A Heroine without Heroics: The Little Flower of Jesus and Her Times

Author(s): Barbara Corrado Pope

Source: Church History , Mar., 1988, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 46-60
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church
History

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 A Heroine Without Heroics: The Little
Flower of Jesus and Her Times
BARBARA CORRADO POPE

Pope Pius X called Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) "the greatest saint

modern times."' For anyone who grew up in the pre-Vatican II church,
was the most popular model of virtue. Her "little way of spiritual childhood
showed Catholics how each of them could practice their faith and gai
salvation.2 The "Little Flower of Jesus" was, above all, a saint for
ordinary person, a heroine without heroics, a mystic who did not soar
through her language brought God and her relationship to him down
earth.

Among her most ardent admirers were people as diverse as the philosopher
Henri Bergson, the chanteuse Edith Piaf, and writer Georges Bernanos in
France; the English Bloomsbury author, Vita Sackville-West; and in Ameri-
ca, Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, and Dorothy Day, a leader of the
Catholic Worker Movement. She has been the subject of at least four films.
The most recent, Therese, won an award at Cannes in 1986. Day and
Sackville-West each contributed a book to the enormous literature that has

emerged to retell the saint's life and to explain and praise her spir
lessons.3
This literature is, indeed, so vast that it would seem there is little left to say.
But as Claude Savart wrote in his review of books published during her
centenary, one issue has gone unexplored: "the posthumous history of
Therese," "the history of the thunderous popular acclaim for an obscure nun
who died at the age of 24 in the depth of a convent in a little provincial
town."4

The research for this article was aided by a summer research grant from the University of
Oregon. I also would like to thank Father Theodore N. Centala, O.C.D., Brookline, Massachu-
setts, for his generously offered information and insight.

1. This statement is frequently quoted; for example, see Rent Laurentin, Therese de Lisieux.
Mythes et Realite (Paris, 1972), p. 13.
2. Although there is now some question about whether or not Therese ever used this phrase, it
is inextricably identified with her name. See Rene Laurentin and Jean-Francois Six,
Therese de Lisieux: Dialogue entre Rene Laurentin et Jean-Francois Six (Paris, 1973),
p. 96.
3. Dorothy Day, Therese (Springfield, Ill., 1960), and Vita Sackville, The Eagle and the Dove
(London,1943).
4. "Bulletin d'histoire de la spiritualite: L'Epoque contemporaine," Revue d'histoire de la
spiritualite 50 (1974): 190.

Ms. Pope is director and associate professor of women's studies in the

University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.
46

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LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS 47

To be sure, part of Therese's posthumous history is well known. A numbe

of books have explained the process of her canonization or duplicated t
testimonies given in her support.5 Several authors have explored the history
her writings also, in an attempt to get at the "real Therese" by peeling off
"prettifying" layers added by her two admiring blood sisters, Sister Agnes
Jesus, who edited the original manuscripts, and Sister Genevieve of Sai
Teresa, who drew the images which were reproduced in countless books, hol
cards, and statues.6
In this article I hope to contribute further to this posthumous history by
offering a series of explanations for Therese's remarkable and enduri
popularity. To this end I have read scores of works on this saint, most of th
adoring, some critical, and a few derogatory. Most authors have assumed th
Therese became so popular because of the genius of her message or th
operation of the Holy Spirit or on account of the miracles she performed af
her death. These are the surmises of faith. Some detractors dismiss her as a
self-absorbed neurotic whose popularity was promoted by her family, th
church, or the businesspeople of Lisieux.7 My intention is not to debunk, but
to explain her appeal by placing her ideas in historical context and by paying
attention to the subtexts of her famous autobiography.
First, however, we need to be acquainted with the saint and her work. The
following account is based on the popular editions of her autobiography
because I want to present the Therese that most people knew and took int
their hearts. She was the last of five living daughters born to a pious couple,
Louis and Zelie Martin. He was a watchmaker who retired to help his wife, a
lacemaker, with her thriving business. Before their marriage both parent
had been rejected by religious orders. Zelie wed, in her own words, only t
produce souls for God's service. This wish was at first thwarted by her
husband's initial desire to spend their marriage in sanctified celibacy. Bu
Zelie's confessor managed to convince him otherwise. Nine births followed
The last produced Therese in 1873.

