A beautiful and meditative film, set to music, an "online pilgrimage" to Saint Ouen le Pin, about six miles from Lisieux, where Madame Elisa Fournet, the mother of Céline

Guérin, who was the wife of Thérèse's uncle, Isidore

Guérin, owned a farmhouse in which Thérèse stayed at least twice. In the film above, see the little parish church where

Thérèse and the Guérins worshipped. 

 

At the beginning of August 1884 Thérèse, then eleven, came to stay in the farmhouse at Saint Ouen le Pin together with her aunt, Céline Guérin; her aunt's mother, Madame Fournet, who owned the house; her cousins, Jeanne and Marie Guérin;  

and her sisters Léonie and Céline.  The girls were recovering from whooping cough. On August 7, 1884 Madame Guérin wrote to her husband:

We are all very happy here. Thérèse's face is always radiant with joy.  She is enjoying herself very much at sketching; she and Marie have undertaken to do the house on the farm. . . . Céline and Jeanne are doing another landscape.  They are sketching the building on the farm.  . . . Yesterday morning, we went to Mass at seven.  It was charming.  We were witnesses, it seemed, of Nature's awakening.  In the afternoon, we went with Ernest to Mourerie, and we were present, in the evening, at the milking of the cows.  We go there every evening, and each has a glass of very warm milk.  . . . Céline caught a small trout. . . .

Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux, Volume I, tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1982, p. 209.

The next day Thérèse completed this sketch of the "house on the farm." Her aunt wrote on it "Very, very good."
 


A virtual pilgrimage to Saint Ouen le Pin:

Site Two    

At the end of July 1885  Thérèse returned here with her AuntGuérin, her cousins Jeanne and MarieGuérin, and her sister Léonie.  She was now twelve years old.  On July 29, 1885, MadameGuérin wrote to her husband:

Léonie is a very good girl.  Had you seen her yesterday taking care of grandpapa and grandmama, you would have been charmed with your niece.  She shows me very much affection, and she shares little confidences with me.  I have just allowed all four of them to make a tour of the property by way of the field, the meadow, and the Theil woods.  They left filled with delight . .  . Marie and Thérèse are enjoying themselves very much.  Mamma was telling me yesterday that she had never seenThérèseso gay, with her face so frankly happy.  Yesterday, she and Marie came home all decked out in little bouquets.  Marie had cornflowers, Thérèsehad forget-me-nots.  All was perfectly arranged.  They were wearing their Breton aprons, with well-made bouquets at each of the corners, on their heads, at the end of their pigtails and even on their shoes.  One was Rosette, the other Bluette . . . . 

Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux, Volume I,tr. John Clarke, O.C.D..  Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1982,
pp. 228-29.