Abbreviations
SL Gaucher, Guy. The Story of a Life: St. Thérèse of Lisieux. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1987.
PT Gaucher, Guy. The Passion of Thérèse of Lisieux. New York: Crossroads Publishing, 1998.
ST O’Mahony, Christopher, ed. and trans. St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Those Who Knew Her: Testimonies from the Process of Beatification. Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1975.
SF Piat, Stéphane-Joseph, O.F.M. The Story of a Family: The Home of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books and Publishers, 1948.
LC Thérèse de Lisieux, Saint. St. Thérèse of Lisieux: Her Last Conversations. Translated from the original manuscripts by John Clarke, O.C.D. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1977.
LT Thérèse de Lisieux, Saint. Letters of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Vols. I and II, General Correspondence. Translated from the original manuscripts by John Clarke, O.C.D. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1982, 1988.
PO Thérèse de Lisieux, Saint. The Poetry of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Translated by Donald Kinney, O.C.D. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1996.
SS Thérèse de Lisieux, Saint. Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Translated from the original manuscripts by John Clarke, O.C.D. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1996.
1 “would never have suspected her sanctity”: SL, 207.
1 “voice of the people”: “‘We must lose no time in crowning the little saint with glory, if we do not want the voice of the people to anticipate us,’ declared Cardinal Vico, Prefect of the Congregation of Rites.” Ibid., 210.
1 Poor grain of sand…too glorious: LT, 580, 612.
2 of whom three are women: The other two female Doctors of the Church are Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa of Ávila.
2 “God deigned to grant”: SS, 15.
4 “story of a ‘steel bar’”: “the willpower, courage and resolution which it revealed made it seem to me the story of a steel bar.” Albino Luciani [later Pope John Paul I], St. Thérèse of Lisieux: From Lisieux to the Four Corners of the World (Strasbourg: Editions du Signe, 1995), 23.
5 “let him deny himself”: Matt. 16:24.
5 “bury their own dead”: Luke 9:60.
5 “to the service of God”: SS, 73.
6 “glance on the past”: Ibid., 15.
6 “sad as a shroud”: Letter to her brother, Isidore Guérin, November 7, 1865, SL, 9.
7 “See to the making of Point d’Alençon”: SF, 33.
7 “whom I have prepared for you”: Ibid., 40.
11 “slaves to fashion”: Letter to Pauline, dated January 30, 1876, LT, 1221.
11 “are reunited up above”: Ibid., 1205.
12 “I was born to have them”: Letter to Céline Guérin, December 15, 1872, ibid., 1199.
12 “crown upon all my misfortunes”: Letter to Isidore Guérin, December 23, 1866, SF, 114.
12 “glandular swelling”: Letter to Isidore Guérin, April 23, 1865, ibid., 72.
13 “would have crossed a forest alone”: Letter to Céline Guérin, January 13, 1867, ibid., 76.
13 “They were not lost forever”: Letter to Céline Guérin, October 17, 1871, ibid., 98.
14 “arms so stiff and face so cold!”: Letter to Isidore Guérin, June 27, 1865, ibid., 74.
14 “she sang with me”: Letter to Céline Guérin, January 16, 1873, LT, 1200.
16 “Everyone tells me she is beautiful”: Ibid.
16 “could no longer doubt it yesterday”: Ibid.
16 “as all wet-nurses today are”: Letter to Céline Guérin, December 15, 1872, ibid., 1199.
16 “this is her entire nourishment”: Letter to Céline Guérin, January 16, 1873, ibid., 1200.
17 “very gay, very darling”: Letter to Céline Guérin, December 13, 1873, ibid., 1209.
18 “story of this so-happy couple”: Letter to Isidore Guérin, March 1864, SF, 61.
19 “until someone brings her back to me”: Letter to Pauline, June 25, 1874, LT, 1211.
19 “So many steps, so many Mamma’s!”: Letter to Pauline, November 21, 1875, ibid., 1218.
19 “we must die to go there”: Letter to Pauline, December 5, 1875, ibid., 1219.
