jacques Church, Lisieux, 2008Therese would have known this statue of "Our Lady of Victories" from her early childhood. Devotion to Mary under the title "Our Lady of Victories" was widespread in France at that time. Although the feast has since been renamed "Our Lady of the Rosary," churches dedicated to "Our Lady of Victories" still exist.

The Church of Notre-Dame des Victoires (Our Lady of Victories) in Paris. By Guilhem Vellut from Amsterdam, Netherlands (Church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires @ Paris) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Church of Our Lady of Victories in Paris

In Therese's time the Church of Notre-Dame des Victoires  in Paris was already well known as a Marian shrine.

The miracle of 1846

In 1846 Father Charles Desgenettes was pastor.  Because the church was located in a business area, he had very few parishioners, and he believed that he had failed in his ministry there.  He was on the point of resigning his charge when, on December 3, 1846, during and after Mass, he heard an interior voice say "Consecrate your parish to the holy and immaculate Heart of Mary."  With the Archbishop's permission, he consecrated the church to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the evening of Sunday, December 11, 1846.  That morning, fewer than 40 people had been at Mass, but the evening service was attended by more than 500 people. Since then thousands of pilgrims have flocked to the church to give thanks for graces they received through the intercession of Mary. 

The church is considered to be dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Refuge of Sinners, and the Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Heart Father Desgenettes founded prays especially for the conversion of sinners.  Grateful pilgrims have left more than 37,000 votive offerings in thanksgiving.  In 1927 the church was elevated to the rank of a minor basilica.

The statue of Our Lady of Victories, in the church of that name in Paris, before which St. Therese was praying when she received a special grace in November 1887. Photo courtesy of Corrinne May (www.corrinnemay.com)

Our Lady of Victories and the Martin family

Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin both loved Our Lady of Victories.  When Zelie's brother lived near the church while he studied in Paris, she urged him to go in once a day and say a Hail Mary, promising that the Blessed Virgin would protect him in a particular way.  When Louis was in Paris on business, he wrote to Zelie:  "I just lit a candle in Our Lady of Victories, which is a little heaven on earth."  In 1883, when Therese was seriously ill, Louis gave some money to her older sister, Marie, and asked Marie to write to Notre-Dame des Victoires and ask to have a novena of Masses offered for Therese's cure.  Her miraculous cure in response to the prayers she and her sisters offered before their own statue of Mary took place during the novena.  In November 1887, when Louis was escorting Celine and Therese on the pilgrimage to Rome, he took them to Paris a few days early and chose a hotel near Notre-Dame des Victoires.  A little later in this series we will return to the grace St. Therese received whle praying to Mary there.

Walk in the steps of the Martin family in Paris

Our Lady of Victories is a popular pilgrimage site today.  Together with the priests, the Benedictines of Montmartre are responsible for the Church.  Daily they pray the divine office, participate in the Masses, lead the rosary, and share, with the pilgrims, in the Eucharistic adoration.  For information, visit the English Web site of the Basilica of Our Lady of Victories in Paris at http://www.notredamedesvictoires.com/?lang=en.  [Note of 5/17/2022:  I'm sorry this link no longer works.   To my great regret, the Basilica of Our Lady of Victories has removed their beautifully executed English page].

UPDATE: the series of monthly days of prayer in the presence of the reliquary of Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin and of St. Therese at the Carmelite Monastery in Philadelphia will end on Sunday, October 5, 2014, with the conference "A Map of St. Therese's Way of Confidence and Love."  The reliquary will not be in Philadelphia on the first Sunday of November.  The Magnificat Foundation has announced its third Magnificat Day of Faith for Saturday, November 1, 2014, in Memphis, Tennessee. The relics will be venerated in Memphis—please tell your friends in the South-- so the day of prayer announced for Sunday, November 2, 2014, with the conference "The Martin Family and the Communion of Saints: Grief, Healing, and Eternal Life" in Philadelphia will not take place.  We apologize for disappointing you.

See more about the Magnificat Day of Faith in Memphis on November 1, 2014. 

