THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX
Transformation into Love
Jennifer MoorcroftAll booklets are published thanks to the generosity of the supporters of the Catholic Truth Society
Childhood
Thérèse sat with her beloved Papa as they fished in the river . She loved sitting beside him, or even alone, on the grass thinking “profound thoughts” of heaven . This simple reflection that she recorded in her autobiography tells us much about the child who would become “the greatest saint of modern times” as she has been called . The youngest of five sisters, born on 2nd January 1873, Thérèse Martin was surrounded by love, and her first memories were “of smiles and the tenderest of caresses” . 1 Even more, the Martin family lived a faith that permeated their whole lives . From an early age, Thérèse had only had to look at her father to know what the love of her “Papa in Heaven” was like and look at her mother to see the smile of Mary, her mother in heaven . Both her parents had at one time sought to enter the religious life, until the will of God was made clear to them when, one evening, they happened to meet on the bridge in Alençon . Louis Martin was a watchmaker and Zélie owned her own business making the renowned Alençon lace . Between them, they had created a loving close-knit family, but one which had already been touched with sorrow . That day beside the river, Thérèse
had opened her little lunchbox, only to find that the jam sandwiches which had looked so appealing when they were packed were now a sorry mess . “Earth again seemed a sad place,” she wrote later, “and I understood that in heaven alone joy will be without any clouds . ”2
Death of Zélie Martin
Louis and Zélie had five girls, but they had also lost two little boys and two little girls, which was an abiding sorrow for them . To add to their sorrow, in 1865 the breast cancer from which Zélie would die made its first appearance . The doctors were slow to make a diagnosis, and by 1876 it had become incurable . On 28th August 1877, after an agonising illness, Zélie died .
This was a terrible shock for Thérèse, aged only four . The day after the funeral the five girls were with their father, who said, sadly, “Poor little things, you have no mother anymore .” Céline, who was nearest to Thérèse in age, went and flung her arms around Marie, the second eldest, saying, “Well, you will be my Mama .” Thérèse, not to be outdone, went to Pauline, the eldest, crying, “Well, as for me, it’s Pauline who will be my Mama!”3
Thérèse’s happy disposition was completely changed by her mother’s death . She became withdrawn, timid and over-sensitive, easily reduced to tears, despite the affection of her father and the two eldest daughters’ untiring love and tenderness .
Zélie’s family, the Guérins, had promised Zélie that they would look after her family, so in order to be nearer to them M . Martin decided to move the family to Lisieux and to rent there the beautiful property of Les Buissonnets . Thérèse fell in love with the house and its beautiful gardens, the belvedere to which her father would retire and where Thérèse herself would go to be near him, hiding in a corner and “thinking”, not realising that this was her first practice of contemplative prayer.
At school in the Abbey
More change came when she was eight and a half years old and joined Céline as a day girl at the Benedictine Abbey school, where her mother’s older sister, Sr Dorothea, was a nun . Thérèse said that if it had not been for Céline’s presence, she would not have lasted the five years she was there . Marie and Pauline had already been giving her lessons, and she was ahead of all the other girls in her class, but she had not been prepared for the rough and tumble of school . She didn’t know how to play the playground games; she was the odd one out and she could respond to her classmates’ teasing only with tears . There was a girl in her class, not too bright but who had a way of influencing the other girls and even the teachers . She was so jealous of Thérèse always coming top in class that she seemed to have a thousand ways of making her unhappy . But a further trial awaited Thérèse .
Trials and a Heavenly Smile
Thérèse preferred playing at being a hermit with her cousin Marie Guérin to joining in with what she considered the childish games of the other children at school . The two cousins even tried playing “hermits” when walking with their eyes closed along the street – until they bumped into some display boxes outside a shop, tipping them over . They hurried away, trying to maintain their dignity, while the reproaches of the angry shopkeeper followed them .
Thérèse had probably heard of hermits on those blissful Sundays when her father would read to her about the lives of the saints, inflaming her young mind with thoughts of saintly heroic deeds . When Thérèse mentioned her desire to be a hermit to Pauline one day, this gave Pauline the opening she needed to speak to Thérèse about what she was planning to do, which she knew would upset her young sister – she was intending to enter the Carmelite Monastery of Lisieux . Thérèse was taken to see Carmel, and in the room in which visitors were received she was still young enough to visit with the black shutters opened, even though the double grilles that physically separated the Carmelites from the outside
world, while allowing them to see and communicate with their visitors, remained in place .
Pauline was there with her that day, on her side of the grilles; then, one day Pauline was no longer at home, and when the family next visited Carmel she was there, but on the other side of the grilles . Worse, when they visited for the half hour permitted, the adults chatted and little Thérèse was overlooked, able only to have a couple of minutes to speak with her “second Mama”, right at the very end .
Thérèse’s serious illness and miraculous cure
Thérèse began to suffer from headaches and insomnia; then, the following year while staying with the Guérins over the Easter holiday, she began to suffer from severe trembling and terrifying hallucinations . The following month she was well enough to attend Pauline’s clothing ceremony at Carmel but suffered a relapse the day afterwards, becoming so ill that the family feared for her life . Only heaven could help their beloved child, and Marie, Léonie and Céline knelt at the side of her bed and prayed, with Thérèse, for her healing . There was a statue of Our Lady by her bedside:
All of a sudden, the Blessed Virgin appeared beautiful to me, so beautiful that never had I see anything so attractive; her face was suffused with an ineffable benevolence and tenderness, but what penetrated to
the very depths of my soul was the ravishing smile of the Blessed Virgin . At that instant, all my pain disappeared, and two large tears glistened on my eyelashes, and flowed down my cheeks silently, but they were tears of unmixed joy . 4
Thérèse had been cured; she returned to school, but also to the joyful preparation of making her First Holy Communion . Pauline made her a pretty book in which she would record her acts of love and prayer each day . A teacher at school asked her what she did on her free afternoons when she was alone . The teacher laughed as Thérèse said she went to her bedroom, drew the bed curtains around her, and thought . She explained, “I think about God, about life, about ETERNITY … I think . ”5
The three months of preparation flew by, and on 8th May 1884 Thérèse received Jesus for the first time. Thoughts of her mother were never far from her mind, but Our Lady was her mother now, and that afternoon she made an act of consecration to her . Her joy was tranquil, and nothing came to disturb her inner peace .