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Collected Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux
Authentic writings of St Therese in various letters, edited by the Abbe Combes, translated by Fulton Sheed, with a foreword by Fr Vernon Johnson. 1949 imprimatur. Letters from 1884 to 1898 in 12 chapters. Includes epilogue, indices, act of offering, timeline and more.
394 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1949
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Thérèse of Lisieux
201 books366 followersSaint Thérèse de Lisieux or Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin, was a French Carmelite nun. She is also known as "The Little Flower of Jesus". She was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church May 17, 1925.
She felt an early call to religious life, and overcoming various obstacles, in 1888 at the early age of 15, became a nun and joined two of her older sisters in the enclosed Carmelite community of Lisieux, Normandy. After nine years as a Carmelite religious, having fulfilled various offices, such as sacristan and novice mistress, and having spent the last eighteen months in Carmel in a night of faith, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 24. The impact of her posthumous publications, including her memoir The Story of a Soul was great, and she rapidly became one of the most popular saints of the twentieth century. Pope Pius XI made her the star of his pontificate. She was beatified in 1923, and canonized in 1925. The speed of this process may be seen by comparison with that applied to a great heroine of Thérèse, Joan of Arc, who died in 1431 but was not canonized until 1920. Thérèse was declared co-patron of the missions with Francis Xavier in 1927, and named co-patron of France with Joan of Arc in 1944. On 19 October 1997 Pope John Paul II declared her the thirty-third Doctor of the Church, the youngest of all Doctors of the Church, and only the third woman Doctor. Devotion to Thérèse has developed around the world.
Thérèse lived a hidden life and 'wanted to be unknown' yet through her writings—as well as her spiritual autobiography she left letters, poems, religious plays, prayers and various notes, and her last conversations were recorded by her sisters—and thanks to the photographs taken inside the Lisieux Carmel by her sister Céline, she became known to, and later seen by, millions of men and women. According to one of her biographers, Guy Gaucher, after her death, "Thérèse fell victim to an excess of sentimental devotion which betrayed her. She was victim also to her language, which was that of the late nineteenth century and flowed from the religiosity of her age." Thérèsè herself said on her death-bed : "I only love simplicity. I have a horror of pretence", and she spoke out against some of the Lives of saints written in her day :" We should not say improbable things, or things we do not know. We must see their real, and not their imagined lives." The critic Marina Warner observed that the excesses sometimes associated with her cult should not blind one to the heroism of her, "struggle to be good, and the radical affirmation of ordinary lives that her sainthood stands for."
The depth of her spirituality, of which she said "my way is all confidence and love," has inspired many believers. In the face of her littleness and nothingness, she trusted in God to be her sanctity. She wanted to go to Heaven by an entirely new little way. "I wanted to find an elevator that would raise me to Jesus." The elevator, she wrote, would be the arms of Jesus lifting her in all her littleness.
The Basilica of Lisieux is the second greatest place of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes.
She felt an early call to religious life, and overcoming various obstacles, in 1888 at the early age of 15, became a nun and joined two of her older sisters in the enclosed Carmelite community of Lisieux, Normandy. After nine years as a Carmelite religious, having fulfilled various offices, such as sacristan and novice mistress, and having spent the last eighteen months in Carmel in a night of faith, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 24. The impact of her posthumous publications, including her memoir The Story of a Soul was great, and she rapidly became one of the most popular saints of the twentieth century. Pope Pius XI made her the star of his pontificate. She was beatified in 1923, and canonized in 1925. The speed of this process may be seen by comparison with that applied to a great heroine of Thérèse, Joan of Arc, who died in 1431 but was not canonized until 1920. Thérèse was declared co-patron of the missions with Francis Xavier in 1927, and named co-patron of France with Joan of Arc in 1944. On 19 October 1997 Pope John Paul II declared her the thirty-third Doctor of the Church, the youngest of all Doctors of the Church, and only the third woman Doctor. Devotion to Thérèse has developed around the world.
Thérèse lived a hidden life and 'wanted to be unknown' yet through her writings—as well as her spiritual autobiography she left letters, poems, religious plays, prayers and various notes, and her last conversations were recorded by her sisters—and thanks to the photographs taken inside the Lisieux Carmel by her sister Céline, she became known to, and later seen by, millions of men and women. According to one of her biographers, Guy Gaucher, after her death, "Thérèse fell victim to an excess of sentimental devotion which betrayed her. She was victim also to her language, which was that of the late nineteenth century and flowed from the religiosity of her age." Thérèsè herself said on her death-bed : "I only love simplicity. I have a horror of pretence", and she spoke out against some of the Lives of saints written in her day :" We should not say improbable things, or things we do not know. We must see their real, and not their imagined lives." The critic Marina Warner observed that the excesses sometimes associated with her cult should not blind one to the heroism of her, "struggle to be good, and the radical affirmation of ordinary lives that her sainthood stands for."
The depth of her spirituality, of which she said "my way is all confidence and love," has inspired many believers. In the face of her littleness and nothingness, she trusted in God to be her sanctity. She wanted to go to Heaven by an entirely new little way. "I wanted to find an elevator that would raise me to Jesus." The elevator, she wrote, would be the arms of Jesus lifting her in all her littleness.
The Basilica of Lisieux is the second greatest place of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 14, 2013
Audio collection of letters from St. Therese to her sisters (Celine, Pauline, Marie and Leonie) and two of her cousins. As everything in the letters was in the nature of spiritual encouragement and exhortations, they sounded like extracts from long letters. The Letters of St. Therese takes no time to listen to, but for all that is not easy to truly grasp because what she is advocating is contrary to the world: greatness (as the world defines it) is actually small and only the little ones are truly great. Jesus doesn’t desire our talents so much as our willingness to be used by Him. Our failures—humbly accepted—are as pleasing to Him as our successes. Or perhaps even more so? I find myself wanting to re-listen to this CD again and reread her autobiography.
