Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

Asian Flu epidemic of 1889-90 In Paris patients are treated in a supplemental tent hospital A nurse attends to several patients during the winter of 1889-90.

St. Therese of Lisieux and the Influenza Pandemic of 1891-1892

Part 2: Context

 Saint Therese of Lisieux also lived through a sudden and deadly pandemic in 1891-1892.  In 2020, what can we learn from how she responded?

The external facts are simple: a pandemic of influenza swept the world, reaching the Carmelite monastery in Lisieux just after Christmas in 1891.  Only the three youngest of the 25 nuns (including Therese, then 18) escaped infection.  In six days, the three oldest nuns in the community died of it.  During the epidemic, Therese took on many new responsibilities.  In her memoir she wrote briefly but eloquently about this experience.

The “Asiatic flu” pandemic

The pandemic that affected the Lisieux Carmel was a recurrence of the deadly “Asiatic flu” or “Russian flu” pandemic first reported in Russia in 1889.  The last great pandemic of the 19^th century, it killed more than a million patients around the world.  The pandemic was heavily covered in the newspapers, which sound eerily reminiscent of today: hospitals so overcrowded that they pitch tents in public parks; the funeral homes unable to cope with the many dead.

Although airplane travel was not in question, the epidemic circled the globe in four months. This influenza peaked in St. Petersburg on December 1, 1889 and in the United States during the week of January 12, 1890.  The first outbreak ravaged France at the end of 1889 and the beginning of 1890.  It recurred several times from 1891-1895: the outbreak at Lisieux was part of the second recurrence.[i]  Influenza invaded the Carmel right after Christmas in 1891.

The context of Therese’s life at that time

The time leading up to the pandemic contained only a few important events for Therese.  (See my page “The Hidden Years”).  Since February 12, 1889 her father Louis had been interned in a mental asylum, the Bon Saveur, in Caen.  Her sisters Leonie and Celine had joined the household of their maternal uncle and aunt, Isidore and Celine Guerin, in Lisieux.  Every week they visited their three sisters in Carmel and their father at the Bon Sauveur.  Although Therese did not know it yet, Louis would return to Lisieux permanently in May 1892. 

Professed on September 8, 1890, Therese was still living in the novitiate for the three years of continuing formation then customary for the recently vowed.  Her sisters Marie and Pauline were her seniors in Carmel.  Mother Marie de Gonzague was prioress, as she had been since Therese’s entry.  About February 10, 1891,[ii] Therese was named assistant to Sister Stanislaus of the Sacred Hearts [of Jesus and Mary][iii], the sacristan, who, because Therese was slow in finishing her tasks, affectionately nicknamed her “Little Sister Amen.”  During the epidemic Therese was second sacristan. 

In these same months the life of the community had been relatively quiet.  During the rainy summer of 1891, Mother Genevieve of St. Teresa, revered as the founder of the Lisieux Carmel, celebrated her diamond jubilee (the 60^th anniversary of her profession) on July 22.[iv]  The next day Celine refused her persistent suitor, Henry Maudelonde.[v]  On September 11, Isidore and Celine Guerin celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.[vi]  In October (probably from October 7 through October 15), Fr. Alexis Prou, a Franciscan priest, preached the community’s annual retreat.  Therese’s encounter with him in the confessional was liberating for her [Web site of the Lisieux Carmel Archives]; later, she would write “He launched me full sail upon the waves of confidence and love . . . .”    That same week, on October 10, Fr. Maurice-Joseph Reverony, Bishop Hugonin’s vicar-general, who had introduced Therese and her father to the bishop at Bayeux on October 31, 1887 and had presented the Martins to Pope Leo XIII on November 20, 1887, died at Caen.[vii]  In the end, he had been instrumental in opening the doors of Carmel to Therese.  On November 24, 1891, the community celebrated the tricentenary of the death of St. John of the Cross.[viii]  That anniversary was marked by a resurgence of interest in John in France, and Therese later wrote: “At the ages of seventeen and eighteen, I read no one else.”[ix]   Fr. Deodat de Basly, a Franciscan, preached a triduum, and Bishop Hugonin entered the cloister and showered Therese with caresses.  

