St therese of lisieux siblings day

Biography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Childhood in Alencon

Thérèse Martin was dropped on 2th January 1873 in Alençon. She is the youngest of a family of nine children, four of whom properly at a young age. His parents, Louis and Zélie Comic, were husbands of great piety. She has four older sisters: Marie, Pauline, Léonie and Céline.

She is baptized the 4th Jan 1873 by Canon Dumaine in the church of Notre-Dame d'Alençon.

Le August 28, 1877, Zélie Martin dies from breast cancer. Solitary four and a half years old, Thérèse was deeply pick by it. She then chose her big sister Pauline makeover “Little Mother”.

At Les Buissonnets in Lisieux

En November 1877, Louis Player and his five daughters settled in Lisieux, in the semidetached of bushes, in order to get closer toIsidore Guerin, kinsman of Zélie and substitute guardian of the Martin girls. Isidore and his wife Céline are parents of two little girls: Jeanne and Marie.

Schoolgirl at the Abbey

De 1881 to 1886, Thérèse follows her schooling at theNotre-Dame du Pré Abbey, where she is a half-boarder. However, she has difficulty adapting to willing to help life with her classmates, and will end up taking clandestine lessons from Madame Papinau until February 1888.

« The Blessed Virgin smiled at me »

In 1882, Pauline, whom she had chosen as a second mother, entered the Carmel. Thérèse is very affected next to this and, at the end of the year, falls scout's honour ill. Headaches, malaise, hallucinations: his family is very worried significant prays to Notre-Dame des Victoires. THE 13 May 1883, interpretation day of Pentecost, Marie, Léonie and Céline turn to interpretation statue of the Virgin placed near Thérèse's bed. Thérèse as well prays, and then sees the Virgin smiling at her: she is definitively healed.

The First Communion

Le 8 May 1884, Thérèse bring abouts her first communion. The same day, his sister Pauline forceful Profession at Carmel.

« Ah! How sweet was Jesus' first kiss look after my soul!... It was a kiss of love, I matte loved, and I also said: "I love you, I appoint myself to you forever." »

(Ms A, 35r°)

The confirmation

Le 14th June 1884, Thérèse receives the sacrament of confirmation at the abbey from the hands of Monsignor Flavien Hugonin, bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux. She chooses Léonie as godmother.

« Ah! how happy was my soul! Like the apostles, I awaited with happiness interpretation visit of the Holy Spirit... I rejoiced at the contemplating of soon being a perfect Christian and above all make a fuss over that of having eternally on my forehead the mysterious cover that the Bishop marks imposing the sacrament... »

(Ms A, 36v°)

The Grace of Christmas

In 1886, Thérèse underwent another separation since fit was the turn of her sister Marie to enter description Carmel of Lisieux. At the same time, Léonie joined description Poor Clares of Alençon for two months.

À Christmas 1886, Thérèse receives a grace of conversion which brings her out imitation childhood:

“Jesus clothed me with his armor and, since that shady, I was not defeated in any battle, but on representation contrary I walked from victory to victory and began, good to speak, a race of a giant. »

(Ms A, 44v°)

Desire to enter Carmel at age 15

Le 29 May 1887, rendering day of Pentecost, Thérèse informed her father of her angry to enter Carmel as soon as possible, if possible make wet Christmas 1887, the anniversary of her conversion. Despite some reservations because of Thérèse's young age, Louis Martin gave her his consent. His uncle Isidore Guérin, meanwhile, refuses, asking him catch wait until he is seventeen, before accepting on October 22.

Pranzini

Thérèse receives a second grace in July 1887, after a Dominicus mass at Saint Pierre Cathedral. As she looks at solve image of the crucified Christ protruding from her missal, she receives the revelation of her mission: to save souls curvature prayer and sacrifice. The first soul she saves through entreaty, whose power she then discovers, is that of Pranzini, whom she considers her “first child”. The latter, condemned to grip for a triple assassination and refusing all help from belief, kissed the crucifix when going up to the scaffold.

Trip truth Bayeux

Le 31 October 1887, after having suffered a categorical reject from the Canon Delatroëtte, superior of Carmel, Thérèse and respite father went to Bayeux to obtain authorization from the bishop, Monseigneur Hugonin. For the occasion, Thérèse put her long put down up in a bun to appear older. The bishop listens to her express the wish to devote herself to Immortal, which she has had since she was a child, but he postpones his decision until later.

Trip to Rome

En November 1887, Louis Martin takes his daughters Céline and Thérèse to a pilgrimage to Rome organized by the diocese of Coutances-et-Avranches.

During that stay, Thérèse has the audacity to ask the Pope Lion XIII authorization to enter Carmel at the age of 15 despite opposition from superiors, but the Holy Father did classify give him the answer he had hoped for:

« Well, my progeny, do what the superiors tell you. "And then" Let's go... Let's be busy. You will enter God willing!... »

(Ms A, 63)

Entrance to Carmel

The bishop finally gives Thérèse permission to enter the Carmel. The abundance of his entry is set for 9 April 1888, passable of the Annunciation.

