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In Thérèse, Day discovered a model of holiness, of love which goes to the very end, which sees in the ordinary events of daily life, of each present moment, opportunities to encounter divine mercy.įor Day, it was easy to become overwhelmed by the politics of her time, or to feel that political pragmatism should be the sovereign concern.
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Immersing herself in the writings of the young Carmelite, Day said she no longer found a melodramatic teenager but, instead, one of the greatest saints of our times. A convert to Catholicism who had spent years on the streets of New York serving the poor and advocating for social peace, Day admits that her first assessment of Thérèse turned out to be dead wrong. For example, Dorothy Day confessed that when she first encountered the writings of Thérèse, they sounded like “pious pap.” Her little way seemed “too small in fact for notice”, especially when compared to weighty, socio-political concerns. In one of her most famous poems, which she first composed in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, Thérèse says: “Living by love means banishing fear- / All glancing-back to faults of earlier day: / Of my past sins I see no imprint here, / Love in a trice has burnt them all away.” Her poetics, as with her spirituality, is marked by her distinctive adaptations of the language of scripture in order to communicate the movements of her soul.Īt first glance, Thérèse’s bold confidence and simple faith, her expressive turns of phrase and atypical attitude towards death, may raise the eyebrow of the skeptic of her sanctity. Thérèse’s writings, letters and poems are saturated by a sense of divine mercy, by the “living flame of love” so characteristic of the Carmelite charism-especially as found in the writings of her special patrons, St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Ávila.
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It rejected the place of free will in the economy of salvation and emphasized divine justice over and against divine mercy. She held that God’s mercy and justice are inextricable from each other, and, in so doing, supplied a counter to the Jansenist heresy still lingering in regions of France throughout the nineteenth century. As I will discuss at more length, later on, Thérèse, like St Francis, believed death was a friend, a sister even. Zèlie also records, with comic flourish, how her little girl “want to kill her father too, when she gets really affectionate.” Thérèse’s parental intimacy naturally transposed into a longing for heaven and an unshakeable (although sorely tested) confidence in God. You told me yourself one can’t go to heaven without dying.” I do wish you’d die.” Receiving a “scolding”, she would go to great pains to explain herself: “Oh, but it’s only because I want you to go to heaven. Thérèse’s mother, Saint Zèlie Martin, recounts in one of her letters that her little girl, aged two and a half, loved to run to her mother, embrace her, and say: “Oh, poor little Mother. This first English translation is based on a new, revised version using the latest edition of the saint's writings.One of the earliest signs of Thérèse’s sanctity can be found in her childhood wish that her parents would die. First published in Germany in 1944, the original is now in its eighth edition. The work of a mind of rare intelligence and integrity, this book is unique among the lives of saints. And it throws light on the tremendous purifying process that turned the pampered darling into a saint of heroic virtue. It is a book not for Catholics alone, but for anyone fascinated by the force of spirituality, by the incalculable effects of what Pascal called the "greatness of the human soul." It opens the cloistered world of the Carmel, takes off the sugar coating, and reveals the stark drama behind convent walls, the tension between personalities, the daily details of conventual life. It presents the true Therese, as objectively as possible, and gives a convincing interpretation of her sainthood. But who was she, really? The Hidden Face has sprung from this question. A young nun who entered a convent at fifteen and died at twenty-four, Therese roused an incredible storm of spontaneous veneration only a few months after her death, and has been called by one Pope as "the greatest saint of the modern times." Countless images of the sweetly smiling saint flooded the world. Product Description This study of the life and character of Therese of Lisieux is a remarkable, penetrating, and fascinating search for the truth behind one of the most astounding religious figures of modern times.