June 3, 2022
This will always be on my "Currently Reading" list. I stumbled across it one day in about 1991 when I wandered into a bookstore to fill in a little time waiting for my husband to get off work. It happened to be a Catholic bookstore. I have always been interested in the contemplative lifestyle, and I took it home with me.
Thus began a friendship that has lasted ever since. I have read everything Therese ever wrote that is in print, and learned an enormous amount in the process. For a sheltered, pampered middle class "princess" (her father's nickname for her was "my little queen") who was raised in an atmosphere of unconditional love and protection, she had an enormous amount of discernment from a very early age.
Therese Martin became a Carmelite nun at the age of 15, which was not normal even in the 19th century. It was as if she knew that her life would be short; just 9 years later she died of tuberculosis, having never again left the monastery where she and 3 of her 4 sisters (and one cousin) spent their adult lives. She was far from being the "pampered darling" of the community, however; as the youngest member of the family, with 2 professed siblings senior to her, she had no voice nor vote in Chapter, even when she was the acting Novice Mistress.
Her correspondence, even more than The Story of a Soul, reveals the struggles and joys of finding her "Little Way" in community. We see that her family (aunt and uncle, cousins, friends) seldom took her seriously--she was just "little Therese", the quiet one who seldom said a word during family visits even as a child. Her siblings did discover in the final months of her life the well of wisdom and joy that sprang from this unlikely source, but there was no way they could know that she would not only be canonised as a saint, but declared a Doctor of the Church.
Therese's "Little Way" of abandonment to God's loving will may be "simple" in the spiritual sense, but it takes practice. However, it taught me an enormous amount about letting God love me. I am a better person for reading it. Together with the Last Conversations, her Letters are the readings that I most often dip into for spiritual comfort and wisdom.
Thus began a friendship that has lasted ever since. I have read everything Therese ever wrote that is in print, and learned an enormous amount in the process. For a sheltered, pampered middle class "princess" (her father's nickname for her was "my little queen") who was raised in an atmosphere of unconditional love and protection, she had an enormous amount of discernment from a very early age.
Therese Martin became a Carmelite nun at the age of 15, which was not normal even in the 19th century. It was as if she knew that her life would be short; just 9 years later she died of tuberculosis, having never again left the monastery where she and 3 of her 4 sisters (and one cousin) spent their adult lives. She was far from being the "pampered darling" of the community, however; as the youngest member of the family, with 2 professed siblings senior to her, she had no voice nor vote in Chapter, even when she was the acting Novice Mistress.
Her correspondence, even more than The Story of a Soul, reveals the struggles and joys of finding her "Little Way" in community. We see that her family (aunt and uncle, cousins, friends) seldom took her seriously--she was just "little Therese", the quiet one who seldom said a word during family visits even as a child. Her siblings did discover in the final months of her life the well of wisdom and joy that sprang from this unlikely source, but there was no way they could know that she would not only be canonised as a saint, but declared a Doctor of the Church.
Therese's "Little Way" of abandonment to God's loving will may be "simple" in the spiritual sense, but it takes practice. However, it taught me an enormous amount about letting God love me. I am a better person for reading it. Together with the Last Conversations, her Letters are the readings that I most often dip into for spiritual comfort and wisdom.
May 21, 2017
The letters trace Therese's personal and spiritual development from the time she was the spoiled baby of the family until her death at age 24 from pulmonary tuberculosis. The entire Martin/Guerin family were great correspondents, and not a family event, holy day, or crisis could pass without letters and cables criss-crossing the small town where they lived. Upon this my third revisit, I noticed the family dynamic more, from her pompous Uncle Isidore, who writes to his dying niece as if it were an article to be published in the local paper instead of a word of encouragement to a close relative, to the letters from her missionary "adopted brother" who pleads for her to write him "as often as you can", unaware that she is now too weak to hold a pencil. There are fragments of letters from other members of the family to each other, but only fragments. How I wish these tantalizing tastes were published in their entirety!
The nuns of Lisieux made prayer cards, painted and written out by hand, and many were sent to friends and family. This edition of the Correspondence often notes "image perdue/inconnue"; however anyone who has access to Sainte Thérèse De Lisieux: La Vie En Images can see these "lost/unknown" cards.
The nuns of Lisieux made prayer cards, painted and written out by hand, and many were sent to friends and family. This edition of the Correspondence often notes "image perdue/inconnue"; however anyone who has access to Sainte Thérèse De Lisieux: La Vie En Images can see these "lost/unknown" cards.
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December 3, 2022The Little Flower has a charm that gets to you regardless of whether you believe or not.
"Yes, I want to be forgotten, and not only by creatures, but also by myself, I should like to be so reduced to nothingness as to have no desire left. For my own, I abandon it to Him; and if He seems to forget me, very well, He is free to, since I am no longer mine, but His."
"Even when I feel nothing that can be offered to Him, I shall (as tonight) give Him that nothing."
"Yes, I want to be forgotten, and not only by creatures, but also by myself, I should like to be so reduced to nothingness as to have no desire left. For my own, I abandon it to Him; and if He seems to forget me, very well, He is free to, since I am no longer mine, but His."
"Even when I feel nothing that can be offered to Him, I shall (as tonight) give Him that nothing."
November 22, 2021
This is a really fantastic reading of letters of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The content of the letters is incredibly inspiring and the reader is really nice to listen to. The reader's tone is calming, but not so much that you become bored. This is great for listening in the car.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews