This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth and the 100th anniversary of the beatification of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. The anniversary will see France, and countries around the world, engage in numerous initiatives to commemorate her and continue spreading her spirituality.
Young and audacious
Teresa was born in Alençon on January 2, 1873, and when she was only 4 years old, she lost her mother. The whole family then moved to Lisieux. She embraced Christian initiation - Confession, Communion, and Confirmation - with great fervor. At the age of 10, after being struck by a serious illness, she was healed through the intercession of Our Lady of Victories.
She has a strong and impetuous character, which she masters through precise inner discipline. Longing to belong entirely to Jesus, she asks to enter the Carmelite convent in Lisieux like her sisters Pauline and Marie. She is too young and cannot make such a momentous choice, but she does not become discouraged and, in 1887, during a pilgrimage to Italy, she has the opportunity to meet Leo XIII in Rome and asks him to make her dream come true.
The little way
On April 9, 1888 - at only 15 years of age - she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux and, until September 30, 1897, the day tuberculosis brought her earthly pilgrimage to an end, lived a spiritual intimacy with Jesus that would become a model throughout the Church.
Her love relationship with the Bridegroom is revealed through her writings. Her manuscripts, published after her death under the title The Story of a Soul, reach every corner of the earth, and the evangelical wisdom that inspires them shapes millions of people. By recounting her relationship with Jesus, she outlines the features of what is now known as the little way of spiritual childhood: a path of faithfulness, simplicity, dedication, care, self-giving, attentiveness, depth, generosity…
«In the heart of the Church, I will be love»
Desiring to touch every need, help every person in need, and make Christ known to every person, she discovers that she can reach everyone and everything through love. Thus she finds her place in the Church, and her restlessness finds a channel through which to flow and bear fruit.
Saint Thérèse, proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1997 by John Paul II, continues to be an attentive and caring teacher of the spiritual life , and each new generation sees her teaching renewed in an unbroken passing of the torch.
The testimony of her writings nourishes the certainty that, to be pleasing to God, great things are not necessary; rather, we must carry out the small things of everyday life with faithful love. Would you like to try too?
The centenary events
Rome, at the Teresianum
• From March 12 to 16, meetings and reflections on the occasion of the arrival of the traveling exhibition.
• June 8 and 9, 2023, in-depth seminar: «Thérèse of Lisieux, a paradigm of modern holiness?».
Cremona
• From March 20 to 30, the exhibition will be hosted in the Cathedral Baptistery.
• March 23, conference at the local branch of the Catholic University.
• March 30, concert in the Cathedral. A reading of texts by Thérèse is planned, alongside works by writers and philosophers.
Rimini
• The Cathedral is hosting the traveling exhibition and will remain open to visitors during the days of the Meeting of Communion and Liberation (August 20-25).
In autumn, the initiatives will move to Lombardy, with a program still to be defined.
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