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.  

 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. 

 “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)

May St. Therese obtain for each of you from God graces as powerful as the one she received on December 25, 1886. 

December 24th:  The good news is the calendar is very popular; the bad news is that we can't send out any more till we get more from Lisieux.  Demand for the calendars has been so intense that our first order from France was exhausted in two days.  Lisieux is sending more, but it will be a couple of weeks before you receive them.  We are still taking orders from our customers, so please feel free to order now, and we will give you priority in shipping as soon as the next batch of calendars arrives.  By ordering now, you will also help us know how soon we need to place another order and how many to bring in.  We regret that we could not make them available earlier, but, in this first year of the English calendar, they arrived in the U.S. only this week.  We are assured that the 2013 calendar will be here in the summer of 2012.  Thank you very much for your generous orders.

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1 calendar $12.00 USD 2 calendars $22.60 USD 3 calendars $33.20 USD 4 calendars $44.95 USD 5 calendars $54.95 USD 6 calendars $64.95 USD 7 calendars $74.95 USD 8 calendars $84.95 USD 9 calendars $94.95 USD 10 calendars $104.95 USD

The educational system of Kenya has been greatly influenced, as one might expect, by the experience of colonization. Many of the details of the current system are remnants of the late 19^th-century British educational approach and are based on the lecture method. Children in elementary and secondary classes are asked to respond by rote memorization, and there is little emphasis on experiential learning, personal responses, or creative, exploratory thinking.

The same is true with religious education. The result is that young religious and seminarians who are in the process of spiritual formation at the college level think of spiritual development as linked to rote memorization. An experiential, exploratory approach or creative, reflective thinking have been given little emphasis as part of spiritual growth.

When I suggest that one of the characteristics of Thérèse’s spirituality is that she learned from her own experience, students are surprised and fascinated  I try to point this out especially with regard to her understanding of prayer.

 Thérèse described her private, personal prayer as including a cry of recognition (gratitude) and of love, embracing both trial and joy.  The students are surprised when I mention that some of the time Thérèse prayed by simply noticing and welcoming as God’s will the time of suffering as well as the time of enjoyment in her life. 

 The students have usually thought of praying as reciting memorized prayers or prayers from a book. They regard praying not as exploring and welcoming the experiences of their life but mostly as petitioning. They have not considered that prayer can simply be the prayer of being willing to discover the truth of what God is saying to us in our daily experiences of pain and joy.

 Thérèse learned this form of prayer mostly from her own experience.  She knew it was true prayer because she trusted that accepting and appreciating her life, as she was held in the arms of God, was all that was asked of her.  She remarked once that Jesus does not demand great actions from us, but simply surrender and gratitude. That was her fundamental spirit as she prayed. She knew also that from the position of being embraced by God, she could best respond with whatever action, great or small, was required of her to fulfill God’s will at each moment.

 Thérèse’s teaching on prayer has been a great help to young religious and seminarians in Kenya and can be a help to our prayer as well.

--

Brother Joseph F. Schmidt, FSC
Nairobi, KENYA

Joseph F. Schmidt, FSC is a lecturer, spiritual director, and pastoral counselor.  For many years he was on the staff of the international sabbatical center, Sangre de Cristo, Santa Fe, NM, USA.  During the last years he has focused his interest on St. Thérèse of Lisieux. He has written three books, all focused on Thérèse and her spirituality, published by Word Among Us Press: Everything is Grace: the Life and Way of Thérèse of Lisieux;  Praying Our Experiences; and Praying With Thérèse of Lisieux.   

Where in the charismatic picture do contemplatives fit? And how are we to be
present today to the Body of Christ and to the overwhelming needs of
God's people which invade and plague our consciousness and seem to
shake our very souls? We rattle the bars of our human finitude as the
pressures for participation and immediate efficaciousness bombard us
from every corner of the world. And we ask if our mortality is not a
source of despair pointing to an unreachable dream.

No genuine contemplative can escape this struggle, this search for
meaning in the contemplative role. Furthermore, no one can pretend
that the achievement of personal identity is accomplished once and for
all by anyone generation or any person. Basically. we grow through a
series of integrations and identifications achieved within the con~
creteness of contemporary history.

The classic example of this struggle is Therese of Lisieux. And her
description of the anguish is no mere sentimental devotion characteristic
of nineteenth century French piety. but the "groaning" or
travail of creation seeking its redemption or liberation in her person.
Somehow the existential powerlessness of the human condition, augumented
by the inhibitions of cloistered structures. makes more urgent
the discovery of an answer to the question of presence to need. Therese
was not at all satisfied with her contemplative presence as she experienced
it: "Carmelite, Spouse, Mother of Souls ... But I feel the
vocation of the fighter, the priest. the apostle. the doctor, the martyr."
she exclaims. I want to carry the gospel everywhere and die every kind
of martyrdom. "To satisfy me I need all."  The sorrow of finitude
speaks here. How much latent humanity before us!