19 “full of life”: SS, 34.
19 “if she accuses herself”: Letter to Pauline, May 21, 1876, LT, 1224-25.
20 “believing that all is lost”: Letter to Pauline, December 5, 1875, ibid., 1219.
22 “never leaves her for one minute”: Letter to Pauline, March 4, 1877, ibid., 1232.
22 “rather sleep there than say ‘yes’”: Letter to Pauline, May 14, 1876, LT, 1223.
22 “a summary of my whole life”: SS, 27.
23 “strange whistling in her chest”: Letter to Céline Guérin, November 12, 1876, LT, 1227.
23 “experienced this more than once”: Letter to Marie-Louise Morel, December 27, 1875, ibid., 1219.
23 “five times as much”: Gen. 43:34.
23 “for her day and night”: Letter to Céline Guérin, November 12, 1876, LT, 1227.
24 “invincible stubbornness”: Letter to Pauline, May 14, 1876, ibid., 1223.
24 “to do whatever He wills!”: Letter to Pauline, May 10, 1877, ibid., 1234.
24 “in the arms of her mother”: Letter to Pauline, October 29, 1876, ibid., 1226.
26 “I am like all the rest”: Letter to Céline Guérin, April 12, 1877, SF, 242.
26 “twinges returned as usual”: Ibid., 244.
27 “model of insubordination”: Letter to Pauline, March 12, 1877, ibid., 238.
27 “obeyed only the maid”: Ibid.
28 “Léonie sobbed”: Letter to Céline Guérin, June 14, 1877, ibid., 229.
28 “make her obey”: Letter to Pauline, March 22, 1877, ibid., 240.
29 “as though completely crushed”: Letter to Céline Guérin, December 17, 1876, ibid., 230.
29 “second mother in their aunt”: Isidore Guérin quoted ibid., 248.
29 “from the armchair to bed”: Ibid., 256.
29 “in times of peace and joy”: Ibid.
29 “two poor little exiles”: SS, 33. Emphasis added.
30 “looked and listened in silence”: Ibid.
31 “It appeared large and dismal”: Ibid., 34.
31 “Pauline will be Mama!”: Ibid.
32 “sensitive to an excessive degree”: Ibid.
33 “path that ran steeply uphill”: SF, 264.
34 “might be an occasion of temptation”: ST, 85.
34 “with a truly maternal love”: SS, 35.
34 “read without help was ‘heaven’”: Ibid., 36.
35 “she asked permission for everything”: ST, 23.
35 “nothing to envy in the first”: SS, 45.
35 “sensitive to other people’s sufferings”: ST, 49.
36 “Earth again seemed a sad place”: SS, 37.
37 “arranged according to my taste”: Ibid., 39.
38 “poured out tears of repentance”: Ibid.
38 “incomparable favor”: Ibid., 44.
39 “caused me to admire him”: Ibid., 49.
39 “filled the soul with profound thoughts”: Ibid., 43.
39 “alone at the window of an attic”: Ibid., 45.
39 “covered with a sort of apron”: Ibid., 46.
39 “engraved so deeply”: Ibid.
40 “I’ll die with him!”: Ibid., 48.
40 “loved him with all her heart”: SL, 38.
40 “one of the most beautiful of my life”: SS, 57.
41 “narrow and flighty”: Ibid., 82.
41-42 “only bitterness in earth’s friendships”: Ibid., 83.
43 “saddest in my life”: Ibid., 53.
43 “quiet, calm and reserved…dreamy”: SL, 41.
43 “buried in my heart”: SS, 58.
44 “faraway desert place”: Ibid., 57.
44 “Thérèse had taken it seriously”: Ibid., 57-58.
45 “better than become a nun”: Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789-1914 (London: Routledge, 1989), 118.
46 “shining with such brightness”: SS, 59.
47 “FAR from being mature”: Ibid.
48 “touched me profoundly and made me cry”: Ibid., 60.
48 “hallucinations several times a day”: ST, 184.