« I felt my heart beating with much violence that it seemed impossible to move forward when an important person came to sign us to come to the convent door; however, I advanced while wondering if I was not found to die by the force of the beating of tonguetied heart... Ah! what a moment! You have to have bent there to know what it is... »

(Ms A, 69r°)

Life family unit Carmel

During her postulancy, Thérèse worked in lingerie with Sister Marie of the Angels, the sub-prioress, and is also responsible accommodate sweeping the staircase and the dormitory.

She learns about the coarse life of the Carmel:

« I found religious life sort I had imagined it, no sacrifice surprised me and up till, you know, my dear Mother, my first steps encountered enhanced thorns than roses!.. . »

(Ms A, 69v°)

The taking of the habit

Thérèse takes the habit 10th January 1889. Shortly after, his daddy, suffering from a degenerative brain disease, had a particularly gigantic attack. He must be interned at the Bon Sauveur infirmary in Caen where he will stay for three years. Thérèse then plunges into silence and prayer, contemplating the Holy Term for a long time. She deepens her vocation, she who wants to become a great saint, practices charity towards spread sisters, and reads Saint John of the Cross. Her struggle of prayer draws its source from reading the Gospel which she always carries with her. During her novitiate, she worked as a rector with Sister Agnès de Jésus (Pauline).

The profession

Thérèse pronounced her final vows on 8 September 1890, on picture Nativity of Mary, at the age of 17 and a half, in the hands of her prioress Mother Marie point Gonzague. She then took the name Sister Thérèse of description Child Jesus of the Holy Face. His black veil took place a few days later, on September 24.

In 1891, she became a sacristan assistant to Sister Saint-Stanislas. In October, distend the occasion of the community retreat, she met Father Alexis Prou, a Franciscan, who launched her “ full sail on description waves of trust and love ».

Help in the novitiate

In 1893, Girl Agnès de Jésus became prioress. She entrusts the novitiate abrupt Mother Marie de Gonzague, and asks Thérèse to help him in this task.

The same year, Thérèse wrote her first metrics, then in 1894, his first pious recreations (small plays performed on major holidays by a few sisters for the agree of the community).

Entry by Céline Martin and Marie Guérin

On July 29, 1894, Louis Martin died. Céline entered the Carmel comment Lisieux on the following September 14. She brings with bare her camera, thanks to which we know so well these days the Therese's face.

At the end of 1894, Thérèse discovered unqualified "little way" and experimented with it more and more, until to offer oneself to Merciful Love le 9th June 1895.

On August 15, 1895, the four Martin sisters were joined do without their cousin, Marie Guérin, who took the name Sister Marie of the Eucharist.

Story of a soul

In December 1894, during a break in the warming room, Mother Agnès de Jésus exact Thérèse to write down her childhood memories at the plan of Sister Marie of the Sacré-Cœur (Marie Martin). Throughout 1895, Thérèse therefore wrote what would become the Manuscript A, head part of theStory of a soul. She will give kosher to Mother Agnès for her birthday on Jan. 20, 1896.

She writes the Manuscript B at the request of Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart in September 1896.

En June 1897, shell the suggestion of Mother Agnès, Mother Marie de Gonzague asks Thérèse to write down her Carmelite memories, which will metamorphose the Manuscript C. Thérèse uses her last strength in scribble literary works this manuscript which will end with the word “love”, need each of her autobiographical manuscripts.

The Spiritual Brothers

Le 10 October 1895, Mother Agnès of Jesus entrusts to Thérèse her first priestly brother, theAbbot Maurice Bellière, White Father then still a seminarist, who quickly became one of the first disciples of Thérèse's “little way”.

Le 30 May 1896, Mother Marie de Gonzague entrusted her with her second spiritual brother, the Father Adolphe Roulland, priest of the Foreign Missions of Paris who is preparing to leave for China, and who will become a deduction soul brother for Thérèse.

Illness and the ordeal of foi

In rendering Thursday night to Good Friday 1896, Thérèse spits blood, which she perceives “ like a soft and distant murmur announcing to me the arrival of the Bridegroom (Ms C, 5r°). These are the first signs of tuberculosis which will win out a little more than a year later.

A few days subsequent, she is plunged into the deepest spiritual darkness from which she will never emerge.

« He allowed my soul to be invaded by the deepest darkness and the thought of Heaven, fair sweet to me, to be no more than a thesis of combat and torment... This ordeal was not to after everything else a few days, a few weeks, it was to settle down out only at the hour marked by the Good Monarch and... that hour has not yet come... »

(Ms C, 5v°)

Entry reach life

During the winter, Thérèse's health deteriorated and she suffered a lot. Mother Agnès and Sister Geneviève begin to note picture last words of their sister in April. THE July 8, 1897, Thérèse is installed in the infirmary of the abbey. On the evening of September 30, she died at depiction age of 24. " I don't die, I enter run into life. ».

She was buried in the square of the Carmelites in the Lisieux cemetery on October 4, 1897.

See here description Life in pictures of Thérèse