5. For example, The Story of the Canonization of S. Therese de Lisieux (London, 1934); Proces
de Beatification et canonisation de Sainte Therese de l'Enfant-Jesus et de la Sainte-face
2 vols. (Rome, 1973, 1976); Christopher O'Mahoney, ed., St. Therese of Lisieux by Those
Who Knew Her (Dublin, 1975).
6. The best-known works dealing with the reconstruction of Therese are Ida F. Girres, Th
Hidden Face: A Study of Therese of Lisieux, trans. Richard Winstor and Clara Winstor, 8th
rev. ed. (New York, 1959); Etienne Robo, The Two Portraits of St. Therese of Lisieu
(Chicago, 1959); and Jean Francois Six, La Veritable Enfance de Therese de Lisieux (Paris
1972) and Therese de Lisieux au Carmel (Paris, 1973).
7. Henri Petitot quoted such an accusation at length in Saint Theresa of Lisieux: A Spiritu
Renascence, trans. Benedictines of Stanbrook (London, 1927), pp. xiii-xv. Maurice Privat
accused the businessmen and the sisters in Saint Therese de Lisieux (Paris, 1932). Pierre
Mabille's contention that Therese had a case of schizophrenia fostered by her social and
religious milieu is perhaps the most famous attack: Therese de Lisieux (Paris, 1937); new ed
(Paris, 1975).

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48 CHURCH HISTORY

Therese was surrounded by love-and loss-throughou

was sent out to nurse for the first year of her life. Her m
cancer when Therese was only four and a half. After this
eldest daughter, Pauline, became Therese's "second m
Therese was nine years old, Pauline decided to enter
convent. If one counts the much loved wetnurse, this was
Therese had lost. A nervous illness followed, broken o
healing. Therese thought she saw a statue representing Ou
smile at her during one of her nervous crises. Mary, then
yet another mother and a more permanent one.
But her emotional health remained uncertain until the Christmas of 1886

when Therese overheard her beloved father grumbling about still having to
fill her shoes with gifts. Instead of showing how hurt she was by his criticism
that she was too old for such attentions, she gathered her courage and, actin
as if she had not heard his remarks, managed to make this last childhoo
Christmas an occasion for great joy. This hiding of sacrifices with smiles was
the modus vivendi of her famous spiritual example. As a result of this
"conversion," the saint wrote, "Therese was not the same girl, Jesus had
changed her. ... He made me a fisher of men. I longed to work for the
conversion of sinners with a passion I'd never felt before. Love filled m
heart. I forgot myself and henceforth I was happy."8
By the time Therese was fifteen, she was so intent on devoting her life to
God that she asked her father to let her enter the Carmelite convent. He
reluctantly agreed. Yet the rules stated that one could not become a
contemplative before the age of sixteen. With the support of her family,
Therese asked, in succession, the prioress of the convent, the bishop of
Bayeux, and the pope himself for a special dispensation. Her request to the
pope came during a pilgrimage she made to Rome with her father and sister.
She spoke out despite the repeated and explicit injunction that no one should
talk to the Holy Father. Further, when she did not get a satisfactory answer
from Leo XIII, she clung to his knees until she was pulled off by papal
guards. This incident points to one of the most salient features of the "little
flower": a will of iron. Within a few months of her return to France, Therese
was admitted to the Carmelite convent in her hometown, Lisieux. She lived
there for less than nine years, for in 1897, at the age of 24, she died of
consumption. On her deathbed she promised to send a "shower of roses" from
heaven and to spend her life there "doing good on earth."
Therese wrote her famous autobiography, The Story of a Soul, in three
parts during the last two and a half years of her life. More than half of it was
devoted to the loving reminiscences of childhood. In Therese's portrait of

8. Therese Martin, The Autobiography of Therese of Lisieux: The Story of a Soul, trans. John
Beevers (Garden City, N.Y., 1957), pp. 62-63.

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LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS 49