48 “very serious”: SS, 61.
49 “impossible to describe”: ST, 86.
50 “for one single instant”: SS, 62.
50 “had become ill on purpose”: Ibid.
50 “remove it from my mind”: Ibid., 64.
51 “They want to poison me!’”: Testimony of Marie Martin, ST, 87.
52 “She is here by my side”: SS, 64n.
52 “lasted four or five minutes”: ST, 87.
52 “ineffable benevolence and tenderness”: SS, 65.
52 “happiness would then disappear”: Ibid., 66.
53 “as if she had been my mother”: John J. Delaney, ed., A Woman Clothed with the Sun: Eight Great Apparitions of Our Lady (New York: Image Books, 1961), 122.
54 “spiritual trial for the next four years”: SS, 66.
54 “a feeling of profound horror”: Ibid., 67.
54 “kisses her dear little daughter”: Letter dated October 14, 1883 or 1884, LT, 177.
56 “first entrance into the world”: SS, 73.
56 “to the service of God”: Ibid.
56 “didn’t think about death enough”: Ibid.
57 “For you, I must die”: PO, 204.
57-58 “2,773 acts of love or aspirations”: ST, 24.
58 “already instructing [her] in secret”: SS, 75.
58 “laughed heartily at me”: Ibid., 74.
58 “eyes bright with joy”: Ibid., 75.
59 “like few other children on earth”: Ibid.
59 “made a spectacle”: Ibid., 76.
59 “I give myself to you forever”: Ibid.
59 “copious tears”: SL, 52.
59-60 “did not satisfy [her] heart”: SS, 79.
60 “without my understanding them very well”: Ibid.
60 “our little feathered friends”: Ibid., 81.
60 “especially Joan of Arc”: Ibid., 72.
61 “terrible sickness of scruples”: Ibid., 84.
61 “especially her teachers”: Ibid., 85.
61 “while telling all my scruples”: Ibid.
62 “so-called sins”: ST, 88.
62 “as if she were dead”: SS, 88.
63 “arranged to suit [her] taste”: Ibid., 90.
63 “the portrait of Pauline”: Ibid.
63 “cured for life”: Ibid.
64 “lost its attraction”: Ibid., 91.
64 “made a big fuss over everything”: Ibid.
64 “had a weak character”: Ibid.
65 “frequently moist with tears”: Ibid., 92.
66 “night which sheds such light”: Ibid., 97.
66 “this will be the last year!”: Ibid., 98.
66 “pierced my heart”: Ibid.
67 “being rocked for a long time”: PO, 97.
67 “the treasure / Of virginity”: Ibid., 138.
67 “was no longer the same”: SS, 98.
67 “regained his own cheerfulness”: Ibid.
68 “a period of darkness”: ST, 114.
68 “without feeling the sweetness of it”: Testimony of Céline Martin, ibid., 115.
68 “would previously have left her desolate”: Ibid.
68 “complete conversion”: SS, 98.
68 “filled with graces from heaven”: Ibid.
68 “to please others”: Ibid., 99.
69 “flowing from one of the divine hands”: Ibid.
69 “from the eternal flames”: Ibid.
69 “tall and handsome adventurer”: SL, 66.
69 “first child”: SS, 100.
70 “kissed the sacred wounds three times”: Ibid.
70 “most dangerous age for young girls”: Ibid., 101.
71 “doing me any harm”: Ibid., 72.
71 “Céline did not rebel for one instant”: Ibid., 106.
72 “heavenly expression”: Ibid., 107.
72 “dear little father”: Ibid.
72 “I defended myself so well”: Ibid., 108.
73 “another soil more fertile”: Ibid.
75 “commended her purity to St. Joseph”: Testimony of Céline Martin, ST, 149.
75 “God’s great mercy preserved”: Testimony of Céline Martin, ibid., 151.
75 “one side of the carriage to the other”: SL, 75.
75 “magnificence of the hotels and stores”: SS, 130.
76 “carry off some souvenir”: Ibid., 131.
