I am writing from Lisieux where every available bed, not just here, but for miles outside the town, has been booked for months. The special ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of St Therese today began in earnest on Saturday with the arrival of the special papal legate, his eminence Paul Cardinal Poupard.
Thousands took part in the torch-light procession of her relics from their resting place at the Carmelite convent to the magnificent hill-top basilica. There, yesterday morning, an overflow crowd heard the cardinal speak of the special relevance to the third millennium of this young Carmelite nun, who died a most painful death, from TB, in her 25th year.
We are on our 40th successive Irish national pilgrimage to Lisieux, and this year we are joined by Cardinal Cahal Daly.
Therese Martin was born on January 2nd, 1873, at Alencon, Normandy, the youngest of five children. Her father Louis was a watchmaker. Her mother, Zelie Marie, who made lace, died of cancer on August 28th, 1876.
In May 1887, Therese decided to become a nun, but she was too young. On a pilgrimage to Rome, in November 1887, she asked Pope Leo XIII directly for permission. He replied that if it was God's will she would enter.
Reminding the Pope that just one word from him would solve her problem, she was removed from the audience by two papal guards before the Pope became annoyed. However, on January 1st, 1888, she received word that she could enter the Carmelite convent at Lisieux that Easter, becoming Sister Ther ese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face in Janaury 1889.
She was professed in September 1890. In January 1895, she began writing her semi-autobiograpical, The Story of a Soul, which she completed a year later. In April 1896, she coughed up blood for the first time, and within a year was seriously ill.
On June 9th, 1897, she wrote, "I am not dying, I am entering into Life", a remark which has become the centrepiece of all centenary literature emanating from Lisieux. She died at 7.20 p.m. on September 30th, 1887. On the first anniversary of her death 2,000 copies of The Story of a Soul were published, and by 1899 the first cures and favours granted pilgrims at her graveside in Lisieux, were being reported.
In 1907, Pope Pius X anticipated her canonisation and named her the "greatest saint of our time". A blind four-year-old child, Reine Fauquet, was healed at Therese's graveside in May 1908. Pope Benedict XV proclaimed her "venerable" in 1921 and in April 1923 she was beatified by Pope Pius XI. The same Pope canonised her on May 17th 1925, with October 3rd named as her feast day. In December that year the Pope named her patroness of all missionaries. Pope Pius XII, named her second patron of France, with Joan of Arc, in May 1944. In June 1980, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to Lisieux, and in August of this year he announced at the World Youth Mass in Paris that he will name her a doctor of the church on October 19th, Mission Sunday. The extraordinary and rapid passage of Therese from death to being one of the most esteemed figures in the church's history (there are just 33 doctors of the church), can be attributed primarily to her Story of a Soul. In it she taught that holiness is for everyone, and that it is lived through the ups and downs of life, rather than by extraordinary methods and measures.
Love, she taught, was not so much to be sought in the sublime reaches of mystical contemplation, but usually in the faithful and joyous fulfilment of one's duties, especially by living the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity in the commonplace situation of our earthly existence. In this she anticipated the Second Vatican Council and its teaching on the universal call to holiness as a consequence of one's baptismal commitment. The ramifications of which have been immense.
Her teaching and witness shine with gospel integrity and simplicity, much like charismatic figures such as Pope John XXIII and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She said that in her search for truth she was guided, not so much by teachers and preachers, as by the director of souls, Jesus himself. She explicitly states that she did not assimilate or retain much of what she heard in sermons and retreats.
She affirmed the place of the body and of sentiment in the spiritual life, as a liberating antidote to over-intellectualised spirituality and theology. She felt more than she reasoned. She was immersed in the concrete, and also had very definite ideas about desire. Even though she loved The Imitation of Christ, she simply could not believe that God would inspire desires which he does not wish to fulfil. Her's was definitely an incarnational way of the spirit.
She pioneered a return to a simple and wholesome living of the gospel, and erases from our minds all mathematical calculations in ethics and religion, such as the idea that we can build up a spiritual bank account of merits, or that the quantity of good works performed is what counts.
For her "good work" is trustful love, sustained by grace. She does away with this business ledger of credit and debit thinking, which is a corruption of Catholic moral thought, and which corruption probably played a role in the Reformation initiated by Luther. On her death 100 years ago, in place of the normal circular sent to other convents notifying them of the death of a fellow nun, it was decided to send out copies of her Story of a Soul. Since then, and as a result of 40 translations, including one into Irish, conversions and physical cures have been reported from all over the world, with some miracles said to have been accompanied by apparitions of the Little Flower in a brown homespun habit.
The recorded miracles and special graces obtained between 1907 and 1925 were printed in seven volumes, amounting to 3,000 pages, under the title A Shower of Roses. She had promised, while dying, that after her death she would let fall "a shower of roses" (favours).
Father J. Linus Ryan, is former prior of the Carmelite Fathers at White Abbey in Kildare town, but is now in retirement at Terenure College in Dublin. He organised this year's national pilgrimage to Lisieux.
At 8.02 this evening, RTE Radio One will broadcast Therse of Lisieux, a play by James Douglas, to mark the centenary of her death.
