Dear ,

This is to share with you a new series of articles I've written this month especially to promote my conference at the Philadelphia Carmel on Sunday, September 7, only a little more than 48 hours from now.  Only a few people know the story of "the four foundresses" (three young women born and raised in Philadelphia and one from a New York family), all young and in poor health, who, while struggling to establish the fifth monastery of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns in the United States, at their temporary homes on Poplar Street and later at 44th and Spruce Streets, from the little "turn" where they received visitors and from their chapel, responded so generously to God's call to ignite our country with love for the then Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and for the "way of confidence and love" by which she is still drawing souls to the Trinity.  I want you to be one of those people.  Please read the articles, which share the fifteen letters St. Therese's sister Pauline, Mother Agnes of Jesus, wrote to our Sister Stanislaus of the Blessed Sacrament, "Philadelphia's Little Flower," between 1903 and 1911, and which introduce you to life at the Lisieux Carmel as the cause of St. Therese was introduced and to life in the Philadelphia Carmel in that same first decade of the 20th century.  And please come this Sunday, September 7, to pray for peace in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and of the reliquary of the Martin family and to attend the conference at 1:00 p.m.

On July 25, 1902, Sister Stanislaus of the Blessed Sacrament rode a train from Boston to her native city, Philadelphia.  She was accompanied by two other young women from Philadelphia who, like her, had been parishioners at the Church of the Gesu and were educated by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur:  Sister Mary of St. Joseph and Sister Xavier of the Angels.  With them was their new prioress, Mother Gertrude of the Heart of Jesus, who came from a family in New York City, but she had been educated at the Academy of the Holy Child at Sharon Hill in the Philadelphia suburbs.  These four young women came to be known as "the four foundresses."  Mother Beatrix of the Holy Spirit, prioress of the Boston Carmel, accompanied them to the temporary monastery at 1518 Poplar Street, the fifth Carmel founded in the United States.

The next day Archbishop John Patrick Ryan offered the first Mass at the new foundation.  For three days, before the enclosure was sealed, the young nuns held "open house" at Poplar Street.  Many guests visited, among them the future St. Katharine Drexel and her sister, Louise Morrell; the latter made a generous donation on the spot and contributed generously to the monastery every month for the rest of her long life.

Father John J. Moore was assigned to be the nuns' chaplain.  Together with Sister Mary, Sister Stanislaus was assigned as portress, the nun who answered the "turn" and communicated with the faithful seeking prayers, with other guests, and with workers.  The two portresses seized every opportunity to tell the people about St. Therese, then called "the Little Flower."  Sister Stanislaus was also infirmarian (nurse) for the little community and was the first "councilor" (nun who advised the prioress).  From 1902 she was already in correspondence with St. Therese's sister Pauline (Mother Agnes of Jesus, prioress of the Lisieux Carmel). We may imagine her working hard to spread devotion to St. Therese during the years in which she wrote to Mother Agnes and received the letters described below.

 

The first letter to Sister Stanislaus from Mother Agnes that survives at Philadelphia is dated May 1, 1903.  Mother Agnes refers to the increasing persecution of the Church by the French government and writes that the Lisieux Carmelites expect to be evicted from their monastery, as many other religious communities had been.  Read on . . .

In the later years of the correspondence between Mother Agnes of Jesus and Sister Stanislaus of the Blessed Sacrament, devotion to Sister Therese  was increasing dramatically.  From July 1908 to July 1909, the Carmel of Lisieux had received more than 9,000 letters about Sister Therese from all five continents.

 Steps were being taken to introduce her cause.  On May 8, 1908, Mother Marie-Ange of the Child Jesus, a saintly young nun who was wholeheartedly devoted to following Sister Therese, was elected prioress of the Lisieux Carmel.  That same day she wrote to the local bishop asking him to open an inquiry into the life and virtues of Sister Therese of the Child Jesus.  On October 15, 1907, Bishop Lemonnier asked the Carmelites to write down their memories of Sister Therese of the Child Jesus.

In Part 2, we left Mother Agnes and Sister Stanislaus in January 1909.  That very month Father Rodrigo of St Francis of Paola, a Discalced Carmeite friar, was appointed postulator of the Cause, and Mgr Roger de Teil, a canon of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, was named vice-postulator.  About this time Sister Stanislaus sewed an outfit for the small statue of the Child Jesus that stood in the cloister of the Lisieux Carmel and which had been the special care of Sister Therese of the Child Jesus.  On March 31, 1909, Mother Agnes wrote to Sister Stanislaus in Philadelphia to assure her that she had touched the robe to the statue of the Child Jesus and also to the statue of the Virgin that had smiled on Therese as a child: 'I have asked him to bless and kiss his little seamstress."  Read on . . .

On Sunday, March 25, 1877, in Alençon, France, Zélie Martin, a lacemaker with a four-year-old daughter, Thérèse, who was to become St. Thérèse of Lisieux, wrote to her sister-in-law about the transformation of Zélie's 13-year-old daughter Léonie, who had been abused by the family's maid:

"I can't tell you how many times a day she comes secretly to shower me with kisses.  She does absolutely everything I tell her.  Now, she's like a normal child."  

On the same day, in Philadelphia, a little girl was born who was to play a decisive role in making Zélie's little Thérèse known in the English-speaking world.  Mary Joseph Daily was born on the feast of the Annunciation.  (Thérèse loved this feast "because that's when Jesus was littlest."  In 1888, Thérèse entered Carmel on the feast of the Annuncation, which that year had been transferred to April 9 because of Lent). Soon after her baptism the baby Mary was dedicated to Our Lady.

 

Little Mary was the child of a devout Catholic family, who, like the Martin family, lived in the belief that "God must be served first."  Together with Helen Kelly, the future Sister Stanislaus of the Blessed Sacrament, who would be known as"Philadelphia's Little Flower," she was a member of the parish of the Church of the Gesu in North Philadelphia.  She was educated by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.   

Sister Mary of St. Joseph

 

Mary and Helen were close friends, and their futures were to be intertwined.Mary was only six when she understood that she had a vocation to become a Carmelite.  Read on . . . 

The Day of Prayer at the Philadelphia Carmel on Sunday, September 7 

Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at 3:30 p.m.
 

Spread the Word about Sunday

Read about Philadelphia and Lisieux

If you can't wait till September 7, see:

• The Discalced Carmelites of Philadelphia's history for a short narrative
• Eighteen previously unpublished letters from Mother Agnes of Jesus (St. Therese's sister Pauline) to the Philadelphia Carmel
• A previously unpublished letter from Mother Marie de Gonzague, Therese's prioress, to the Philadelphia Carmel in 1904.