76 “her limitless confidence”: Ibid.
76 “ought to go aside to do”: Testimony of Pauline Martin, ST, 57.
76 “both longed for and dreaded”: SS, 132.
77 “everyone will agree!”: Ibid., 135.
77 “if God wills it”: Ibid.
77 “on the knees of Leo XIII”: Ibid.
77 “at the bottom of [her] heart”: Ibid., 136.
78 “to break down into sobs”: L’Univers, November 24, 1887, LT, 376.
78 “a way of touching everything”: SS, 139.
78 “in the blood of Jesus”: Ibid.
78 “religious expression for women”: Rudolph M. Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 172.
78 “strange painful maladies”: Ibid.
79 “who believes everything is permitted”: SS, 138.
79 “do all he could”: Ibid., 139.
80 “underhandedly”: As described by Pauline Martin, letter to Isidore Guérin, December 10, 1887, LT, 384.
80 “to carry out his promise”: Letter to Bishop Hugonin, dated December 16, 1887, ibid., 387.
81 “three months exile”: SS, 143.
82 “repeats, ‘Jesus, I love you!’”: Pauline Martin, letter to Thérèse, dated November 23, 1887, LT, 358.
82 leaflet given the young pilgrim: LT, 336.
83 “tied with a sky-blue ribbon”: SL, 84.
84 “nothing around me but sobs”: SS, 147.
84 “it seemed impossible to walk”: Ibid.
84 “disappoint [her] hopes”: SL, 87.
85 “word burned like a torch”: Sir. 48:2. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), 192 (of the Apocrypha).
85 “nothing was too hard”: Sir. 48:13. Ibid., 193.
85 “engaged in some other just occupations”: Peter-Thomas Rohbach, O.C.D., Journey to Carith: The Story of the Carmelite Order (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 44.
85 “expression of the prophetic vocation”: Ibid., 46.
86 “My daughter, what are you doing here?”: Vita Sackville-West, The Eagle and the Dove, a Study in Contrasts: St. Teresa of Ávila, St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1943; reprint, London: Sphere Books, 1988), 134.
87 “rejected at a previous meal”: Testimony of Pauline Martin, ST, 57.
87 “difficulty putting up with”: Testimony of Marie de Chaumontel, ibid., 209.
88 daily cycle of devotions: See, for example, Acts 10:9, 16:25.
88 “exactly as I imagined it”: SS, 149.
88 “in order not to turn back”: Ibid., 237.
89 “mortify them and die to yourself”: Testimony of Martha of Jesus, ST, 223.
90 “so happy in God’s service?”: Marie de Gonzague, in 1887 letter from Pauline Martin to Thérèse, LT, 286.
90 “loves her with all her heart”: Postscript to a letter to Pauline, October 8, 1887, ibid., 290.
90 “without her even being aware of it”: SS, 150.
90 “vexatious temperament of Mother Marie de Gonzague”: ST, 95.
91 “whim of the moment”: Ibid., 146.
91 “according to her fancy”: Testimony of Thérèse’s favorite novice, Marie Castel, ibid., 246.
91 “the wolf”: Ibid., 232.
91 “to avoid offending her susceptibilities”: Ibid., 240.
91 “scatter a rain of sweets”: Ida Friederieke Coudenhove Görres, The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (New York: Pantheon, 1959), 167.
92 “magnificence of your gifts”: Letter dated September 30, 1888, LT, 460.
92 “into acts of love”: Testimony of Marie Castel, ST, 235.
93 “the least speck of dust”: LC, 90.
95 “The monastery garden was white like me!”: SS, 156.
95 “the sounds of cannon and the drum”: Letter from Céline Martin to Pauline Romet, dated February 18, 1889, LT, 533.
96 “to suffer this way”: Letter dated February 28, 1889, ibid., 537.
96 “needed one”: Quoted in a letter from Céline Martin to her sisters in Carmel, dated March 9, 1889, ibid., 543.
96 “i.e., under my feet”: SS, 160.
