Two years later she was named Patroness of the Missions, because she sacrificed much for the success of missionary efforts, even though she could not be a missionary herself. She quickly attracted the attention of the Holy See, and was beatified in 1923 and canonized in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, just 28 years after her death. Shortly before she died, Thérèse insisted that she would continue her zeal for souls after death: “I will pass my heaven in doing good on earth.”Īs her autobiography circulated, Thérèse’s spirituality immediately resonated with ordinary Catholics, who seemed to find her little way perfectly suited to every walk of life, no matter how humble. In addition to desiring the lowest place in all things and fulfilling all the duties of her state in life, Thérèse offered many penances for the conversion of sinners, especially during her final illness and the dark night of the soul she suffered at that time. For Thérèse the way to holiness was not great and noble deeds but the fulfillment of the smallest duties with great love and complete reliance upon God. But the comparisons do not stop there, and she draws on the story of Matthew 8:23-27, where Jesus is asleep in a boat during a storm.Outwardly, Thérèse lived a very ordinary Carmelite life, but she was so aware of her own weaknesses and had such great confidence in God that her genuine humility and spiritual depth were highly valued by her superiors, who frequently put her in charge of the spiritual formation of novices. She describes it as a ‘three day martyrdom’ where she was lost in a ‘desert’ apt language for a period of spiritual dryness, although in the times of the Desert Fathers, the desert was seen as a place to retreat from the world and to meet God. The first time we encounter darkness in Story of a Soul is when Thérèse is unable to attain approval to enter Carmel from her uncle. Her way was to be the way of ‘spiritual stumbling and groping’ as Nevin puts it, and it seems as though she was set apart within the darkness.
The way of imperfection is also in the spiritual aridity which Thérèse was to experience after entering Carmel, particularly in her final months. John (both as a Carmelite, and as someone who found great wisdom in his writing) Thérèse would also explore this language of darkness. It is unsurprising that as a disciple of St. ‘The dark night of the soul’ is a term that is frequently associated with mysticism since St.
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