To attend a day of prayer at the Philadelphia Carmel, act now.  There are four days left: on the first Sundays of July, August, September, and October.  Please come to the next day on Sunday, July 6, 2014, when the topic of the conference will be "The Eucharist as the source and summit of the spirituality of the Martin family."  For other chances to pray in the presence of the reliquary in Philadelphia after October 5, 2014, please stay tuned.

An updated flyer is below.  You may download the flyer as a PDF or as a jpeg.

An Encounter with St. Thérèse of Lisieux
and her parents, Blessed Louis and Zélie Martin 

Pray in the presence of their relics on Sunday, July 6, 2014
from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. 

“The Eucharist as Source and Summit
of the Life of the Martin Family"

- a conference by Maureen O’Riordan at 1:00 p.m.

Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament at 3:30 p.m.

Carmelite Monastery                                Bookstore Open
1400 66th Avenue                                     10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
(66th Avenue and Broad Street)               Spiritual books, 
Philadelphia, Pa.                                     children's books, DVDs,
Free parking in monastery lot                  and religious articles.
on 66th Avenue                                        Cash and checks only

Chapel is handicapped-accessible.

Download the flyer

as a PDF

as a JPEG

Learn more about Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin at the Web site "Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin."

Pope Paul VI

 The Vatican announced today that Pope Francis has approved the promulgation of the decree for the beatification of Pope Paul VI, formerly Giovanni Cardinal Montini.  The ceremony of beatification is scheduled for October 19, 2014, Mission Sunday.  It will happen at the concusion of the Third Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family, according to Vatican Radio.  That date is the 17th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's proclamation of St. Therese of Lisieux as a Doctor of the Church and the sixth anniversary of the beatification of her parents, Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin.  Both these ceremonies also fell on Mission Sunday.

 Healing of a child in California in 2001 certified as beatification miracle

Last Tuesday, May 6, Vatican Insider  reported that the cardinals and bishops of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints had voted unanimously to approve the miracle attributed to the intercession of Pope Paul VI. In 2001 a woman in California was expecting a baby, and her doctors predicted that the unborn child had such serious problems that it would either die in the womb or be born with severe kidney trouble.  The mother refused an abortion.  A nun who was a friend of the family urged her to pray to the late Pope, and the child was born safely in his 39th week.  The child, who has not been named, is now 13 and in good health. Read the details of the healing in Vatican Insider.

The bond between Pope Paul VI and St. Therese of Lisieux

 "I was born to the Church the day Saint Therese was born to heaven"

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini was born on September 26, 1897 in Lombardy.  He was baptized on September 30, 1897, the day St. Therese died.  Later, when he became Pope, he received the ad limina visit of the bishop of Seez, the diocese where Therese was born, and said:

I was born to the Church on the day on which the Saint was born to heaven. That tells you just how special the links tying me to her are. My mother acquainted me with Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus whom she loved. I’ve read the Histoire d’une âme several times, the first time in my youth."1

When he received the distinguished French author Jean Guitton, Pope Paul VI said to him:

"You know that I was baptized in 1897, on the day when Thérèse Martin, later Thérèse of the Child Jesus, passed away in France. On one of the secret notes she made before her death (cf. Last Conversations), Thérèse said: `When I am dead, I shall visit the cradles of baptized infants'. On pilgrimage in Rome, she had encountered some mediocre priests; instead of criticizing them and retreating to the periphery, she resolved to place herself at the very heart of things, in love alone. I shall read you what she said about this in the `Story of a Soul"'. Taking the book, the Pope read out the famous passage: "I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times and places. I cried out: I have found my place in the Church. My vocation is love."
(Reported by Jean Guitton, who adds: "Paul VI did not read me the French text, but the Latin translation in the breviary.")2

In his speech at a concert marking the centenary of the birth of Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II recalled this coincidence of dates:

In mentioning Concesio, the birthplace of Giovanni Battista Montini, I naturally think of his family home and the baptismal font where he received the sacrament of new birth on the very day that — how can we fail to remember it? — the soul of St Thérèse of Lisieux departed this world. We can certainly link the spirituality of this Carmelite saint with the religious desire of Pope Paul VI, who expressed his great love for Christ through his long, wise service to the Church.3

