Quotes of Therese

On Love over other things

“I am of such a nature that fear makes me recoil. With love I not only advance, I fly!”
-The Story of a Soul

“Love knows no such word as impossible, but believes 'it may and can do all things.'”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 5, p74 quoting form The Imitation

“I understood that love comprised all vocations, that love was everything.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 13, pg 179

“O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is Love!”
-The Story of a Soul, Chapter 13, pg 179

"In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and then I will be all things."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 13, pg 179

“Finally, I realized that love includes every vocation, that love is all things, that love is eternal, reaching down through the ages and stretching to the uttermost limits of earth. Beside myself with joy, I cried out: "O Jesus, my Love, my vocation is found at last – my vocation is love!” I have found my place in the bosom of the Church, and this place, O my God, Thou has Thyself given to me: in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be Love!... Thus shall I be all things and my dream will be fulfilled."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 13, pg 179

"How unhappy I should be in heaven if I could not do little favors for those whom I love."
-Balthasar p74, N38 (LC 68)

“I cannot think for long of the gladness that awaits me in heaven. One expectation alone makes my heart beat faster  – the love that I can receive and can return. I think of all the good I can perform after death, getting children baptized, helping priests and missionaries and the whole Church…"
-Balthasar p73, N 68-69 (LC 94-95)

“Heaven for me meant nothing but love.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 5, pg 72

“One evening, not knowing in what words to tell Jesus how much I loved Him, and how much I wished that He might be everywhere honored and served, the sad thought forced itself upon my mind that from the depth of hell there would never go up to Him one single act of love. From my inmost heart I then cried out that I would gladly be cast into that place of torment and blasphemy to make Him eternally loved even there. Of course this could not be for His glory, since He desires only our happiness, but love must needs speak foolishly.”
-Story of a Soul, Chpt 5, pg 72

"It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love."
-Letter 197 to Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart (17 September 1896). This quote is the first line of Pope Francis' 2023 Apostolic Exhortation on "Confidence in the Merciful Love of God"

"I count only on love."
-Letter 242 to Sister Marie of the Trinity (6 June 1897): Letters II, p. 1121.

On God’s Mercy

“To me He has manifested His Infinite Mercy and in this resplendent mirror I contemplate His other attributes. There, each appears radiant with Love; His Justice perhaps more than the rest. What a sweet joy to think that Our Lord is just – that He takes into account our weakness and knows so well the frailty of our nature. What then need I fear? Will not the God of infinite justice, who deigns to pardon lovingly the sins of the Prodigal Son, be also just to me, "Who am always with Him"?”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 8, pg 123, end of quote from the Prodigal Son story in Luke 15:31

“No, I cannot share this fear [of eternal damnation], I am too little to get myself damned. Little children do not get damned.”
-Balthasar p355 (H 263)

“I have to tell you, little brother, that we don't understand Heaven in the same way. You think that, once I share in the justice and holiness of God, I won't be able to excuse your faults as I did when I was on earth. Are you then forgetting that I shall also share in the infinite mercy of the Lord? I believe that the Blessed in Heaven have great compassion for our miseries. They remember that when they were weak and mortal like us they committed the same faults themselves and went through the same struggles, and their fraternal tenderness becomes still greater than it ever was on earth. It's on account of this that they never stop watching over us and praying for us.”
-Maurice and Therese, p209, letter of Aug 10, 1897

“From the depths of my heart I cried, Oh my divine master, must it be only your justice which has its victims? Hasn't your merciful love need of them too? It is everywhere rejected and ignored. Those on whom you long to lavish and seek a retched fleeting happiness in other creatures, instead of flinging themselves into your arms and welcoming the flames of your divine love.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 9

“I beg you, do not drag yourself any longer to His feet; follow that "first impulse that draws you into His arms." That is where your place is.”
-Maurice and Therese, letter of July 26, 1897

