Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

 Pope Benedict XV during his reign. User:Czinitz at hu.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

     The Pope then began in Italian His masterly discourse, which lasted three-quarters of an hour.  His speech was a "eulogy of the new "Venerable" who seems to have won his heart, and of whom he spoke with tenderness.  Even if the translation of this remarkable oration, which has been kept as literal as possible, enables one to admire its theological power as well as the brilliancy of its diction and elegance of form, nothing can reproduce the eloquence and majesty of the August Orator.  He was radiant; and every one of His graceful and expressive gestures marked His enthusiasm. 

     Mgr. Lemonnier afterwards, in conveying his personal impression, confessed that he had lost all idea of time under the charm of this discourse, its touch of the divine from beginning to end. 

     When the Pope had finished speaking the Most Reverend Father Postulator presented Him with a copy of the Decree tied with a white ribbon with gold border, and the other with violet ribbon, were presented to His Eminence, Cardinal Vico and to his Lordship, Mgr. Lemonnier.  Then, copies of the Decree were distributed among the Assistants. 

     The Holy Father brought the proceedings to an end by imparting, with visible joy, the Apostolic Benediction, and regained His apartments with the usual ceremonial; then the spectators by degrees left the Consistorial Hall.  The Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux was surrounded, congratulated, and questioned on all sides.  Then the crowd gradually dispersed, each one carrying away in his heart the memory of this never-to-be-forgotten ceremony.

[For a description of the events of August 14, 1921, a word picture written in those days before television, I’m indebted to the W.A. Record, a newspaper published in Perth in Western Australia.  See “Promulgation of the Decree on the Heroic Virtues of the Venerable Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus (1922, January 21).” The W.A. Record (Perth, WA : 1888 - 1922), p. 1. Retrieved August 13, 2021, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212397672.  I reproduce the end of this article above].

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I should like to note two other aspects of the significance of this speech of Pope Benedict XV: first, that this speech made Therese's sister Celine so happy that she was happier on August 14, 1921 than on the days when Therese was later beatified and canonized.

Celine's reaction to Pope Benedict's speech:

When the promoter of the faith asked me at the canonical process: “Why do you desire the beatification of Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus?” I answered that it was solely that her Little Way might become known to the world. . . .

The promoter of the faith warned me, however:  “Once you begin to speak of a special Way, the Cause is infallibly doomed; innumerable cases on record bear witness to that.”

“That is indeed too bad,” I replied, “but a fear of hindering the beatification of Sister Thérèse could never deter me from stressing the only important point that interests me—that her Little Way might be raised with her, so to speak, to the honors of the altar.”

Céline goes on,

[O]nly a few years later . . . the decree on the heroic . . . virtues of Sister Thérèse was promulgated by the Sovereign Pontiff, Benedict XV.  On that day, August 14, 1921, when His Holiness in his discourse officially raised The Way of Spiritual Childhood to its exalted rank in the life of the Church, my joy reached heights never again attained, not even on those other memorable days when my little sister Thérèse was first beatified and then canonized by Holy Mother Church.1

[1] Last Conversations of St. Therese of Lisieux (Washington, D.C.: Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, 1977, p. 212.

 The Carmelites of Lisieux promulgating Pope Benedict XV's Speech

The Lisieux Carmelites wrote regularly to the Carmelites of Philadelphia, who, from their foundation in 1902, had been spreading the knowledge of  Therese to the whole United States.  On January 2, 1922, Sister Anne of Jesus, a Canadian nun who had entered the Lisieux Carmel, wrote to Sister Ignatius of the Philadelphia Carmel:

The copies of the speech of the pope were sent to you for free distribution; I had asked Imprimerie St. Paul [St. Paul’s Printing Press] to put a card stating they were offered to you with our compliments.  This speech is so full of light on the way of spiritual childhood that we like to spread it as much as possible, especially among priests.

Read the letter from Sister Anne of Jesus to Sister Ignatius, January 2, 1922, on the Web site of the Philadelphia Carmel. 

References:

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