Mother Genevieve of St. Teresa dies

On December 5, 1891, Mother Genevieve died.  It was the first time Therese had seen someone die.  She wrote:

“It was the first time I had assisted at a death and really the spectacle was ravishing . . . at the moment itself of our saintly Mother Genevieve’s birth in heaven . . . . in the twinkling of an eye I experienced an inexpressible joy and fervor; it was as though Mother Genevieve had imparted to me a little of the happiness she was enjoying, for I was convinced she went straight to heaven.”[x] 

Mother Genevieve was truly venerated as a saint; even Dr. de Corniere, when he extracted a tooth from her mouth, kept it as a relic.[xi]  As was usual in Carmel, when Mother Genevieve entered into her agony the community gathered at her bedside to help her with their prayers; Therese was placed at the foot of Mother Genevieve’s bed, where she remained for two hours, until the founder died.  Witnessing this death might well have prepared Therese for the experience of the deaths of three lesser known sisters,  under very different circumstances, only a few weeks later. These nuns died not in the infirmary, but in their cells; almost all the sisters were sick, and “as soon as a Sister breathed her last, we were obliged to leave her alone.”[xii]  We shall return to Therese’s experience of death during the epidemic. . 

In a growing trend toward secularism in France, the civil authorities had begun to refuse to allow religious communities to bury their deceased members on their own grounds.  Fearing that the body of the founder would not be left with them, the nuns decided to preserve her heart in formaldehyde so that they would have one major relic at least near which to pray.  In the end, after a  delay of several weeks, the town council consented to a burial "in house," and Mother Genevieve’s body was entombed in the sanctuary of the Carmel chapel  on December 23.[xiii]

The pandemic ravages the Carmel

Five days later, influenza came to the Carmel.  According to the Chronicle of the Foundation, on December 28, the feast of the Holy Innocents, several nuns had to take to their beds.[xiv]  By December 31, 12 of the 25 nuns were sick.[xv]  Dr. de Corniere, who would later treat Therese in her last sickness, was overwhelmed with work, but he came twice a day to care for the Carmelites.[xvi]  On the evening of December 31, Sister Febronie of the Holy Childhood, subprioress, showed her first symptoms as she returned from escorting Dr. de Corniere to the enclosure door.[xvii]  On January 2, 1892, Therese’s 19^th birthday, Sister St. Joseph of Jesus, the oldest nun in the house and the first postulant of the Lisieux community, died.[xviii]

For the rest of the story, stay tuned.

For Part 1 of this series, a timeline of the influenza pandemic at Lisieux Carmel, click the blue button:

Notes:

[i] Wikipedia, “1889-1890 flu pandemic.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%80%931890_flu_pandemic, accessed 5/19/2020.

[ii] Story of a Soul, 3^rd edition, tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  (Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., 1996, p. 283).

[iii] For more about Sister Saint Stanislas, including her brief statement in 1906 about her observations of Therese’s virtue, see http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/les-soeurs-dexperience/stanislas-des-sts-coeurs/circulaire-de-stanislas 

[iv] Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux, Volume II, 1890-1897.  Tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  (Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, 1988, p. 733, note 1).

[v] Letters, Volume II, p. 733, note 2.

[vi] Letters, Volume II, p. 735

[vii] Letters, Volume II, p. 1316

[viii] Letters, Volume II, p. 737.

[ix] Story of a Soul, p. 179.

[x] Story of a Soul, p. 170.

[xi] Sainte Therese de Lisieux (1873-1897), by Guy Gaucher, O.C.D.  (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 2011, p. 349). 

[xii] Story of a Soul, p. 171.

[xiii] Sainte Therese de Lisieux (1873-1897), Gaucher, p. 349.

[xiv] Cited in Letters, Volume II, p. 747, note 1.

[xv] "Biography of Sister Febronie of the Holy Childhood," http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/les-bonnes-vieilles/f%C3%A9bronie/biographie, paragraph 7 of the section “With Therese,” accessed 5/19/2020.

[xvi] Gaucher, p. 351.

[xvii] Circular of Sister Febronie of the Holy Childhood, Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/les-bonnes-vieilles/f%C3%A9bronie/circulaire-de-f%C3%A9bronie, accessed 5/19/2020.

[xviii] "Biography of Sister Febronie of the Holy Childhood," Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, http://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/les-bonnes-vieilles/f%C3%A9bronie/biographie, accessed 5/19/2020.