“I assure you that God is much better than you believe. He is content with a glance, a sigh of love… As for me, I find perfection very easy to practice because I have understood it is a matter of taking hold of Jesus by his heart… Look at a little child who has just annoyed his mother… If he comes to her, holding out his little arms, smiling and saying: ‘Kiss me, I will not do it again’, will his mother be able not to press him to her heart tenderly and forget his childish mischief? However, she knows her dear little one will do it again on the next occasion, but this does not matter; if he takes her again by her heart, he will not be punished.”
-Letter 191 to Léonie, 12 July 1896

“Even his [God’s] justice (and perhaps this even more so than the others) seems to me clothed in love.”
-Ms A, 83v.; cf. Letter 226 to Father Roulland, 9 May 1897

“One can say that hell has no place in Therese’s vision of the world.”
-Balthasar’s commentary, Balthasar p354

"She probed the depths of divine mercy, and drew from them the light of her limitless hope."
-Pope Francis about Therese, On Confidence in the Merciful Love of God

“More than divine justice, it was the fact that Christ’s love might be refused that troubled the heart of Saint Therese, because for her, God’s justice is understood only in the light of his love.”
-Pope Francis, On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, Oct24, 2024

On loving Affection for others

“Throughout my life it has pleased God to surround me with affection; my earliest recollections are of tender caresses and smiles.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 1, pg 5

“I feel very much united to my Céline. I believe God has not often made two souls who understand each other so well, never a dis­cordant note.”
-From Therese to Celine, LT 142, July 6, 1893

“I was proud of my two big sisters, and thought of you from morning till night, you seemed so far away. When I was just learning to talk, Mama would ask me: "What are you thinking about?" and the invariable answer was: "Pauline."”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 1, pg 8

“The children are inseparable and need no other company… One morning Therese climbed out of her cot and made her way into Celine’s; when it was time to dress her nurse found the little one clinging affectionately to her sister: "Oh Louise!" she exclaimed, "do leave me here! Don’t you see we are just like the little bantams, we cannot be separated!"”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 1, pg 11

“After Celine, whom I found almost indispensable, I sought the company of my little cousin Marie, because she left me free to choose the games I liked best. Already we were united in close affection, as if God were showing us beforehand how one day in Carmel we should both embrace the same religious life.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 3, pg 31. Marie Guerin entered the Carmel of Lisieux Aug 15, 1895, taking the name Sister Mary of the Eucharist.

“God has made me so that once I love, I love forever.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 5, in response to unrequited friendship/affection

“I am profoundly grateful to Jesus who has never let me find anything but bitterness in earthly friendships”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 4, (audiobook Chpt 5, 19:12)

“It is impossible for one bound by human affection to have intimate union with God.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 4, (audiobook Chpt 5, 19:25)

“I have found nothing but bitterness where stronger souls have found happiness yet remained properly detached, so it is no merit on my part that I never became entangled in love of creatures. I was saved only by the great mercy of God.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 4, (audiobook Chpt 5, 20:05)

“All I wanted to teach her was that true love grows by sacrifice, and that the more thoroughly the soul rejects natural satisfaction the stronger and more detached its tenderness becomes.” -Therese speaking of her “closest friend” in the convent. After recognizing that their enjoyable conversations together “resembled mere worldly talk,” she gently confronted her about the dangers of “natural affection” getting in the way of spiritual love. After that tearful conversation, Therese notes,  “From that moment our affection was wholly spiritual…”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 11, p149-150 (Chpt 11, 8:09 audiobook)

“How glad I am that from the beginning I learned to practice self-denial! Already I enjoy the reward promised to those who fight bravely, and I no longer feel the need of refusing all consolation to my heart, for my heart is set on God. Because it has loved only Him, it has grown, little by little, till it can give to those who are dear to Him a far deeper love than if it were centered in a barren and selfish affection.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt11, pg 150

“Love is repaid by Love alone.”
-A motto of Therese from John of the Cross. The Story of a Soul, Chpt13, pg 180.

On growth in Holiness

“How much the enforced delay helped me to grow in self abandonment, humility, and other virtues!”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 6, p95

“Many, many souls would become most holy if they had been properly guided from the very start… These innocent souls [children] were like soft wax on which any imprint could be stamped – of evil, alas, as well as of good.”
-The Story of a Soul

“ ‘to the pure all things are pure’ -- that a simple and upright soul does not see evil in anything, since evil exists only in impure hearts and not in inanimate objects.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 6, pg 79. Quoting Titus 1:15.

