October 1 is the Feast Day of St Therese of Lisieux! Below are many articles that feature her. Happy Feast Day!
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My Trusted Guide
Therese – you are my friend and trusted guide – your Little Way, for sure, is right for me, though I’ll admit, I’ve sometimes looked to see what other routes there are, that I’ve not tried… Yet having searched with care, and far and wide, it’s clear an excess of diversity, or restlessness, or curiosity,…
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A Childlike Response to Jesus
An ancient legend about St John the Apostle tells us that he lived to a great old age. His words became fewer as he grew older. Toward the end of his life, he was content to repeat to his followers: ‘Little children, love one another.’ Someone asked him why he kept repeating the same thing.…
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A Carmelite Pilgrimage to the Shrines of France
The Journey Begins with Hope A pilgrimage begins with much organisation, bookings and arrangements. At Dublin airport a group of perfect strangers meet to set off for Paris, where they will spend seven days visiting the shrines of France, beginning in Normandy and concluding in Lyons. Preparing to make two visits a day, we set…
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Thérèse and Martin: Carmel and the Reformation in a New Light
Outside ecumenical circles I doubt many would ever have heard of ‘receptive-ecumenism’. According to the website ‘Churches Together in England’ it is not: ‘asking what other Church traditions need to learn from us’ but it is saying: ‘…we ask what our tradition needs to learn from them – what we can receive which is of…
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St Thérèse: ‘The Gospel Canonised’
May 17 this 2025 will mark the first centenary of the canonisation of St Thérèse of Lisieux, known to the world as the Little Flower. Considering she only died 28 years before that, that was remarkably soon for a canonisation, by the standards of the time. But there had been a whirlwind of devotion to…
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St Thérèse of Lisieux as a Model of Hope
The Catholic Church is currently celebrating her Jubilee Year which Pope Francis has entitled: ‘Pilgrims of Hope.’ In this year of particular grace, the Church encourages her children to renew and deepen their life of hope, something quite apt given that the world we are living in seems to have lost almost all sense of…
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The Humility of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
At the end of Saint Thérèse’s life, her Prioress, Mother Marie de Gonzague said to her, ‘You have always understood and practised humility’. Yes, Thérèse replied, ‘it seems to me that I never sought anything but the truth; yes, I have understood humility of heart […] It seems to me I’m humble’. Has any other…
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Making Love Tangible: The Witness of St Thérèse of Lisieux
Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (1873–1897), a nineteenth-century Carmelite nun, was canonised in Rome on May 17, 1925. A century later, the Church joyfully commemorates the canonisation of this heroic figure of faith. At age fifteen, she joined the Carmel at Lisieux. She practiced evangelical simplicity and heroic confidence in God,…
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Conversation between the ‘Little Nothing’ and the ‘Little Flower’ (a fictional dialogue)
In the magnificent gardens of heaven, Mariam, whose soul was marked with the tenderness of Christ’s Passion, sat in prayer at one end of the garden, her thoughts centred on her beloved Lord. Her troubled childhood, an assassination attempt for not converting to Islam, and her perilous flight from danger were now distant memories. Nearby,…
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St Thérèse, Small and Holy
St Thérèse flew to Jesus, growing ever smallerin her cell. Her childlike trust, her little wayscaptured in her reflections of the natural world.That tiny brown bird winging its way to God.A single grain of sand in God’s hourglass.The martyrs’ dust she gathered at the Colosseum.And the lowly violet dotting a field in Normandy,or a chestnut…