family life, mama and papa never said a mean word and the children were
thoroughly devoted to their parents and to each other. It was a family which
considered its members to be special, and the most special of all was "baby,"
Therese, who at a very young age declared that she was going to become a
great saint. There was always much talk of prayer, devotions, sacraments,
little sacrifices, pilgrimages, miracles, and death. Only a few outsiders were
welcome: the workers who worked on Zelie's lace; the servants; Therese's
aunt, uncle, and cousins; and a Jesuit advisor, Father Pichon.
This tight-knit family formed such a protective and ideal cocoon for
Therese that nothing outside could ever measure up to it. She suffered during
the time that she spent at day school. She was repelled by the temptations of
the world presented to her by visits to local ladies. And if her one great
journey to Rome introduced her to God's natural wonders and the church's
relics, it also reinforced her notion that everything shaped by human
"creatures" was mere vanity-everything from the jelly that sinks repulsively
into bread to the world's notion of social ranks to, most importantly, human
relationships. Human relationships are played out in time and must change
and pass. Thus Therese learned early to look forward to eternity, to
unchanging love, to mothers who never died or went away, and to a heavenly
father, as kind as her own but infinitely more effective and powerful.
The convent formed a much less comfortable but equally tight cocoon.
When Therese arrived the prioress went out of her way not to treat this
unusually young charge with indulgence. In fact, according to Therese, she
was manifestly indifferent. Later Therese expressed her gratitude for this
indifference, for she felt it was part of God's plan for her. It seemed to help
her to isolate herself increasingly from "natural" relationships in order to
devote herself, as much as obedience to the rule would allow, to her spiritual
relationship with Jesus. It also, according to Therese, reinforced her notion of
her own "littleness" and helped her to formulate the famous theology of "the
little way." Therese often described her spiritual vocation of love in terms
which seem at once childish and hyperbolic. At various times she expressed
the wish to become a ball for Jesus, a mere plaything, or, even better, a grain
of sand. Finally in 1889 she reached the climax of her journey when she was
able, with the permission of her mother superior, to offer herself as a
"sacrificial victim" of Jesus's love.
The outward manifestations of the "little way" are a series of sacrifices
that became the anecdotal inheritance of millions of Catholics. These
Theresienne examples demonstrate how average or "little souls" could
do good, no matter where they were. For example, Therese listene
grumbling, sick old nun in silence for ten whole minutes at a time. T
did not turn back to look at a nun whose constant noises bothered her du
services. Nor did she reproach another nun who splashed dirty water on
face while doing the laundry. Finally, for the nun who, through no faul

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50 CHURCH HISTORY

her own, grated on Therese's nerves, the saint had only

warmth. For God's sake she loved all her companions, ev
not always like them.
Upon reading these anecdotes, we do not wonder that The
has never been unanimously popular. Indeed, when it wa
sister houses, three Carmels rejected it. One prioress eve
"the thought that this manuscript is now free for anyone to
beyond words."9 Little wonder, too, that Thomas Merton
of the saint was that she was "a mute pious little doll in the
lot of sentimental old women," or that many Catholics
uninteresting and puerile.'0 Yet the success of her little boo
nal.

In October 1898, after having solicited the editorial advice of Dom

Godefroy Madelaine and the imprimatur of their reluctant bishop, the nuns
at Lisieux printed 2,000 copies of a volume which contained the autobiogra-
phy and some letters and poems written by Therese. They sent this book out
in lieu of the obituary notice that convents usually exchanged to report their
deaths. Presumably, given the number of copies printed, the volumes also
were distributed to people outside the order. Thus began the creation of a
saint-and an industry.
By 1909 the Carmel at Lisieux was receiving fifty letters a day. Many of
the correspondents claimed that Therese had worked miracles in fulfillment
of her deathbed pledge. It is said that the number of letters reached five
hundred a day by 1914." By the time of Therese's canonization in 1925, the
autobiography had been translated into 35 languages. The Lisieux Carmel
alone had sold 410,000 complete editions and over 2 million abridged versions
in French. It also had sent out 30,388,000 pictures of the saint and
17,507,000 relic-sachets and relic-pictures.12 The accounts of miracles attrib-
uted to Therese's intervention filled 3,000 closely printed pages in the
regularly published Pluie de Roses (Shower of Roses).13 Statues of Therese
Martin, as a nun holding a bouquet of roses, appeared in churches
throughout the world.

9. Introduction to Beevers's translation, Autobiography, p. 15.

10. Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (New York, 1948), p. 353. This rejection of
Therese as uninteresting and puerile certainly has been one reaction I have received while
doing this research. See also G6rres, Hidden Face, p. 11; Hippolyte Honore, "Sondage
d'opinions," Le Message d'une femme: Thberse de Lisieux (Mulhouse, 1968), p. 11; and
Joann Wolski Conn, "Th6erse of Lisieux from a Feminist Perspective," Spiritual Life 28
(1982): 233.
11. Introduction to Therese Martin, Autobiography of a Saint, trans. Ronald Knox (Glasgow,
1958), p. 22.
12. August Pierre Laveille, Life of the Little Flower: St. Thberse of Lisieux, According to the
Official Documents of the Carmel of Lisieux, trans. M. Fitzsimons (New York, 1952), p. 333.
This book was originally a best-seller in 1925.
13. G6rres, Hidden Face, p. 2.

