Several weeks ago, Pope Francis announced his intention to issue an apostolic letter in October to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, affectionately known as the Little Flower.
When Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin entered the Carmelite cloister of Lisieux at age 15, she was given the religious name Sister Thérèse. As was also the custom, there was added a religious epithet that was to serve as a life-long subject for pious meditation. Thus, she was to be known as Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Reflecting on this title in her autobiography, “The Story of a Soul,” she said Jesus had pointed out to her the only way that leads to divine love, which she called “love’s furnace.” That way is complete self-surrender, the confidence of a little child who sleeps in her father’s arms.
At Thérèse’s own request, however, there was added a second epithet when she received the Carmelite habit: “and of the Holy Face.” This particular title was to take on a very special meaning for her as she advanced in the spiritual life.
The Holy Face devotion was not unknown to the Martin family. Louis Martin and his five daughters, all of whom would become nuns, had enrolled in the Confraternity of the Holy Face when Thérèse was 12. Her mother, Zélie, had died when she was only four, and so her older sister Pauline served as a surrogate mother to her and helped introduce Thérèse to that devotion.
Many of the images of the Holy Face show Jesus crowned with thorns, eyes downcast, his face all soiled, bloodied and bruised. The true beauty of the divine face is hidden, marred by sin and suffering. Thérèse was accustomed to contemplating that Holy Face as she meditated on the words of the prophet Isaiah: “There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured.” (53:2-4)
“Make me resemble you, Jesus,” Thérèse wrote on a small card with a stamp of the Holy Face on it. Then she pinned it on her habit under her scapular and always wore it over her heart.
Thérèse was the youngest of the Martin girls, and as such, her father doted on her. Unfortunately, Louis’ health quickly deteriorated after Thérèse entered the convent. He suffered greatly with bouts of mental illness and, eventually, strokes and dementia. He was finally consigned to a sanitarium. This, of course, was a source of great concern for Thérèse, but her devotion to the Holy Face helped her to focus on the hidden strength and beauty of her father now concealed, as was the face of Jesus, by suffering.
As Thérèse herself lay dying from tuberculosis at the age of only 24, she had an image of the Holy Face pinned to the curtains of her bed. She confessed to her sister Pauline, who was now Mother Agnes of Jesus, superior of the Carmel of Lisieux, that the words of the prophet Isaiah, which she associated with the image of the Holy Face, were the foundation of all her piety. She exclaimed, “Oh, how much good that Holy Face has done in my life.”
Thérèse wrote these words as part of a prayer she composed to the Holy Face: “O Jesus, whose Face is the sole beauty that ravishes my heart, I may not see here below the sweetness of your glance nor feel the ineffable tenderness of your kiss. I bow to your will. But I pray you to impart in me your divine likeness, and I implore you so to inflame me with your love that it may quickly consume me, and that I may soon reach the vision of your glorious Face in heaven. Amen.”
Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face entered into heaven Sept. 30, 1897. Her feast day is Oct. 1.
Father Edward Kolla is a retired priest of the Diocese.
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