97 “ugly and the least convenient”: Ibid., 159.
98 “by the breeze of love”: Letter dated March 18, 1888, LT, 403.
98 prayer of General de Sonis: Translator’s note, ibid., 407. Louis Gaston de Sonis (1825-1887), active in the Franco-Prussian War, was a Catholic military hero.
99 “as if someone lent me a body”: LC, 88.
99 “Answer me, I beg you”: Translator’s note, LT, 571.
100 “but saying always: more more!”: Letter dated March 13, 1889, ibid., 549.
100 “from us all that is most dear”: Letter dated March 13, 1889, ibid., 552.
101 “they are never mystical”: SS, 171.
101 “of which [she’d] never seen before”: Ibid.
101 “take on irrevocable promises”: LT, 645.
102 “father, tried by suffering”: Ibid., 656.
103 “hold yourselves in readiness and to watch”: SS, 168.
104 “absolute aridity”: SS, 165.
104 “be willing to be nothing”: Saint John of the Cross, quoted in William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902; reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1982), 506.
104 “simply laughed”: SS, 166.
105 “flooded with a river of peace”: Ibid.
105 “to give You joy and to console You”: Ibid., 275.
106 “sadness and bitterness”: Ibid., 167-68.
106 “she is a perfect religious”: Letter dated September 9, 1890, LT, 678.
108 “read better than I did myself”: SS, 174.
108 “I actually flew”: Ibid.
108-9 “heaven…unseen by anyone”: Ibid., 170.
109 “three times with great emphasis”: Ibid., 171.
109 “celebrated with a death”: Ibid.
110 “did not have the least bit of fear”: Ibid.
110 “to a better life”: Ibid., 172.
110 “holding on only by a thread”: Translator’s note, LT, 733.
110 “draw out all the honey”: Letter dated October 20, 1891, ibid., 741.
111 “as low as St. Mary Magdalene”: SS, 83.
111 “a torrent of tears”: Ibid., 176.
112 “Spouse placed on [her] forehead”: Letter dated July 23, 1891, LT, 732.
112 “burn their wings”: SS, 83.
112 “ardent love of creatures”: Ibid.
112 “military type”: Translator’s note, LT, 733.
112 “beautiful”: Translator’s note, ibid.
113 “held each other closely and exclusively”: Gibson, 93.
113 “to conduct her to her place”: SS, 176.
113 “the most total incapacity”: Letter to Thérèse dated August 17, 1892, LT, 756.
114 “cried all the time”: Letter from Céline Guérin to her daughter Jeanne la Neele, dated May 10, 1892, ibid., 750.
114 “who then carried him”: Translator’s note, quoting Céline Martin, ibid., 751.
114 “what children do not understand and feel”: Translator’s note, quoting Céline Martin, ibid., 750.
115 “God wills to have you descend”: Translator’s note, quoting Céline Guérin, ibid., 757.
115 “no place to rest my head”: Matt. 8:20.
115 “A question here of the interior”: Letter dated October 19, 1892, LT, 762.
116 “new bud, gracious and scarlet red”: PO, 38.
117 “into the arms of the Lord”: SS, 238.
118 “it slips in everywhere!”: Letter dated July 18, 1894, LT, 872.
118 “Everything about her commanded respect”: ST, 218.
118 “temperaments she found hardest to bear”: Ibid., 225.
119 “how much you have to lose”: Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face, My Sister Saint Thérèse (Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books and Publishers, 1997), 28.
119 “the last stray of the family”: Letter to her sisters in Carmel, dated July 3, 1893, LT, 792.
119 “I had become his mother”: Ibid.
120 “always the dark night”: Letter to Thérèse, dated July 12, 1893, ibid., 798.
122 “love can convert a soul”: Letter dated May 22, 1894, ibid., 855.
122 “heart was no longer beating”: Letter to her sisters in Carmel, dated June 5, 1894, ibid., 858.
122 “Then I am unhappy”: Letter dated July 17, 1894, ibid., 868.
