MARCH/APRIL 2026
Dear Friends of Carmel,
In the last issue we began to look at the sources of the suffering which St. Therese said she embraced when she entered Carmel. The first source was the presence of her blood sisters, which provided her with continual mortification, because wanting to be faithful to her vocation, she did not permit herself to treat them in a special way as family members within the community.
A second source of suffering was the community itself. Although the Carmel of Lisieux would, through the Saint’s doctrine and the Mothers and Sisters she had influenced, become a fervent community, it was not so when Therese entered. In charity it is possible to find many reasons for this. There was a lack of education, both in the broad and in the strict sense, for the greater part of its members. There was a general piety, but it was undermined by a fear of God’s Justice. In those days it would happen that spiritual directors would send this type of girl to a monastery for the salvation of her soul, without her necessarily having a vocation. Three nuns left the community after St. Therese died, one of them going to a home for mental patients. There were others who lacked judgement and still others who were oversensitive. Perhaps the most unfortunate of all was the Prioress, who, although educated to the standards of her day and somewhat gifted, had a strong character full of intense contradictions. She had lacked a firm hand to form and control her during her religious formation, was given important charges too early, and it seems lacked formation of the interior life. In general, her government reflected her personality; there was a relaxing of the rules, and silence was especially neglected.
Therese could not have known this before she entered. She had so yearned for the “blessed ark” of Carmel. She had fought and shed many tears in battling for this vocation. She must have been sure that in the Carmel which Pauline and Marie entered she would find souls similar to theirs in virtue. However, Pauline and Marie had received graces which many others had not: the upbringing of exceptionally Christian parents, and education at the Visitation until they were fifteen years of age, which was the accepted norm of that time. They also were capable and had high ideals… Therefore, nothing could have prepared Therese for what she found.
It has been said she must have been disillusioned by what she saw. That seems too strong, because the ideal of Carmel still remained, and her beginnings were full of “peace and joy.” In school she had been saddened and disappointed with those who did not keep the rules and those who were bullies. To be sure, there were no bullies in Carmel, but there were plenty of unkind comments and there was slackness evident. She made no complaints of her disappointment except in veiled terms: “pinpricks” and “thorns”. How did this fifteen-year-old handle a situation which was so contrary to her expectations? She could not go to her “little mothers” of former days because they would have been only too willing to take up their former relationship. She was unable to open her soul to her Mistress of Novices. Mother Prioress was above all the object of Therese’s perplexity and another secret source of sorrow. It was to God alone that Therese went. She had received graces before she entered and she knew the value of the Cross. Her “secret” for handling all of these sufferings shall be seen more fully, but for now it is enough to know that in accepting the Cross she was able to smile in the face of pinpricks. By the end of her religious life, her charity grew to the extent that she sought to help those who made her suffer most.
The Prioress, Mother Marie de Gonzague, was a third source of her suffering. Therese had already known her for a long time. Mother had received her in the parlor when she was only nine, and had won her heart by speaking seriously with her about her vocation, and even bestowed upon her then her name: Therese of the Child Jesus. Six years later Mother had overruled the custom of not having more than two sisters of a family in the same community. Besides this, she had fought against the Superior of Carmel, M. Delatroette, when he wanted to block Therese’s entry at fifteen. Therese must have expected to find in her a mother and more than a mother, a guiding star, for the beginning of her religious life. Once again, things turned out quite differently.
There is plenty of evidence that Mother Marie de Gonzague fully appreciated Therese. She wrote to the Guerin family shortly after Therese’s entry: “Never did I think such a mature reason possible in a fifteen-year-old. There is nothing about her to chide; everything is perfect.” Yet from the very first day, she treated Therese with incomprehensible sternness, and she found plenty to chide, and chide she did. “I could not meet her without receiving some reproof or other,” said Therese.
Therese was taken to task for every little thing. This Prioress, prone as she was to overlook slackness with a tolerance which is difficult to excuse, could not overlook anything in the postulant. She humiliated her before the community for having missed a cobweb when sweeping the cloister. She was told to remove it at once and to be more careful in the future. Therese had been told to go weed the garden every afternoon. She would invariably meet Mother Prioress on her return… “Really, this child does nothing at all. There must be something wrong with a novice who has to be sent for a walk every day.” She scolded Therese for sleeping beyond the allotted time, though this had been prescribed by her Mistress of Novices. And so it went… “I was unable to meet her without having to kiss the floor.” On the rare occasions when she saw the Prioress for spiritual direction, most of the hour “…was spent in scolding me, but the worst of it was that I did not know how to correct my faults; my slowness, for example, or my lack of thoroughness in carrying out my duties.”
