Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

 The Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux invite you to the preview of their long-awaited Web site, which was launched today.  This magnificent site, the fruit of years of work, opens to you the doors of the Archives so that you can discover the treasures they contain, to know everything about Thérèse.   To begin to delve into its treasures, please visit

Please note that the English site will be opened on March 19, the feast of Saint Joseph.  But there is a guide for English-speaking visitors to the treasures already posted on the site at http://archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/.  On that page, if you click on the small arrow by Thérèse's ear in the photograph, you will be led to a guide for English-speaking visitors to the 2,000 photos already on the site: photos of Thérèse's family and the places they lived, the Carmelite community, the works of art by the Martin sisters and St. Thérèse, and the works of art she loved.  The site is a marvel of detail and authenticity.   To register for e-mail updates about the English archives, please visit that page.

The site has not yet been migrated to its permanent server, so the connection might be slow, or a page might be unavailable.  The French site will become fully functional at the beginning of next week.  Please return regularly.  As documents are translated into English, more jewels will be added.

We congratulate and thank the Carmel of Lisieux and all the partners who worked with the Archives to accomplish this historic achievement, which makes the treasures of the Archives available to the world.  We thank God that the archives have been digitized, and we ask God's blessing on those who contributed to the accomplishment. Please pray that through this Web site, God may draw souls along the "way of confidence and love" Thérèse walked in the earthly milieu now visible to all of us.

On Monday, January 16, 2012, the first chapel in France under the patronage of Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin will be dedicated at the Shrine of Notre Dame des Victoires (Our Lady of Victories) in Paris. January 16 is the patronal feast of the Shrine (the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Refuge of Sinners). The Shrine of Our Lady of Victories was much loved by Louis and Zelie, and Therese prayed fervently here before leaving on her pilgrimage to Rome in 1887.

The inauguration of the new chapel, the first worship space in France dedicated to Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, who were beatified on October 19, 2008, is to be celebrated from January 16 through January 20, 2012 in Paris.  The Mass of inauguration for the new chapel was celebrated at 6:00 p.m. on January 16 by Monseigneur Jerome Beau, auxiliary bishop of Paris.  Each evening from January 17 through January 20, Vespers will be celebrated at 6:00 p.m., followed by a conference, with solemn Mass at 7:00 p.m.  For a detailed schedule in French, please click here.

Dr. Frances Renda, a practicing psychotherapist in Manhattan, has been blessed with a deep and powerful understanding of the spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux and the difference it can make in our lives.  She is the editor of A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885.  Tonight she was interviewed by Fr. Benedict Groeschel on EWTN about Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, the parents of St. Therese.  In the above 30-minute video by SpiritualityTV, Bill O'Donnell interviews Dr. Renda about the spirituality of St. Therese.  I recommend it.  

Commercialism is well established in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. The first sign advertising merchandise for Christmas shoppers that I noticed was strung across one of the main roads near the center of the city as early as November 1.

 A large number of people in the area are, of course, very poor and they do not have money to spend on the upscale advertised merchandise.  They have barely enough to buy the minimum of food.

 What strikes me about this is the patient and generally pleasant spirit even among many of the very poor. Beside poverty that is inflicted unjustly on them, they have been gifted with a certain spirit of poverty that they have willingly adopted.   In that spirit they have found a certain peace that is a blessing.

 Make no mistake about it, though: the many slums around Nairobi, housing probably more than two million people, are ripe for an uprising not unlike what we are seeing in Northern Africa and in other parts of the Arab world.  Whether such an uprising, if it were to take place in Kenya, would be peaceful is difficult to predict, since many of the poor living in the slums are young and aware of the corruption that at least partly causes poverty.  And many of these young poor are harboring feelings of oppression and violence.

 Since most of those living in and around Nairobi are Christians, they will be celebrating Christmas with much rejoicing and with long religious ceremonies.  The Mass that I attended last year at midnight on Christmas was celebrated in the local language and lasted well over two hours, with much singing and dancing.  And the songs tend to have components that are interminably repetitious.

 This year I will be attending a Mass celebrated in English at the local parish.  Many of the students I teach will be present and we will be praying for all the Kenyan people and all the people around the world suffering the oppression of corruption and poverty.  The prayer will be joined with the pope’s plea that he had made during his two visits to Africa, the most recent just last month.  Each time he has warned that corruption in government must be stopped if poverty was to end and justice prevail in Africa.

 The spirit of poverty is a blessing that we all need, and one that Therese has at the heart of her little way; but abject material poverty in a country where there is much squandered wealth is a cruel and violent evil that needs to be brought to an end. 

1889 was a tumultuous year for St. Therese of Lisieux, who was then the sixteen-year-old novice Sister Therese of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face at the Carmelite monastery of Lisieux in northern France.  On February 12, 1889, a day she later called "our great treasure," her adored father had to be taken to a psychiatric hospital, where he remained for more than three years.  At the end of the year, writing to her uncle and aunt on December 30, 1889, she wrote:

 “Your Benjamin comes in her turn to wish you a Happy New Year!  Just as each day has its last hour, so each year sees its last night coming also, and it is on the night of this year that I feel drawn to cast a look over the past and on the future.  When I consider the time that has just run out, I feel drawn to thank God, for, although His hand has offered us a bitter chalice, His divine Heart has been able to sustain us in the trial, and He has given us the strength necessary for drinking His chalice even to the dregs . . . .  What is He reserving for us for the year that is about to begin?”

(Letters of St,. Therese of Lisieux, Volume I, tr. John Clarke, O.C.D. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1982, p. 600)