123 “into the immensity of heaven”: Letter to her sisters in Carmel, dated July 29, 1894, ibid., 875.
123 “bosom of the divine Sun”: Letter dated April 25, 1893, ibid., 786.
124 “Papa went straight to heaven”: SS, 177.
124 “repugnance for the religious life”: Translator’s note, LT, 883.
127 “will be no longer any remedy”: Letter dated October 21, 1894, ibid., 892.
127 “almost any form of unconventional behavior”: René and Jean Dubos, The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man, and Society (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1952), 197.
128 “God can break iron just like clay”: Letter dated July 18, 1894, LT, 871.
128 “accounts that we find so interesting”: ST, 83.
128 “little poems to please everybody”: Ibid.
129 “too much concentration on [her]self”: SS, 13.
129 did not include an Old Testament: Bible, IV, 26: “French Versions,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 480-81.
129 “let him come to me”: Prov. 9:4.
130 “forget myself and please others”: SS, 99.
131 “Our mother said yes”: Stéphane-Joseph Piat, O.F.M., Céline: Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1964), 81.
132 “may my soul take its flight”: SS, 276-77.
133 “so intense I thought I would die”: ST, 63.
134 “when we love a thing the pain disappears”: Letter dated September 17, 1896, LT, 999.
134 “the wicked are possessed by the devil”: Undated letter to Thérèse, written about September 17, 1896, ibid., 997.
134 “must not stain the record”: Translator’s note, ST, 169.
135 “not even a stone”: PO, 125.
136 “how right [her] little sister was”: Translator’s note, ibid., 121.
136 “you are the branches”: John 15:5.
137 “in all its rigor”: SS, 210.
137 “stream mounting to [her] lips”: Ibid.
138 “conceal as much as it reveals”: Michelle Perrot, ed., A History of Private Life, vol. 4, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1990), 4.
138 “my soul was flooded with joy”: SS, 210.
138 “with a great consolation”: Ibid., 211.
139 “burn me away until nothing is left”: These five lines are not from a single poem but are typical images taken from a number of Thérèse’s verses.
140 “before reaching the age of thirty”: Dubos, 59.
140 “slaves to fashion”: Letter to Pauline, dated January 30, 1876, LT, 1221.
140 novels of the Far East: “In Dream of the Red Chamber, said to be the first realistic novel in the Chinese language to be acknowledged as literature, it is the symptoms of tuberculosis that symbolize the emotional crisis of the heroine, Black Jade.” Thomas Dormandy, The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 92.
141 need to be purified: For a discussion of tuberculosis as a metaphor for redemptive suffering in French literature, see David S. Barnes, The Making of a Social Disease: Tuberculosis in Nineteenth-Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
141 “therefore must be obliterated”: Bell, 115.
141 “fervor”; “first call”; “transported”: SS, 211.
144 “joyful days of the Easter season”: Ibid.
144 “the thickest darkness;” “living,” “clear”: Ibid.
144 “secrets of heaven”: Ibid., 89.
144 “changed into a prayer”: Ibid., 212.
145 “‘the night of nothingness’”: Ibid., 213.
146 “covers the starry firmament”: Ibid., 214.
146 “already said too much”: Ibid., 213.
146 “God is human loneliness”: As cited by Bernard Bro, O.P., The Little Way: The Spirituality of Thérèse of Lisieux (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1979), 5.
147 “declared that I looked well!”: Letter dated July 16, 1896, LT, 969.
147 “left with love alone”: Testimony of Teresa of Saint Augustine, O.C.D., ST, 195.
147 “what I want to believe”: SS, 214.
148 they calcify into nodules: The description of the typical course of tubercular infection is taken from Dubos.
148 “temptations against the faith”: Testimony of Pauline Martin, ST, 43.
149 “indifferent to Venerable Mother Anne”: SS, 192.
149 “produced from within”: Ibid., 191.
149 “second SUNDAY of Mary’s month”: Ibid., 190.
150 “ever given to her child”: Ibid., 191.
