Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

“Holy Popes, friends of Thérèse, pray for us!”

                                   – Father Olivier Ruffray, rector of the Shrine at Lisieux

 This editorial was written by Father Olivier Ruffray, rector of the Shrine at Lisieux, for
Thérèse of Lisieux (a publication of the Shrine at Lisieux), no. 954, May 2014.
Translated by Maureen O'Riordan, it appears with Father Ruffray's kind permission.

 We rejoice fully in the holy Popes whom Pope Francis offers to the official prayer of the Church.  They are the friends of Saint Thérèse.

Saint John XXIII came to Lisieux in 1930, on September 11, then three times more as Apostolic Nuncio in France.  We keep at the Shrine a photo-souvenir taken in the court of St. John’s House on August 15, 1951.  He loved to talk about Thérèse and about “her quiet and precious way of bringing to souls the riches of God.”  He also emphasized her powerful intercession as Patron of Missions.  The “Good Pope John,” as he was called by those who had tasted his charity, which was matched only by his simplicity, opened for us the Second Vatican Council.  Thanks to him, we “rediscover the Word of God;” we welcome the Church as “a light to the nations;” we think of “the Church in the Modern World;” we receive the Virgin Mary as “Mother of the Church;” we hear as a spiritual and ecclesial encouragement the “universal call to holiness.”   We understand how the Holy Spirit is at work in the Church and in the world. We divine how the spirituality of St.  Thérèse could have inspired, for its part, the Council. It pleases us to think also that the Blessed Louis and Zélie Martin, by the witness of their lives and their social commitment to the little ones, opened with others, in the seething nineteenth century, the paths of the Social Doctrine of the Church. It was under the pontificate of Pope John Paul II that they were declared venerable, on March 26, 1994.

Saint John Paul II came to Lisieux on June 2, 1980 after his appeal at Le Bourget (the airport near Paris) that still rings in our hearts : “France, the eldest daughter of the Church! What have you done with your baptism? ...” At that time, Cardinal Marty presented the Pope to young people gathered at the Parc des Princes as the “sportsman of God!" At Lisieux, Pope John Paul II reminded us that the saints never get old because  they are “witnesses of the future world."  He thought of St. Thérèse, whom he was going to name the youngest Doctor of the Church on October 19, 1997 in St. Peter's Square, calling her doctrine the "science of love." Yes, Thérèse teaches us to love according to the heart of God, as it seems to us we read in the luminous gaze of Pope John Paul II, contemplating the Basilica in the photograph that shows him in the Esplanade of the Basilica, June 2nd 1980. In Rome, recently, the young Pietro Schilirò and his parents met with Pope Francis. They told him about the little Carmen in Spain (the child whose healing has been submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to be considered as the miracle for the canonization of Blessed Louis and Zélie Martin). The Pope reportedly replied that he knows it . . . How beautiful the Church in the light of Easter! She is our Mother, and we love her.  With the Virgin Mary in her month of May, with all the saints of Heaven, a happy and holy Easter time.

Holy Popes, friends of Thérèse, pray for us!