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LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS 51

Therese became the guardian of many soldiers in the trenches of the Firs
World War. After it was over, the military medals sent in gratitude for he
help and consolation filled the walls of the parlor at the Lisieux Conven
Her memory brought about conversions on all continents.'5 There we
orphanages named for her in London and children's contests about her in th
English Catholic press.'6 In America before the war, one Catholic newspa
in Saint Louis, Missouri, printed several columns of acknowledgements e
week for her; her fame grew even more rapidly in the United States after h
canonization.17 Several shrines were built in her name, and Father Charles E
Coughlin, the controversial "radio priest," called his national broadcast "
Golden Hour of the Little Flower." She was also the inspiration for th
French worker-priest movement after the Second World War. Today h
thaumaturgical powers are still recognized among "little souls" in vario
parts of the world. The national shrine in San Antonio, Texas, prints
biweekly reports of her favors; and in central Paris she still may be the mo
frequently invoked saint.'8
The explanation that most pious writers offer for her thunderous acclaim
is that it was a spontaneous cry of recognition by ordinary people who hear
her message and understood that it was meant for them. There is certai
some truth to this explanation, but it is disingenuous to claim that it is
whole story. To some extent Therese's canonization and popularity we
orchestrated by her faithful entourage. When Therese died, three of h
siblings and one cousin also resided in her convent. During her final illn
they carefully collected the articles she used and touched (including h
eyelashes and tears) as relics. Therese, perhaps jokingly, even tore roses apar
for this purpose. The publication of the Story, too, was a rather audaci
affair. So was the epitaph which Sister Agnes chose for Therese's gravestone
"I will spend my Heaven in doing good upon earth."'9 Therese's relativ
may not have foreseen official canonization, but they certainly were willing
communicate news of her sanctity and possible miracle-working abili
outside the convent walls. Undeniably, one reason for Therese's fame was he
reputed thaumaturgical power.
Further, Therese seemed like a saint, and the onset of the process o
canonization, which was reported in the Catholic press by 1906, furth

14. Edward F. Garesche, The Teachings of the Little Flower (New York, 1925), p. 20.
15. Two famous converts were the American writer Michael Williams, who speaks about
conversion in The Book of High Romance: A Spiritual Autobiography (New York, 192
and Chinese magistrate John Wu, who tells his story in The Science of Love: A Study of
Teachings of Therese de Lisieux (Hong Kong, 1941).
16. "The Little Flower," The Messenger of the Sacred Heart 41 (July 1915): 248.
17. Williams, Book of High Romance, pp. 274-275.
18. See The Apostolate of the Little Flower, published since 1922; Stephen Wilson, "Cul
Saints in the Churches of Central Paris," in Saints and their Cults: Studies in Religio
Sociology, Folklore and History, ed. Stephen Wilson (London, 1983), pp. 233-257.
19. G6rres, The Hidden Face, p. 391.

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52 CHURCH HISTORY

validated her sanctity. As sociologist Pierre Delooz poin

become a saint onlyfor others and through their active inter
not only fit the conventional notions of female piety in her
projected the right "statistical profile" for canonization. Sin
century, when Rome bureaucratized the canonization pr
percent of those sainted were members of the clergy or reli
65 percent of them had come from France, Spain, or Ital
ingly demonstrates that because of the complications an
canonization process, the backing of at least one reli
appropriate financial resources, lobbying ability, and long
rigueur.20 Therese's candidacy had the advantage not on
phalanx in a vigorous religious order, but also the active pro
Catholic notables.21
Obviously, neither spontaneity nor clerical maneuverin
caused the "Therese phenomenon." I believe that there a
reasons which account for the popularity of her persona and
they fit into an evolving Catholic culture that was both
profoundly anti-modern. Within that context she became th
heroine: an innocent, suffering, miracle-working girl who e
a profound alienation from the world. Second, her book
because it could be read in several ways: as a family romance
girlhood, a realistic drama of clerical life, a portrait of fem
ethical guidebook, and a theological treatise. Each of the
special appeal to particular Catholics.
Historians first used the term "the feminization of reli
three critical trends in New England American Protestantism
ratio of women in the churches; the concomitant enhanc
influence in religion; and certain changes in doctrine a
seemed particularly suited to female needs and experienc
included a decline in the belief in infant damnation and a softer, less
threatening imaging of divinity. God the Father became more merciful and
less judgmental; heaven became "domesticated"; and Jesus was portrayed as
more human, as the primal sacrificial lamb.22
This "feminization" took place within the context of a widening gap
between public and private life and a stricter definition of gender roles.
Among the middle classes the leisured wife sequestered in the home became

20. Pierre Delooz, Sociologie et canonisations (Liege, 1969), pp. 27, 183, 352-353.
21. These notables include Francois Veuillot, the French journalist who "broke" the story of the
canonization in 1906, and Monsignor Thomas Taylor, a Scottish Sulpician priest who
promoted her cause in the British Isles and in Rome.
22. See especially Barbara Welter, "The Feminization of American Religion, 1800-1860,"
reprinted in Dimity Convictions (Athens, Ohio, 1976), and Ann Douglas, The Feminization
of American Culture (New York, 1977).