150 “at times a very small ray”: Ibid., 214.
151 “forget what she owes you”: Ibid., 215.
151 “the dew of humiliation”: Ibid., 206.
153 “The little sister of a Missionary”; PO, 162.
153 “Or I am lost”: Letter dated July 21, 1896, LT, 972.
154 “drawn down the grace of God”: Letter dated April 29, 1897, ibid., 1089.
155 “This is perhaps your last retreat”: Letter dated September 13, 1896, ibid., 991.
155 “sweep away transgressions like a cloud”: Isa. 44:22.
155 “warrior, priest, doctor, apostle, martyr”: SS, 192.
155 “I gain nothing”: 1 Cor. 13:3.
156 “as for knowledge, it will pass away”: 1 Cor. 13:8.
156 “a child of light”: SS, 195.
156 “seeking by always stooping down”: Ibid., 194.
156 “love is repaid by love alone”: Ibid., 195.
157 “doing them by love”: Ibid., 196.
157 “all other works together”: Ibid., 197.
157 “Jesus alone sees”: Undated letter, around September 8-17, 1896, LT, 991.
158 “I dread all that you love”: Undated letter, around September 17, 1896, ibid., 997.
158 “ready to embark once more”: Letter from Roulland, dated September 25, 1896, ibid., 1006.
159 “that served her as blankets”: Ibid., 1027-28.
159 “inexorably causing her death”: Translator’s note, ibid., 1036.
159 “frightening”: Letter to Céline Guérin, dated November 12, 1876, ibid., 1227.
160 “offered itself as victim”: SS, 200.
160 “play without any suffering”: LT, 1040.
161 “the glory / Of conquerors”: “To My Little Brothers in Heaven,” PO, 181.
162 “some relics of a future martyr”: Letter dated February 24, 1897, LT, 1062.
162 “strangled and cooked in a pot”: Ibid.
162 “interested and touched”: Letter dated March 17, 1897, ibid., 1071.
163 “loved his family very much”: LC, 46-47.
163 “Lend me your weapons”: “To Théophane Vénard,” PO, 192.
163 “nothing causes me alarm”: Ibid., 194.
164 “doing good on earth”: LC, 102.
166 “still in our midst”: Ibid., 22.
166 “an unbelievable effort to undress”: PT, 73.
166-67 “defend or explain ourselves?”: LC, 36.
167 “the means of remaining very little”: Ibid., 37.
167 “kept up a sprightly conversation of banalities”: Barry Ulanov, The Making of a Modern Saint: A Biographical Study of Thérèse of Lisieux (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 305.
167 “martyrs by desire and will”: Letter dated May 9, 1897, LT, 1092.
167 “poor wandering Jew”: Note to Pauline, around June 3, 1897, ibid., 1116.
168 “To be no more”: PO, 203.
168 “to make God happy. Period”: Translator’s note, ibid., 202.
168 “any attachment here below”: Letter dated May 23, 1897, LT, 1099.
169 “the letter is yours”: Letter dated May 30, 1897, ibid., 1106.
169 “the little lamb was myself”: Letter dated May 31, 1897, ibid., 1107.
170 “without being disturbed”: SS, 227.
170 “swaying on their stems”: Ibid., 228.
170 “impossible for me to go far”: Ibid., 224.
170 “over such little things”: Ibid.
171 “spinning around on the same pivot”: Translator’s note, LT, 1113.
171 “nothing on earth that makes me happy”: Undated letter of June 1897, ibid., 1129.
171 “above all from creatures”: Undated letter of June 1897, ibid., 1117.
171 “for self or for creatures”: Letter dated June 9, 1897, ibid., 1127.
172 “the exile of the heart”: SS, 218.
172 humiliated, exiled…withered: Verbs culled from Thérèse’s letters, autobiography, and poems.
173 “will have come to get me”: June 5, 1897, LC, 57.
173 “to see my disappointment”: May 15, 1897, ibid., 43.
174 “wants to give me”: SS, 250.
