Select readings from Story of a Soul: chapters 2,3,4
Therese had 3 very significant experiences in her childhood that shaped her early adulthood and her relationship with God.
+ “I choose all!” As recounted above, it happened in 1877. Page 30
+Vision of the beautiful face and ravishing smile of Mary the mother of Jesus in 1882 healed her of a devastating illness. Page 96
+ In 1886, at her first communion she had an experience of union with Jesus. Page 121
Therese was not quite 5 when her mother died. The whole family was full of sorrow at Zeile’s death and they seem to have turned inward to each other for support. Therese “chose” her older sister, Pauline, to be her second mother.
After her mother’s death Therese writes that her happy disposition changed and she “became timid and retiring, sensitive to an excessive degree.”
She reports that her father became all the more affectionate, taking on a “truly maternal love.” Her sisters were also tender and caring. Through the difficulty she felt cared for by Jesus.
Therese reflects that she didn’t know “how to play with dolls.” She comments more than once in this stretch of Story of a Soul that she felt as if she didn’t know how to play like other kids. She most enjoyed being with her father and her sisters and being alone outside in nature.
Her early childhood was marked by deep sorrow. The death of her mother and though she doesn’t mention it in this early part of the text surely the deaths of her siblings seemed to burden her with the weight of sorrow. Her early childhood was also marked by joy and love as she adored her family and felt a close connection with God.
Page 81 - At the age of eight and a half Therese went off to school for what she referred to as the five saddest years of her life. She was timid and sensitive and was bullied. She suffered quietly and didn’t tell anyone how sad and tortured she was. She looked forward to returning home every night to her dad.
She didn’t know “how to play like other children and as a consequence wasn’t a very pleasant companion.” She did however get good grades and excelled as a student.
She didn’t care for their games but instead loved being outside collecting little flowers.
Second significant childhood episode: when Pauline left home to join the Carmelite convent it broke Therese’s heart. When Pauline told her about life at Carmel Therese determined that she too wanted to go there “not for Pauline’s sake but for Jesus alone.”
Therese became quite sick, deathly ill really, when Pauline left.
She believed that her sickness was the work of the devil who sought to punish the family for their devotion and commitment to Jesus. Therese became even more sensitive than usual and developed an active fear brought on by what seem like hallucinations. All the while “angels” visibly attended her every need through the love and care of her sisters.
Feeling like there was no help for her on earth, Therese found herself praying one day toward Mother Mary with her sisters by her side. Suddenly, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Therese wonderfully, unspeakably beautiful in a vision. Mary appeared with a “ravishing smile.” Instantly, all her pain disappeared and two large tears spilled down her cheeks. She was determined never to tell anyone about this for fear that the gift would be taken back, but Marie immediately recognized that “Therese is cured!” Indeed, she was.
She later said this of the vision, “The Blessed Virgin had appeared very beautiful, and I had seen her smile at me. I was her countenance alone that had struck me…” page 98
Page 114 - “I wasn’t too good at playing games, but I did love reading very much and would have spent my life at it.”
Third significant childhood episode - first communion. Page 116 - “The time of my first communion remains engraved in my heart as a memory without any clouds.”
Marie provided Therese with first communion instruction and “explained the way of becoming holy through fidelity in little things.”
Page 121 upon taking her first communion Therese had an experience of union with Jesus in which “they were no longer two, Therese had vanished as a drop of water is lost in the immensity of the ocean. Jesus alone remained.” Tears flowed from her eyes causing her companions to think that something was terribly wrong. What they didn’t understand is that all “the joy of heaven had entered her heart, her exiled heart” as a balm against all her sorrows, especially the sorrow of losing her mother so young.
At her second communion she was equally moved and repeated to herself over and over again, “It is no longer I that live, it is Jesus who lives in me!”