Why was this woman, who spoke of her as “my little angel” to the Prior Godefroy Madelaine, so severe with her? We learn part of the answer in a conversation the Prioress had with Pauline. “Of course you would like to see Sister Therese given preference and brought forward. But I consider precisely the opposite course necessary, because her pride is much greater than others think. She has need of constant humiliation.” Did Therese really need humiliation? There is evidence of the excessive praise given her by her family. After her years as the “problem” child, Therese had become the radiant favorite of the family. Her courage in fighting for her vocation had woven a kind of aureole around her pretty face. The family seems to have considered her youthful humility inviolable, so they openly proclaimed their delight in her again and again. Abbe Domin states it bluntly in the process for beatification: “It was my opinion (and that of many others, I believe) that she received far too much flattery and adulation from her relatives, especially from her father, who could not be apart from her, and continually called her ‘my little queen.’”
After she entered Carmel, her sisters, wanting to comfort her and make amends for all she was suffering in the community, sang her praises each week in the parlor and related all the poor child had to endure, uninhibited by her presence in the room. The Mistress of Novices said, “I frequently accompanied her sisters to the parlor. Did someone need advice? The elder sisters turned to the youngest, and whatever she said was like the gospel truth to them.”
If all these things were filling Therese with vain complacency, there was no exterior evidence of it. She herself brings up an instance, in her autobiography, of having to overcome herself when she was falsely accused of breaking a vase. She did not excuse herself, but it did cost her.
Mother Prioress’ reply on another occasion continues to reveal her thought: “A soul of such mettle must not be treated as a child; dispensations are not made for her sort. Let her be; God supports her.” Here we see the Prioress recognizes something special in Sr. Therese. She did have the grace of state and, according to Fr. Godefroy Madelaine, the Mother Prioress loved Therese deeply. It is possible that having a real love, she saw the greatness of Therese’s vocation and wished to protect her from danger. She, herself, had been a favored and preferred young religious treated leniently, and what had been the result? Again Fr. Godefroy Madelaine said: “The Prioress tested her in many ways, to raise her up to fortitude and virtue. The Servant of God suffered greatly from this severity, but to the degree she was tried, she felt her soul become free.”
In her autobiography, St. Therese, after calling this severe trial “an inestimable grace!”, says she recognizes that God was visibly acting within her who took His place, and she wonders what would have happened to her if she had been the pet of the community as some thought. In one of the passages addressed to Mother Marie de Gonzague, she says: “I want to thank you for not sparing me. Jesus knew very well that His little flower stood in need of the living waters of humiliation, for she was too weak to take root without this kind of help, and it was through you, dear Mother, that this blessing was given to me.”
In the end, the question “Did Therese need this severe humiliation” can be simply answered: She needed it because God wanted it, seeing it as one of the essential purifications that would lead her to the heights of sanctity. “An inestimable grace” – Yes, one of the greatest she had received.[1]
[1] This trial lasted until one and half years before her death. (almost 8 years) While Mother Marie de Gonzague was not her Prioress for three of those years, she nevertheless remained outspoken in the Community and St. Therese was her assistant with the Novices.
The Lord has given; the Lord has taken away – Blessed be the name of the Lord!
It was with special joy & gratitude to Our Good Father St. Joseph for his innumerable blessings to us over the past year that we celebrated his feast day on March 19 with the beautiful First Profession of Sr. Mary of the Sacred Heart. It was indeed a fitting tribute of gratitude, as this was the first ceremony to take place in our spacious new Chapter Room, and at last, no Sister was left peeking in from the corridor for want of space. Deo Gratias!
Sisters heading to the garden on the morning of March 12 were met by a scene of destruction: a violent windstorm the night before had destroyed “St. Denis”, our hoop house, caving in the sides and completely deforming the metal structure. Having assessed the situation, a large crew of faithful, including the same generous benefactors who had originally built the hoop house for us, successfully navigated the tricky process of disassembly, avoiding any uncontrolled collapses. We are now considering options for reusing as much of the materials as possible. We were happily surprised to discover, at the end of it all, that the majority of the seedlings which had been started inside had survived both the wreckage and the subsequent snowfall!
The last stage of the construction project is about to begin, fair weather permitting: grading, putting in dry-wells, landscaping and rebuilding the enclosure wall. Many hands continue to assist in the various other projects that spring up as we settle into the new wing. For one, we look forward to having a bell mounted outside, to more easily summon Sisters working in the garden. Though the days are still very busy, the increase in silence and solitude obtained by spreading out into the new wing is noticeable. We are so grateful to all of our benefactors for helping to make possible this enhancement of our Carmelite life.
We wish to share a few photos in black and white this time (of the hoop house tragedy), but we hope in the next newsletter to share color ones of the new finished look of the property. Until then, be assured of our prayers and all of our best wishes, as we wish you all a very Blessed Easter!
In the Sorrowful & Immaculate Heart of Mary,
The Carmelites