175 “almost without sound”: Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (New York: Vintage Books, 1969), 76.
175 “ghostlike envelope of flesh”: Ibid., 348.
175 “pressed it to his lips”: Ibid., 349.
176 “upper, spiritualized body”: Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (New York: Anchor Books, 1989), 17.
176 “an indescribabaly pathetic beauty”: Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1947), 484.
177 “glassful in a quarter of an hour”: PT, 80.
177 “liked it to be up to there!’”: July 20, 1897, LC, 217.
178 “love over her physical exhaustion”: LT, 1079.
178 “pour out His favors lavishly”: Letter dated July 16, 1897, LT, 1145.
178 “joyful in the midst of suffering”: Ibid., 1154.
178 “gnawing away at humanity”: Ibid., 1162.
179 “in a similar hole”: August 28, 1897, LC, 173.
179 “something joyful and sweet”: July 30, 1897, ibid., 119.
179-80 “always had to be saying something funny”: Ibid., 274.
180 “one always misses the train”: Ibid., 277.
180 “I’ll not miss all of them!”: June 9, 1897, ibid., 62.
180 “heaven, and I’m announcing it”: May 7, 1897, ibid., 42.
181 “cried all the way home”: Letter dated May 14, 1876, LT, 1223.
181 “with the two little ones”: Letter dated June 25, 1877, ibid., 1235.
181 “I did this with pleasure”: July 8, 1897, LC, 79.
182 “never been at ease”: July 30, 1897, ibid., 118.
182 “without failing in mortification”: September 13, 1897, ibid., 189.
182 “Perhaps that’s not good?”: July 24, 1897, ibid., 108.
183 “not the candlestick, it’s too ugly”: Ibid., 284.
184 “I’ll have nothing to write”: September 7, 1897, ibid., 185.
185 “Don’t talk of a date”: July 31, 1897, ibid., 121.
185 “I’m dying from death!”: August 3, 1897, ibid., 131.
185 “in the process of softening”: PT, 86.
185 “reached its final stage”: Ibid.
186 “except with terrible pains”: Translator’s note, LC, 162.
186 “I were on fire inside”: Translator’s note, ibid., 172.
186 All the better: August 16, 1897, ibid., 224.
187 “My pain was immediately doubled”: ST, 160.
187 “almost universally used”: Dubos, 63.
187 “That’s the point!”: August 18, 1897, LC, 152.
188 “obsessed with desire for them”: ST, 57.
188 “kills the soul, life everlasting”: Bell, 115.
188 “I’m dying of hunger”: August 31, 1897, LC, 176.
189 “she began to cry”: September 13, 1897, ibid., 189.
189 “the day of your death?”: September 24, 1897, ibid., 199.
189 “receive your last look?”: Undated, ibid., 229.
190 “hangs only on a light thread”: September 26, 1897, ibid., 200.
190 “very heavy”: September 29, 1897, ibid., 201.
190 “What must I do to die?”: Ibid.
190 “confirmed in grace”: SL, 203.
190 “I believe only in suffering”: September 30, 1897, LC, 204.
190 “I can’t take it, and that’s it!”: September 24, 1897, ibid., 198.
191 “it was her last agony”: Ibid., 205.
191 “Am I not going to die?…My God I love you”: Ibid., 206.
191 “to wound her again”: Ibid., 207.
192 “twelve or thirteen years old”: Ibid.
193 “to grant my desire”: PT, 185.
193 “something in it for all tastes”: Ibid.
194 “a very important work!”: SS, xix.
194 “a cluster of red grapes”: “My Desires near Jesus Hidden in His Prison of Love,” PO, 134.
194 “wane of the romantic code”: Perrot, 594.
196 “Don’t lose one of them”: September 14, 1897, LC, 190.
196 “timidly sent out the first spark”: SL, 209.
197 “cut them up into tiny fragments”: ST, 164.
197 “30,500,000 pictures and 17,500,000 relics”: Görres, 393.
198 “You must heal me”: Ulanov, 338.