Saint Therese of Lisieux: With Mary, a Carmelite nun, a wife and a mother

Therese's earthly mother, Zelie Marie Guerin, was a true "Mary" in the family. She was the mother of five daughters, the youngest of whom was "Marie Françoise Therese."

Transplanted to the Carmel, a true Hortus conclusus (walled garden), Therese lived "under the mantle of the Virgin," the sweet "queen of Carmel." She put on Mary’s virginal habit, and chose her as her guide.

With Mary and like Mary, Therese lived her Carmelite vocation as a virgin, a wife and a mother.

At the school of Mary, Therese understood that in God's plan, virginity for love is the nuptial chamber, and the living cradle, of divine incarnation and of human regeneration.

She wrote to her sister Celine:

"Virginity is a deep silencing of all earthly cares," not just useless cares but all cares ...

It is also said that "everyone naturally loves their native land, and since Jesus' native land is the Virgin of virgins and Jesus wished to be born from a Lily, he loves to dwell in virgin hearts."

(Letter 122, October 14, 1890)

"Celine, why this extraordinary privilege, why?... Oh, what a grace it is to be a virgin, to be the spouse of Jesus. It must be something very beautiful and sublime, since the purest and most intelligent of all creatures preferred to remain a virgin rather than become the Mother of a God... And it is this grace that Jesus grants us.

He wants us to be his wives and then He also promises us that we will be His Mother and sisters, because He says it in the Gospel: "Whoever does the will of my Father, he is my mother, my brothers and my sisters. "Yes, he who loves Jesus is His whole family. He finds in this one heart, which has no one equal, all that He desires. He finds His Heaven there."

(Letter 130, July 23, 1891)

Therese was not a negative virgin, neither was she selfish and sterile, without love and without children. Her Marian virginity was wonderfully life-bringing and fruitful, spousal and maternal.

She experienced God’s promised hundredfold reward (Mk 10:30), which consists of many things:

• feeling fascinated by the "Adorable Face of Jesus, unique ravishing beauty" (Prayer 6);
• feeling loved and possessed by Him, who is both her God and her Man (Jesus is true God and true Man).

Her nuptial journey also went through Mary to Jesus; from the first Eucharistic kiss to the definitive union in Heaven. (Poetry 33)

Like the Blessed Virgin, Therese felt that she was the mother of Christ as well as of Christians. We have already quoted how she interpreted Matthew 12:50. She wrote:

Jesus, for sinners, I want to pray without ceasing:

Remember

That I came to Carmel

To populate your beautiful Heaven ...

I am a virgin, O Jesus! Yet what a mystery!

By uniting myself to you, I am a mother of souls.

Remember

the virgin flowers

Who save sinners.

(Poetry 24, 16.22)

Excerpts from:

Lino CIGNELLI, La marianità di Teresa di Lisieux,

Rivista di Ascetica e mistica 66 (1997), 203-228.

Estratti scelti da F. Breynaert.