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LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS 53

the ideal, while men more and more directed their attention to the pu
sphere of politics and economics. Industrialization, which separated the hom
from production, undergirded and shaped this ideology of domesticity. So d
increasing male participation in the democratized political life of the n
republic. Men who competed for places and wealth in the secular publ
sphere needed to exhibit the "masculine" qualities of toughness and rationali
ty. Women and the churches became the repository for such virtues
humility, charity, submissiveness, and piety. In popular "secular" literat
women often starred as Christlike victims who died declaring their faith or
love or forgiveness. It is not without reason that Ann Douglas, in the b
known work on the subject, has conflated sentimentalization and domestific
tion as "feminization."
Similar economic, political, and religious trends occurred in parts of
Europe as well as America. But when historians of France began to speak of a
"feminisation" of Catholicism, they usually were referring to numbers an
quantifiable practices rather than changes in dogma or increased female
influence. The numbers are, indeed, quite remarkable. Although the figure
do vary by region and social class, both impressionistic and statistical dat
consistently show that during the nineteenth century men were a smal
minority of those who regularly attended mass and confessed their sins to a
priest. One recent estimate claims that women comprised 75 percent of
practicing Catholics. Male socialibility, which once had found an outlet in the
religious confraternities controlled by the laity, was migrating to the intellec
tual gathering, the tavern, and political activity. Women, however, increas
ingly were organized into the church by means of Catholic education,
sodalities, and charitable pursuits. In addition, women were entering
religious orders in record numbers, especially in the second half of the
century, whereas the church had to work very hard to assure enough priests
for French parishes.23
Although most French historians ignore the issue of female influence upon
church dogma and practices, it would seem that in virtue of their very
numbers women would affect choices about the relative importance of certain
devotions, the "beauty" of various artistic styles, and the ranking of ethical
concerns within nineteenth-century Catholicism. The most obvious sign of
this feminized sensibility was the fact that devotion more and more focused on
the Holy Family, the increasingly androgynized image of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus, and the Blessed Virgin. Indeed, this period became known as the
Marian era because of the widely reported apparitions at LaSalette, Lourdes

23. Much recent research is summarized in Francois Lebrun et al., Histoire des catholiques e
France du XVe siecle a nos jours (Paris, 1980), pp. 321-452, and in Olwen Hufton, "The
Reconstruction of the Church, 1794-1801," in Beyond the Terror: Essays in French
Regional and Social History 1794-1815, ed. Gwynne Lewis and Colin Lucas (Cambridge,
1983).

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54 CHURCH HISTORY

and Pontmain. In the mythic universe created by the

represented the eternally consoling woman who intercede
The visionaries, who were uniformly young and unsc
female, stood for the innocents who, like sequestered wom
what is hidden from the worldly.
The mass production of statues, pictures, and holy cards
of this feminized sensibility infinitely replicable. This "Sa
created mostly between 1860 and 1930, spread throughout
and gave believers an identifiable home in the church as w
the church into their homes. This was the Catholic "domestication of
heaven." "The blue Virgins, the rosy Sacred Hearts and the choco
Josephs," wrote the novelist Francois Mauriac, "belonged for me
enchanted world of Catholic childhood, where heaven freely visi
earth."24 Therese, the "little brown sister," fit easily into this sen
pantheon.
What distinguished the "feminized" or sentimentalized Catholic piety
from its Protestant counterpart was its suffusion with a conscious, militant
anti-modernism. The organizational context was another and related differ-
ence. Just as in America, feminization was the result of the symbiotic
relationship between clergy and female churchgoers. But whereas the New
England church was undergoing a process of liberalization and decentraliza-
tion, the Catholic church was becoming more and more centralized and
authoritarian. Motivated by sincere piety as well as by a desire to maintain
and extend its control over the faithful, the male hierarchy actively promoted
devotions which directly assaulted the rationalism of secular society. Among
these attacks were the declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception in 1854, the belief in and publicizing of miracles, and the
promotion of pilgrimages.
This policy reversed previous practice. In the eighteenth century many
church officials had ignored or even condemned forms of popular piety that
seemed to smack of superstition or emotionalism. But in the last half of the
nineteenth century the promotion of such devotions emanated from the very
center, the papacy itself, and spread out to the universal church by means of
standardized literature and objects, parish-sponsored organizations, and the
granting of indulgences. In this way many pious exercises which formerly or
potentially had had only local significance became general and universal.
Thus the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which had attracted some
adherents in France during the ancien regime, spread throughout Catho-
licism in the 1800s. Lourdes was an even more telling example. The
apparitions, with their ties to folk legends and a sacred spring, had all the

