Ⰴⱁ ⱀⱁⱅ ⱚⱁⱃ ⱅⱒⰵ ⱄⰰⰽⰵ ⱁⱚ ⱅⱒ

If I could leave I would have already left

Homage to The Story of a Soul 🌹 (art by me)

St. Thérèse of Lisieux did not initially set out to write a book. She was a young Carmelite nun who put pen to paper only because her sisters asked her to. Between 1895 and 1897 she wrote three short manuscripts: one of childhood memories, one a retreat letter to her sister Marie, and a final account composed while she was already dying of tuberculosis at twenty-four. After her death, her sister Pauline gathered the pages into a single volume and sent two thousand copies to other Carmels in place of the usual obituary notice. It became one of the most widely read spiritual books in history.

At its heart is what Thérèse called her “little way”. Christ said “You must become as a little child.” The little way is one of simple trust and absolute surrender to Christ. She longed to be a great saint but felt as small as a little flower or a grain of sand beside a mountain. But rather than striving to climb she resolved to stay little and let God lift her. She saw herself as a humble wildflower, a daisy among grander blooms, and was content to be exactly what God made her. Holiness, she said, lives in the smallest things done with love. A hidden sacrifice, a patient silence, a smile offered when it costs something to give.

But under Thérése’s gentleness was a fierceness few talk about. In her final eighteen months she endured not only the pain of her illness but a dark night of faith, a trial in which even the thought of heaven became a wall. She struggled deeply, and wrote that she was singing what she wanted to believe. She died on September 30, 1897, with the words “My God, I love you” on her lips.