1938: Pope Paul VI writes to the Lisieux Carmel about his lifelong devotion to St. Therese

As early as 1938, when he was "Substitute for Ordinary Affairs" under Cardinal Pacelli, who was then Vatican Secretary of State but later Pope Pius XII, the future Cardinal Montini wrote to the Carmel of Lisieux that he "had been following 'for a long time and with the liveliest interest the development of the Carmel convent of Lisieux.' And added that he had 'great devotion to Saint Teresa, a little relic of whom I keep on my work table.'"4

 1970: Pope Paul VI opened the way for St. Therese to be Declared a Doctor of the Church

 As we know, it was Pope John Paul II who, on October 19, 1997, declared St. Therese a Doctor of the Church.  But this could never have happened had not Pope Paul VI named the first two women, Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila, Doctors of the Church on September 27, 1970.  In fact, the demand among the people and the bishops for Therese to be named a doctor began at her canonization in 1925, but, because she was a woman, the Vatican ordered the gathering of the signatures of the world's bishops stopped in the 1930s.  In "Therese: A Doctor of the Third Millennium," their circular letter to the Carmelite family when Therese's doctorate was announced, the general superiors of the two branches of the Carmelite Order, Father Camillo Maccise, O.C.D., and Father Joseph Chalmers, O. Carm. give the history:

I. A LONG ROAD TOWARDS THE DOCTORATE

First Steps

4. Already from the time of her canonization, there was no lack of bishops, preachers, theologians, and faithful from different countries who sought to have our sister Thérèse of Lisieux declared a Doctor of the Church. This flow of petitions in favor of the doctorate became official in 1932 on the occasion of the inauguration of the crypt of the Basilica at Lisieux, which was accompanied by a congress at which five cardinals, fifty bishops, and a great number of faithful participated. On June 30, Fr. Gustave Desbuquois, SJ, with clear and precise theological argument, spoke of Thérèse of Lisieux as Doctor of the Church. Surprisingly, his proposal had the support of many of the participants, bishops, and theologians. This positive reaction to the suggestion of Fr. Desbuquois spread universally. Mons. Clouthier, Bishop of Trois Rivières, Canada, wrote to all the bishops of the world in order to prepare a petition to the Holy See. By 1933 he had already received 342 positive replies from bishops who supported the proposal to have Thérèse of Lisieux declared a Doctor of the Church.

The Obstacle of Being a Woman

5 The petition of Fr. Desbuquois was presented to Pope Pius XI, along with a letter of Mother Agnes of Jesus, sister of Therese and prioress of the Lisieux Carmel. She informed the Pope about the great success of the Theresian Congress. On 31 August 1932, Cardinal Pacelli, Secretary of State, replied to Mother Agnes' letter on behalf of the Pope. He was very pleased about the positive results of the congress, but added that it would be better not to speak of Thérèse's doctorate yet, even though, "Her doctrine never ceased to be for him a sure light for souls searching to know the spirit of the Gospel."

However, the time was not yet ripe for a woman to be declared a Doctor of the Church. In fact, Pope Pius XI had already replied negatively to the Carmelites' petition to have St. Teresa of Jesus, "Mother of Spiritual People" declared doctor. The petition was turned down because she was a woman. "Obstat sexus" ("Her sex stands in the way"), the Pope replied, adding that he would leave the decision to his successor. After the Vatican's negative response, and by its order, the gathering of signatures in favor of Thérèse of Lisieux's doctorate was interrupted.

Circumstances Change

6. Teresa of Jesus and Catherine of Siena's declaration as Doctors of the Church in 1970 eliminated completely any obstacle to naming a woman doctor. As a result, the proposal for the doctorate of Thérèse of Lisieux was taken up again.

In 1973, the centenary of her birth, Mgr. Garrone stated the question anew: "Could St. Thérèse of Lisieux become some day a Doctor of the Church? I respond affirmatively, without hesitation, encouraged by what has happened to the great St. Teresa and St. Catherine of Siena."

 It was Pope Paul VI who not only gave the Church Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila as Doctor of the Church but also removed the "obstacle" of St. Therese's gender, which had stalled her movement to the Doctorate for nearly forty years.  How much we owe him.

1971: Thoughts pf Pope Paul VI about St. Therese's Spirituality

In a general audience on December 29, 1971, Pope Paul called Therese

she who taught in our day the spirit of childhood.  Spiritual childhood is one of the liveliest religious currents of our time.  It has nothing immature or affected about it.  Expressed in simple and innocent language, it is certainly derived from the paradoxical but always divine saying of Jesus: "Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the reign of God."  (Mt 18:3).  . . . The basis of this evangelical spirituality could not be more authoritative.  It unfolds according to a humility not only moral but also theological and metaphysical, if I may say so: the humility of the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:38, 48), the humility of the wise, who have a sense of the transcendence of God and of the absolute dependence of the creature on the Creator; a humility all the more justified when the creature is something, because all depends on God, and the confrontation between our every limitation and the Infinite obliges us to bow our heads.  And humility, in this spiritual school, unites with confidence, because of how many signs God has given us of His goodness and His love.  If He wants to be called Father, our spirits must be filled with the filial spirit, and with a filial spirit, a childlike spirit full of faith and abandonment. This is the spiritual childhoood, which, at the school of the tradition of the Church, St. Therese of the Child Jesus sums up:  "It's the way of confidence, of complete abandonment."5 

June 9, 1964:  Paul VI and the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the writings of the Servants of God, Louis and Zelie Martin.

1971: Paul VI unites the two causes for sainthood of Louis and Zelie Martin

The cause for Louis Martin was opened in the diocese of Bayeux on March 22, 1957.  The cause for Zelie Guerin Martin was opened in the diocese of Sees on October 10, 1957.  Their last surviving daughter, Celine (Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face) had the joy of testifying about them before she died in 1959.  In 1971, for the first time in the history of the Church, Paul VI, finding that they became holy as spouses, ordered that the two causes be united into one single cause.  He laid the foundation for their being beatified together in 2008.6  (An Italian couple, Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Blessed Maria Corsini, were beatified in 2001.  Their cause, however, was introduced only in 1994, long after Paul VI united the causes of Louis and Zelie).

1973: Paul VI offers St. Therese of Lisieux as a teacher of prayer and hope

In 1973, on the occasion of the centenary of Therese's birth, Pope Paul VI wrote a letter to Jean-Marie-Clement-Badre, then bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux, and "offered her as a teacher of prayer and theological virtue of hope, and a model of communion with the Church, calling the attention of teachers, educators, pastors and theologians themselves to the study of her doctrine."7  

 Pope Paul VI opened the way for St. Therese to be recognized as a Doctor of the Church and for Louis and Zelie Martin to be declared a blessed couple.  How fitting that he will be declared blessed on the same date, October 19, and the same liturgical feast, Mission Sunday, on which Therese was named a Doctor of the Church and on which Louis and Zelie were declared blessed.

Copyright Maureen O'Riordan 2014.  All rights reserved.  If you want to make use of this story, please apply to me for written permission.

 _____________________

1"The Popes and Little Teresa of the Child Jesus," by Giovanni Ricciardi, in the May 2003 issue of 30 Days in the Church and in the World. 

2"Popes" at "St. Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower"

3"Address of His Holiness Pope John Paul II at a Concert Marking the Anniversary of the Birth of Pope Paul VI."

4"The Popes and Little Teresa of the Child Jesus,", Ricciardi, op. cit.

5 General Audience of Pope Paul VI, December 29, 1971

6Biographical Profile of the Venerable Servants of God Louis Martin and Zelie Martin.

7Quoted in the "Saint Therese Calendar 2014" published by the St. Therese National Office in Dublin, Ireland.

10/18/14: Note that this story is copyrighted. I'm sorry to say that everal readers have copied it onto their own sites and Facebook pages without crediting the source.  Kindly do not do that, but please feel free to excerpt no more than four lines, acknowledging the source, and link to the story to encourage your readers to read it here.  Thank you.