Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: A Gateway
January 21, 2013

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Greetings!

A happy new year!  May St. Therese draw you more deeply into her "way of confidence and love" this year.  This month I devoted the whole newsletter to two special stories:: :     
  • The full story of the cure of a newborn baby in Valencia, Spain, attributed to Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin.  The diocesan inquiry opened on January 7, 2013.  Will this be the miracle that makes them saints? 
  • The text of the authoritative English translation of
    Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: Her last Conversations is online at the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.  It is accompanied by a series of articles written especially for the Archives by the French historian Claude Langlois.. 
with all good wishes,

Maureen O'Riordan

The cure of Carmen:
  the process opens in Valencia, Spain.  Will this be the miracle that makes Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin canonized saints? 

     On October 19, 2008, Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, were beatified in France. Four days earlier, on the feast of St. Teresa of Avila, a little girl named Carmen was born in Valencia, Spain. Carmen's parents prefer to remain anonymous. They had looked forward happily to the birth of their second child, but the pregnancy was a high-risk one, and Carmen was born most prematurely, after only six months, with grave complications. The midwife's first words were "Expect the worst." The baby had a grade 4 ventricular hemorrhage (severe bleeding in the brain). "It started with a brain hemorrhage but was complicated by the lungs, the heart . . ," the parents recall. Carmen did not respond to treatment. The doctors could do nothing for her, and her parents prepared for her death.

 

Read the full story and see a film and photo of Carmen


St. Thérèse of Lisieux: Her Last Conversations online in English with an analysis by Claude Langlois
Cover of

For the first time, the English translation of Saint Therese of Lisieux: Her last Conversations, published by ICS Publications  is available online at the English Web site of the Archives of the Lisieux Carmel.   The visionary leadership of the nuns of Therese's own Carmel, who have spent years digitizing the archives, and the magnanimity of the Washington Province of Discalced Carmelite Friars, who own the authoritative English text, united to give this remarkable gift to the English-speaking world.  May they be blessed for their generosity. 

A series of short articles written by the distinguished French historian Claude Langlois, author of "Les dernieres paroles de Therese de Lisieux" (not translated), appears in English at the Archives site.  Langlois wrote them especially for the Archives.  He addresses the controversial question of whether these "last words" of Therese are really by Therese.  Langlois has written many ground-breaking books in French about the text of Therese.  I believe that this analysis is the first of his work to be published in English.