“cloistered” season of raising little ones had been, now I found myself in a busy season, out in the world far more than previously. It was a season marked not by happy hellos to new babies, but by bittersweet goodbyes as children left home, and our parents slipped from this earth. I mourned my losses and I worried. How would such leaving affect the tender souls of my youngest children, in particular? While their siblings had all enjoyed welcoming babies and investing deeply in relationships with their grandparents, these little girls were always saying goodbye.
That’s where I found myself again with Thérèse, again on assignment. (I am very grateful that God sends these assignments when he sees that my soul needs them.) This time, I listened to Story of a Soul read aloud with my girls, and we heard Thérèse’s reflection upon learning her sister was leaving to become a Carmelite nun. “In one instant, I understood what life was; until then, I had never seen it so sad; but it appeared to me in all its reality, and I saw it was nothing but continual suffering and separation.” Sarah, my youngest, responded, “She is just like me!”
She is. And she is also like me, though I am now nearly thirty years older than Thérèse was when she died. That is the great mystery of her holy soul. Thérèse knew the joy of suffering and sacrifice, and she translated that for us. The Lord gifted her with wisdom well beyond her years, wisdom most of us never acquire over a lifetime of learning lessons the hard way. He tenderly poured into her fertile soul truths that he intended for her to share with us.
So, we take up this volume for ourselves, no matter what our stations in life. And we find that despite her youth, and despite the century that divides us, and despite the fact that her vocation bears little resemblance to ours, her story can be our story, too.
I planned to sit in an adoration chapel to write this introduction, to inhale the peace of the beloved, blessed Martin family in the chapel at St. Theresa parish. But my vocation doesn’t always afford me expanses of time in quiet, sacred spaces, so instead, I am writing in moments snatched between watching my four daughters on a dance weekend. I look up to see them sparkling and smiling with joy. Those four girls are the living embodiments of the finest roses sent by my dear friend, Thérèse. It seems appropriate that most of my reflection on the gift that is her book was written in the midst of a noisy world. Despite the fact that she composed in the quiet of a convent, she wrote for the world beyond its gate, offering her whole life of quiet contemplation and her whole existence in heaven for workaday people living ordinary lives.
Before I send this missive on its way, I will find time with the Lord in that chapel. Grateful for the fine points he will no doubt offer, for the time to listen in silence instead of straining to hear him above the din, I will know that Thérèse sits with me there, as she always has, offering wisdom, and showing me the simplest way to sanctity.
Autobiography
Chapter I
Earliest Memories
It is to you, dear Mother, that I am about to confide the story of my soul. When you asked me to write it, I feared the task might unsettle me, but since then Our Lord has deigned to make me understand that by simple obedience I will please Him best. I begin therefore to sing what must be my eternal song: “The Mercies of the Lord” (Ps 88[89]).
Before setting about my task, I knelt before the statue of Our Lady that had given my family so many proofs of Our heavenly Mother’s loving care.1 As I knelt, I begged of that dear Mother to guide my hand, and thus ensure that only what was pleasing to her should find place here.
Then, opening the Gospels, my eyes fell on these words: “Jesus, going up into a mountain, called unto Him whom He would Himself” (cf. Mk 3:13).
They threw a clear light upon the mystery of my vocation and of my entire life, and above all upon the favors which Our Lord has granted to my soul. He does not call those who are worthy, but those whom He will. As Saint Paul says: “God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy” (cf. Rom 9:15–16; cf. Ex 33:19).
I often asked myself why God had preferences, why all souls did not receive an equal measure of grace. I was filled with wonder when I saw extraordinary favors showered on great sinners like Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Saint Mary Magdalen, and many others whom He forced, so to speak, to receive His grace. In reading the lives of the saints I was surprised to see that there were certain privileged souls whom Our Lord favored from the cradle to the grave, allowing no obstacle in their path that might keep them from mounting toward Him, permitting no sin to soil the spotless brightness of their baptismal robe. And again it puzzled me why so many poor savages should die without having even heard the name of God.
Our Lord has deigned to explain this mystery to me. He showed me the book of nature, and I understood that every flower created by Him is beautiful; that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would lose its springtide beauty, and the fields would no longer be enameled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, Our Lord’s living garden. He has been pleased to create great saints who may be compared to the lily and the rose; but He has also created lesser ones, who must be content to be daisies or simple violets flowering at His Feet, and whose mission it is to gladden His Divine Eyes when He deigns to look down on them. And the more gladly they do His Will the greater is their perfection.
I understood this also: that God’s Love is made manifest as well in a simple soul that does not resist His grace as in one more highly endowed. In fact, the characteristic of love being self-abasement, if all souls resembled the holy Doctors who have illuminated the Church, it seems that God in coming to them would not stoop low enough. But He has created the little child, who knows nothing and can but utter feeble cries, and the poor savage who has only the natural law to guide him, and it is to their hearts that He deigns to stoop. These are the field flowers whose simplicity charms Him; and by His condescension to them Our Savior shows His infinite greatness. As the sun shines both on the cedar and on the floweret, so the Divine Sun illumines every soul, great and small, and all correspond to His care — just as in nature the seasons are so disposed that on the appointed day the humblest daisy will unfold its petals.
You will wonder, dear Mother, to what all this is leading, for till now I have said nothing that sounds like the story of my life. But did you not tell me to write quite freely whatever came into my mind? So it will not be my life properly speaking that you will find in these pages, but my thoughts about the graces it has pleased Our Lord to bestow on me.
I am now at a time of life when I can look back on the past, for my soul has been refined in the crucible of interior and exterior trials. Now, like a flower after the storm, I can raise my head and see that the words of the Psalm are realized in me: “The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up on the water of refreshment. He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice for His own Name’s sake. For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou are with me” (cf. Ps 22[23]:1–4).
Yes, to me Our Lord has always been “compassionate and merciful: longsuffering and plenteous in mercy” (Ps 102[103]:8).
And so it gives me great joy, dear Mother, to come to you and sing His unspeakable mercies. It is for you alone that I write the story of the little flower gathered by Jesus. This thought will help me to speak freely, without troubling either about style or about the many digressions that I will make; for a Mother’s heart always understands her child, even when it can only lisp, and so I am sure of being understood and my meaning appreciated.
If a little flower could speak, it seems to me that it would tell us quite simply all that God has done for it, without hiding any of its gifts. It would not, under the pretext of humility, say that it was not pretty, or that it had not a sweet scent, that the sun had withered