24. Quoted in Claude Savart, "A Recherche de l"art' dit de Saint-Sulpice," Revue d'histoire de
la spiritualite 52 (1976): 282.

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LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS 55

earmarks of a local, peasant affair. But the church moved quickly to approv
the pilgrimage and tie it to the sacramental system.25 Other revived or new
devotions included the saying of the rosary and the way of the cross,
adoration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the assistance at novenas a
first Fridays, and renewed emphasis on praying to saints as intermediaries
God's grace and favors.26 Relatively little attention was paid to liturgic
reform, except for Pius X's mandate for earlier and more frequent comm
nion.

The belief in miracles represented a direct confrontation with the modern

world's captivation with science and human progress. So did the very virtues
extolled in the new devotions. The immaculateness of Mary, the Cross and
Heart of Jesus, and the contemplation of the Holy Family signified
innocence, suffering, and love. The belief that innocence and suffering were
the primary human virtues stood as a reproach to the secular world, which
honored skepticism, materialism, rationalism, and optimism. But the con-
frontation was not only about ideas. Ever since the French Revolution,
republican and socialist politics had challenged not only the belief system but
also the temporal power of the church throughout Europe. Not surprisingly,
a high evaluation of suffering, innocence, and faith became transmuted into
either a political animosity toward those who doubted and mocked the church
and its beliefs or a profound alienation from secular society.
Therese, then, became a readily acceptable "saint" not only because of her
"femininity," but because she spoke to the predicament of a large segment of
practicing Catholics. And she spoke to it so well because she herself had
experienced it. There were, of course, psychological reasons for Therese's
withdrawal from the world. But the alienation which she expressed-from
the city, modernity, and the world-was the great shared experience of the
majority of urbanized Catholics in the hundred years before Vatican II. In
England, for example, Catholics felt beleaguered because they were a small
minority; in America, it was because they belonged to an immigrant church.
In Therese's France many Catholics felt themselves to be emigres de
I'interieur. They had their own schools, their own literature, and their own
newspapers. These institutions fed their contempt for Republican France.
Withdrawal, of course, did not necessarily mean silence. In France,
anti-republicanism became the noisy, all-consuming cause of some militant
Catholics. The leading voice of this reaction was the nationally distributed
Assumptionist newspaper, La Croix, which was virulently anti-modern,

25. For a similar interpretation, see Thomas Kselman, Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth-
Century France (Rutgers, 1983), and Bill McSweeny, Roman Catholicism: The Search for
Relevance (Oxford, 1979).
26. For an excellent summary and analysis of new and revitalized nineteenth-century devotions,
see Ann Taves, The Household of Faith: Roman Catholic Devotions in Mid-Nineteenth-
Century America (Notre Dame, 1986).

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56 CHURCH HISTORY

anti-Republican, anti-Protestant, and anti-Semitic. Ther

Guerin promoted La Croix in the region and was a leading f
Catholic press.27 Although Therese never addressed polit
certainly familiar with the worldview conveyed by the Cath
To say the least, noisy militant activism was not to everyo
urban Catholics imbibed the ideas of the militants while
step further. Cut off from the more communal religious life
rural folk and forced to rub shoulders with non-believers, t
Catholics, like Zelie and Louis Martin, were doubly ghett
truly became a "haven in an unheavenly world." This situati
why the first two subtexts of Therese's autobiography, the
girlhood and the Martin family romance, would have ha
these Catholics.
The presentation of Therese as the "model girl" is perhaps the most
distorted image conveyed by The Story of a Soul. Recent commentators have
complained that the portrayal of Therese as precociously holy masked her
very real struggles and toughness. Therese's untouched photographs, which
show her as a strong-willed, almost strapping young woman, certainly
support their objections. But these critics are fighting a tide of mass-produced
drawings, edifying biographies for the young, and, of course, the sentimental-
izing prose of the Story itself.
Despite these objections, it is obvious that to the readers of the popular
editions Therese was very good in a way that the faithful recognized as good.
And she had the added attraction of having been so within living memory.
"She took part in the life of our times," wrote one writer. "She breathed our
air, travelled our railways, stood before our cameras."28 She was easily
imagined as a pretty little girl with long blond curls from a very proper
family.29 She had, in the words of one German theologian, "the magic of
youth and innocence."30 Or, as an American priest writing in the thirties
noted, she was quite simply "everybody's sweetheart."31 It is easy to
understand the attraction. In the Feminization of American Culture Ann
Douglas analyzed the satisfactions that readers felt as they read about the
death of Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin.32 Surely this most famous fictional

