St Therese of Lisieux

[BarbTherese]

 

TEXT: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST THERESE OF LISIEUX, PLUS HER LETTERS AND OTHER RELATED LINKS

 

AUDIO BOOK :..... FULL AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST THERESE OF LISIEUX: THE STORY OF A SOUL :

 

[Guest]

On and off, I am listening to the audiobook of the life of St Therese.  I am really enjoying it as the reader is reading with really good vocal expression - and not in a pious sort drone.  It is giving me a different insight.

[Guest]

Much further on in my listening, I tend to think that the audio book is from Pauline's heavily edited autobiography by St Therese, rather than the original by Therese.  I am finding it a bit annoying in its continual flowery and sweet, elevated, treacle-like, language - not my cuppa tea.  I have been newly astounded too at the recall of St Therese.  Of course, my early memories are at times vague even trashed, distorted, largely I am presuming by 20 years of serious mental illness.   Apparently, Pauline's edited  version does heavily reflect the spiritual language of the times of St Therese.  Pauline edited the manuscript in order to make it sound more spiritual apparently.  The original manuscript went through several changes.

 Even tho I get annoyed at times, I am enjoying listening and identifying the spiritual message behind the spoken words.

The original (in English) manuscript of St Therese is here: http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/oeuvres-de-therese/manuscrits-autobiographiques

When you open each of the three manuscripts, folio links are in the top left hand corner.

 

On the above website as linked, there are images and texts from the Carmel of Lisieux and many other matters with texts and images, including the canonization process. 

A fascinating website to wander around.

What does shine in the life of St Therese is the formation she received from her parents from the cradle onwards.  And how this formation matured over her lifetime.  An important read for parents.

Edited March 3, 2019 by BarbaraTherese

[sr.christinaosf]

I have a special connection with her, which started when I was preparing for confirmation.

https://ourfranciscanfiat.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/connections-with-st-therese/

[Guest]

I really enjoyed your poem, Sister.  I think that St Therese did too, it is very appealing in its simple reflection of the ordinary everyday and quite descriptive.  I do not like tomato juice either  

Therese is my Confirmation Patron, but I must confess the only reason I chose her was because she was a nun, holding flowers and a crucifix - most of all, she smiled as her eyes followed.  Rare back then, if any, images of saints with a smile.  Most had pained and painful expressions of one kind or another that had no attraction for me.  Attraction to her Little Way came many years later after attempts to imitate other saints completely failed miserably and I had to admit to myself I was not saint material - and even after those many failures, The LIttle Way was still years away for me as was the reading of her autobiography.  I have never felt her presence nor received a rose or anything like that, but I do dearly love her and her Little Way of a quite ordinary life lived extraordinarily hidden from all.

I had attempted to read ST Teresa of Avila in my teens and just had to conclude, she was certainly on another planet and plane to me, speaking some strange language.  Picking up the autobiography of St Therese in a Catholic bookshop a year or two later I think, I was flicking through the pages reading here and there and my eyes fell on "which was not the prayer of quiet".  Ahhh I sort of thought to myself maybe she knows what St Teresa was on about    Hence I began to read St Therese of Lisieux and found that maybe just maybe here was something I might be able to imitate in her little way.  It seems little until one comes to try to imitate   I would call it the onion way - one layer after another must peel off a quite sour fruit.  I am still peeling!

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Re St Teresa of Avila......... initially, I did wonder if she was a Catholic so strange to me were her writings