See St. John Paul II naming St. Therese a doctor of the Church before the vast crowd in St. Peter's Square; hear him say, in French, her famous words "My vocation, at last I have found it!  My vocation is love," and see women from different countries casting rose petals on her reliquary.  Thanks to ina.fr.

On the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila (which was Therese's feast day during her lifetime), I recommend "Be Missionaries of God's Mercy - A Carmelite Challenge," a brief article by Dr. Keith Egan about the role of mercy in the Carmelite tradition as typified by its two female Doctors of the Church, Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux.  This article appeared in the summer/fall 2014 issue of Carmelite Review.  May the whole Christian family, including the Carmelite family, be missionaries of mercy! 

In this film of the opening Mass of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, view Pope Francis incensing and praying before the "traveling reliquaries" of St. Therese of Lisieux and of her parents, Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, from 10:18 to 12:10.  Sunday, October 5, 2014.

Louis Martin visited Rome at least twice in his lifetime.  One hundred and twenty-nine years ago, when Therese was twelve, he made a pilgrimage through Europe with a priest friend, Father Charles Marie.  On September 27, 1885, he wrote from Rome to his oldest daughter, Marie:

We finally arrived in Rome at six-thirty in the morning.  For me. Saint Peter's is really the most beautiful thing in the world.  I prayed for you, whom I love so much.  It's so pleasant to pray here! . . .

During these visits to Saint Peter's, Louis, of course, prayed for his five daughters, including St. Therese, and remembered in prayer his wife, who had died eight years before: 

I place you all in the grace of God and pray for you every day in Saint Peter's.  The thought of your mother also follows me constantly.

[See A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885.  Staten Island, New York: Society of Saint Paul, 2011, pp. 363-364.].

           Two years later, in November 1887, he returned to Rome as part of a diocesan pilgrimage with Celine and Therese.  It was then, on November 20, 1887, that Therese asked Pope Leo XIII for permission to enter the Carmel.  Because she refused to leave the Pope's feet, she was carried out of the room by the Swiss Guards.  But on May 17, 1925, her relics were warmly welcomed at Saint Peter's for the ceremony of her canonization.  That night the outer facade of Saint Peter's was outlined with lamps for the first time since 1870.  

The relics of St. Therese returned to Saint Peter's Basilica on October 19, 1997, when St. John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church.  The relics of Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin were exposed for veneration in Saint Peter's Basilica in January 2009, soon after their beatification, and Pope Benedict XV received their relics in his general audience on Wednesday, January 14, 2009. 

Sister Mary of St. Joseph, O.C.D., of the Philadelphia Carmel On Sunday, March 25, 1877, in Alençon, France, Zélie Martin, a lacemaker with a four-year-old daughter, Thérèse, who was to become St. Thérèse of Lisieux, wrote to her sister-in-law about the transformation of Zélie’s 13-year-old daughter Léonie, who had been abused by the family’s maid:

“I can’t tell you how many times a day she comes secretly to shower me with kisses.  She does absolutely everything I tell her.  Now, she’s like a normal child.”  

On the same day, in Philadelphia, a little girl was born who was to play a decisive role in making Zélie's little Thérèse known in the English-speaking world.  Mary Joseph Daily was born on the feast of the Annunciation.  (Thérèse loved this feast “because that’s when Jesus was littlest.”  In 1888, Thérèse entered Carmel on the feast of the Annuncation, which that year had been transferred to April 9 because of Lent). Soon after her baptism the baby Mary was dedicated to Our Lady.

Little Mary was the child of a devout Catholic family, who, like the Martin family, lived in the belief that “God must be served first.”  Together with Helen Kelly, the future Sister Stanislaus of the Blessed Sacrament, who came to be known as "Philadelphia's Little Flower," she was a member of the parish of the Church of the Gesu in North Philadelphia.  She was educated by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.  Mary and Helen were close friends, and their futures would be intertwined. 

Mary was only six when she understood that she had a vocation to become a Carmelite.  (Read a letter--written ten days after Mary was born—by St. Thérèse’s sister Pauline to her friend Louise Magdelaine, recounting how the four-year-old Thérèse had just announced her intention of becoming a cloistered nun.  Read also the first letter Thérèse ever wrote, written to Louise on that same day).  

Miss Mary Joseph DailyMary Daily enjoyed her youth.  In April 1896, when the little Thérèse, now a 23-year-old Carmelite nun at Lisieux, was entering into her trial against faith, Helen Kelly entered the Carmel of Boston at age 16.  In December 1897, less than three months after Thérèse died of tuberculosis, Mary, then aged 20, followed her friend to the Boston Carmel, where she took the name Sister Mary of St. Joseph.  The other nuns loved their humble, modest, and affectionate new sister.  

Sister Stanislaus of the Blessed Sacrament, O.C.D.

Sister Mary and Sister Stanislaus were living together in the Boston community when Thérèse’s Story of a Soul first appeared in French.  A copy found its way to the Boston Carmel, and Sister Stanislaus translated it into English.  In 1902, when both were chosen, along with three other nuns, to found a Carmel in Philadelphia, Sister Stanislaus was already a central  figure in the American movement for the beatification of Sister Thérèse.

 Sister Mary had been blissfully happy at the Boston Carmel, and accepting the move was not easy for her.  On March 25, 1902, her 25th birthday, she had made a vow to be the lifelong servant of the Blessed Mother.  She had a brave missionary spirit and a strong desire to partiicpate in the salvation of souls, and, in this spirit, she accepted everything.  

But Sister Mary must have been happy to live closer to her family of origin.  Carmel in Philadelphia: The First Hundred Years reproduces a photograph of Rose Daily and Mrs. H. Daily, presumably Mary’s mother and sister, kneeling in the public chapel of the first house on Poplar Street.  In Philadelphia Sister Mary and Sister Stanislaus were assigned together as portresses, who answered the door and welcomed visitors and workmen to the monastery.  Both seized on the opportunity this office gave them to spread devotion to Sister Thérèse among the people of Philadelphia.  As early as 1910, Father Thomas Taylor, testifying at the diocesan process for Sister Thérèse, included the Carmel of Philadelphia in the list of places where Therese was loved.  After Sister Stanislaus died in 1911, Sister Mary redoubled her efforts in the apostolate of making Sister Thérèse known.  From a room in the old house before the present monastery was built, she ordered all kinds of materials from Lisieux, prepared catalogs, and distributed these items all over the United States. 

"Hill Top," the first house on the site of the Carmelite Monastery in Oak Lane, Philadelphia

From that room she sent out $3,000 worth of materials related to Sister Thérèse.  Sister Mary rejoiced to see Pope Pius X sign the decree introducing Thérèse’s cause at Rome on June 10, 1914.

God did not allow either of the two young women who had worked so hard to make Sister Thérèse known and loved to witness her canonization on earth.  In the spring of 1915, Sister Mary, at age 38, showed signs of acute tuberculosis, the same disease from which Sister Therese died.  Rest did little for her, so she continued her work until January 1916.  Like St. Thérèse, she suffered acutely from fever, coughing, and nausea.  She said these were signs that “Jesus is coming soon.”  (During this period the Apostolic Process, at which witnesses testified about Sister Thérèse’s sanctity, was going forward in France; St. Thérèse’s novice, Sister Martha of Jesus, testified on Tuesday, February 8, 1916).  On Friday, March 10, 1916, five years to the day after the death of her friend and fellow apostle, Sister Stanislaus, and two weeks before her thirty-ninth birthday, Sister Mary of St. Joseph was received into perfect union with her Divine Spouse. 

I close by quoting from the booklet which furnished most of my information, Carmel in Philadelphia, The First 100 Years, written by Allan Dash and published by the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Philadelphia in 2002:

“The two nuns were missionaries for souls, and had both made the Philadelphia Carmel a center of devotion to St. Thérèse by the early 1900s.  They had knelt side by side for their first holy communion, and both went willingly to their eternal reward in the prime of life.  They never saw the monastery they had come back to Philadelphia to build, but they left a legacy of personal holiness which became part of the foundation of the Oak Lane Carmel.”

May the Holy Spirit which moved these two young women to offer themselves as channels through which the grace of God drew so many souls to the Trinity move us, too, "to help souls."  We rejoice to continue their apostolate today.  Sister Stanislaus of the Blessed Sacrament, Sister Mary of St. Joseph, pray for us!

[My fervent thanks to the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Philadelphia, who generously opened their archives to permit me to research this article. For more information, visit their site "The Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Philadelphia"].

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

Pray in the presence of their relics on Sunday, September 7, 2014
from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. 

Portrait by St. Therese's sister Celine (Sister Genevieve),
commissioned by Pauline Wilcox for the Philadelphia Carmel

“The Martin Family and the Carmel of Lisieux,
and St. Therese and the Carmel of Philadelphia"

- a conference by Maureen O’Riordan at 1:00 p.m.:
the Philadelphia Carmel, the birthplace of devotion to St. Therese in the U.S.

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

Carmelite Monastery                                Bookstore Open
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(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.

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Learn more about the role of the Philadelphia Carmel in establishing devotion to St. Therese in the United States at their Web site, "Discalced Carmelites of Philadelphia."