27. Jean-FranCois Six gives the most details about Guerin's political connections in his
two-volume biography. See especially La Veritable Enfance, pp. 151-172.
28. Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, St. Therese of Lisieux: A Biography, trans. Helen Y. Chase
(London, 1929), p. 34.
29. Many authors described childhood scenes or asked their readers to imagine them. One
nonreader who daydreamed about her image of Therese-as-a-girl was Madame Lucie, who
spent her teenaged years in Lisieux before and during World War I. Bonnie Smith,
Confessions of a Concierge: Madame Lucie's History of Twentieth-Century France (New
Haven, 1985), pp. 28-31.
30. Konstantin Kamph, as quoted in G6rres, Hidden Face, p. 12.
31. Joseph Daley, A Saint of Today (New York, 1936), p. 55.
32. Douglas, Feminization of American Culture, pp. 3-6.

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LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS 57

account of consumption paled before the real life suffering of the soi-disan
"little Therese" and her real golden locks.
The Martin family romance is closely linked to model girlhood. It, to
realized clearly articulated Catholic ideals. Zelie was a mother who, acco
ing to one priest, "had no fear of the pains of childbirth" and did not worr
about "restricting her freedom or curtailing her pleasures."33 This w
home in which everyone loved each other and kept the faith. It was als
family which escaped adolescent rebellion and the invasion of new ideas. Thi
portrait would have been particularly comforting to those who were scorne
because they aspired to the religious life or wanted to raise a priest or nun.
also would have comforted families that had faced multiple births and death
In the tale of the Martins love triumphed over death, and Catholics could fi
validation for their values and beliefs. The family romance seems to be
most obvious attraction of Therese's Story for several reasons: the lovi
detail given to domestic life in the autobiography itself; the number
collective and individual biographies that have been written about
Martins; and the fact that some people have always felt that Therese'
parents should be canonized.34
Because Therese has always been extolled as a saint for ordinary or
people, a third way of reading the autobiography is much less appare
Therese's realistic portrayal of religious life must have been appealing
many of the priests who analyzed and publicized her work. A few of th
called her "virile" in recognition of her courage and hardiness.35 T
designation obviously underscores the particular identification that these m
felt with this very feminine saint. Another indication of this bond appears
the quotation which appeared again and again in the biographies, Bernard
Clairvaux's maxim that "my principal penance is community life." Th
quote obviously expresses the difficulties of pursuing a religious vocati
Indeed, as Therese described it, the only satisfying aspect of her profess
was her relationship with God; and that relationship was satisfying n
because of unusual raptures or visions or gifts, but because of Therese's tota
acceptance and trust in God's love. She suffered periods of spiritual dryn
and, as she got sicker, even doubts. In the convent she was profoundly alone
as most celibate clergy are, and she felt she was misunderstood by he
community. Members of the clergy felt close to her, despite her youth and t

33. Daley, A Saint of Today, pp. 10-11.

34. The cause for their canonization is still alive; conversation with Theodore Centala, J
1985.
35. For concern with her virility, see Albert M. Hutting, The Life of the Little Flower (Royal
Oak, Mich., 1942), p. 4; Marie Michel Philipon, Sainte Thierse de Lisieux, "Une Voie
Toute Nouvelle" (Paris, 1946), p. 144; Victor de la Vierge, Spiritual Realism of Saint
Therese of Lisieux, trans. Discalced Carmelite Nuns (Milwaukee, 1962), p. 11; and Peter
Rohrbach, In Search of St. Thgerse (New York, 1961), p. 13. All these authors are priests;
the word virile has the same significance in French as in English.

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58 CHURCH HISTORY

exceedingly sheltered life she led, because she did not r

experiences. Viewing domestic life from afar, many prie
were more likely to idealize the family. As Therese knew, pr
souls" too. They appreciated and noted her difficulties and st
they had lived them.
If male priests identified with Therese's realism, was t
way women could read her Story which would validate th
religion? Her book presents a portrait of how women can
mously in a male-dominated church. Little sacrifices, spe
saintly "friends," and a one-to-one relationship with Jesu
features of Therese's depiction of her spiritual life. Th
understandable to Catholics who preferred to pick a
devotional options and pious organizations rather than att
church into an entire community of believers. Many of the
of the "little way" did not participate in or completely unde
liturgy. Every pre-Vatican II Catholic can recall mum
sermons, and parishioners saying their rosaries during se
mandate for full, consistent participation in the liturgy
reasons why so many Catholics became uncomfortable with t
II church. They preferred to fulfill clearly stated obligation
go on to worship according to their own individual tast
(practice a certain spiritual autonomy). Therese, who nev
the priests wiser than herself, became both a model for and
autonomous adorations. She validated the tendency that
patriarchal systems to concede authority to men while
thing-like choosing and shaping their own devotions and stic
own ethical priorities.36
These priorities for nineteenth-century Catholic women w
ingly personal and private. They had little to do with the m
of the day. Despite exceptions, like Leo XIII's encyclical,
the church concentrated more and more on articulating an e
life, the family, and sexuality. Indeed, there may be a conne
church's growing authoritarianism, its increasing intrusion
and lay organizations, and male flight from Catholicism. Me
likely than women to remain in an institution that set itself
against secular change and at the same time tried to dictate
details of private morality.37 Yet women and men who r
changing political and intellectual currents of modern lif

36. Joann Conn, "Therese of Lisieux from a Feminist Perspective,"

autonomy. I would not go so far, however, as to label this female strat
37. See Jean-Louis Flandrin, L'Eglise et le controle des naissances (P
Venard, "Popular Religion in the Eighteenth Century," in Church
Eighteenth Century, ed. William Callahan and David Higgs (Cambrid

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LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS 59

emphasis on personal morality to be a validation of their existence.38 W

Therese's Story did was to give dramatic content to this morality. This feat
is what made her ethical system the most powerful and influential subtext
her book.
This interpretation is different from the more popular reading that her
ethics told the faithful how they could obtain sanctity without having to be
heroic. To be sure, there were few opportunities for heroics during Therese's
time. (She herself longed to be a martyr.) Yet in how many ages is heroism
possible for the average person? The appeal of her ethics was that "the little
way" put Therese at the center of a drama in which any of the faithful could
star. It also described how Catholics could act "in the world" without being
harmed by it.
In the last part of her book Therese presented herself in a series of
one-to-one relationships with God and others. Only with God and a few
people like the prioress and her blood sisters does one get a sense of
interrelationship. Because she related to others out of her love of God (and not
for their own qualities), she comes across as an autonomous, protected person.
Because God watched every act, no matter how small, each act became a kind
of drama. This is not to say that Therese was counting up her now famous
little sacrifices. Rather, she was trying to develop the habit of always doing
good, which is not easy. But it was a very private kind of good, emanating
from a position of strong personal control. It was a good that one does towards
friends as well as enemies, a way of doing good that was appropriate for
Catholics passing through an alien world.
What is more, it was a very feminine kind of good, in the nineteenth-
century meaning of the word feminine. It was self-abnegating, passive,
smiling; it was hidden; it reveled in its littleness. Her "way" had nothing to do
with public issues, and it certainly did not threaten authority. But it had a
certain power. Therese's ethics eschewed the noisy rancor of anti-modern
militancy and thus reappropriated charity as the Christian's modus vivendi in
an alien world. Her way didn't let the enemy get to you. It left the doer of
good in control and sure of his or her moral rectitude and salvation.
Therese's theological vocation was to make love loved. This is the final and
most timeless theme under discussion. Her transcendent message was that
one should have absolute trust in God's love and appreciation for God's
creatures. She turned the sterner stuff of Luther's salvation by faith into a
salvation by love and confidence. Since she did not present an ecstatic's or
intellectual's account of mystical union, she made this relationship accessible
to "little souls." She did not create exalted symbols for God, but used those
which were the common coin of her era. In some ways she brought God down

38. For an analysis of the interrelationship of female experience, religion, and anti-modernity,
see Bonnie Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class: The Bourgeoises of Northern France in the
Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 1981).

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60 CHURCH HISTORY

to earth. For example,

spouse, by finding o
place, her autobiogra
heaven, surely God wo
Her message of love w
be quite difficult. Ne
was unique about Ther
her as she was. This c
language and do honor
There could be no her
from a small town. Bu
small dramas: of the
male-dominated and
attention of a loving,
and dramatic substanc

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