“The nearer one approaches God the simpler one becomes.”
-The Story of a Soul, quoting one of her mothers

“At the beginning of my spiritual life – between the age of thirteen and fourteen – I often wondered what greater knowledge of perfection could come to me later on, for I thought it impossible to acquire a better understanding of it than I had then. It was not long, however, before I learnt that in this matter the more one advances, the farther one seems from the goal, and now I am not only resigned to seeing myself always imperfect, but the thought of it even affords me joy.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt7, p107

“Even when I was three years old, there was no need to scold me in order to make me better. One kind word was enough, and has been all my life, to show me my faults and cause me to repent”
-Balthasar p126, N 17

On living in the Present

"I prefer to think only of the present moment"
-G472 (ET 337) on pg 69

“I have often noticed that God will not give me provisions. He nourishes me at each moment with totally fresh food; I discover it within me without knowing how. I believe quite simply that Jesus himself, hidden in the depths of my poor little heart, grants me the grace of working in me and that he suggests everything to me that I should do according to his will at the present moment”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 8, pg 109

“Yes, life is a treasure . . . each moment is an eternity, an eternity of joy in heaven, an eternity of seeing God face to face, of being one with Him!”
-Letter 96, October 15, 1889, to Celine

“My Song for Today” (Poem by Therese):

My life is an instant, an hour passing by.
My life is but a day escaping and fleeing.
You know well, O my god! to love you on this earth
I only have today.

Oh! I love you, Jesus, to you my soul aspires.
If only for one day remain my sweet support.
Come and reign in my heart, bestow your smile on me
if only for today!

Do I care if, O Lord, somber is the future?
To pray for tomorrow, oh no this I cannot!
But my heart keep unstained, in your shadow drape me
If only for today.

Thinking of tomorrow, I fear my fickleness.
I can feel in my heart sadness and despair bloom.
But I welcome, my God, trial and suffering
If only for today.

I am soon to see you on the eternal shore.
O, Divine Pilot! Whose hand is guiding me.
On these unruly waves please keep my boat in peace
If only for today.

Oh! Let me hide, my lord, let me hide in your Face.
From there I will not have to bear the world's vain noise.
Bestow your love on me, bestow your grace again
If only for today.

Near to your divine heart, passing things disappear
I'm no longer afraid of the fears of the night
Oh! Offer me, Jesus, a seating in this Heart
If only for today.

Living, Heavenly Bread, God-given Eucharist,
O sacred Mystery! You the product of Love...
Come inhabit my heart, Jesus, my pristine Host,
If only for today.

Deign to unite to me, sacred and Holy Vine,
So that this weakest branch can bear its fruits for you
So that I can give you well ripe and golden grapes,
My Lord, as of today.

This bunch of grapes of love, the seeds it bears are souls
I have but, to grow it, this one, this fleeting day
The fire of Apostles, I ask of you, Jesus,
If only for today.

Virgin Immaculate! You are my Guiding Star
Giving Jesus to me, uniting me to Him.
O Mother! let me rest, secluded in your veil
If only for today.

Holy Guardian Angel, take me under your wing.
May your fires cast light on this path I'm walking.
Come and direct my steps... I cry to you, help me
If only for today.

O Lord, I want your sight, without veils or clouds,
But still exiled from you, from afar I languish.
That your lovable face stays hidden, I may bear
If only for today.

Soon I will fly away, I will speak your praises
When the sunset-less day will dawn upon my soul.
Then on the Angels' lyre I'll be able to sing
The Eternal Today!...

On Abandonment & child-likeness

Ah, how good it is to let yourself go in His arms, with neither fears nor desires.”
-Therese writing to Maurice (Aug 10, 1897) last letter, p209

“Ah, if only one knew what one gains in renouncing all things!”
-Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Fr Jacques Philippe, Part 2.5, p38

“I have prayed to the good God not to listen to any prayers that might hinder his plans for me.”
-Balthasar p69, N135

“Age does not count in the eyes of God. Even if I were to live a long time, I would so arrange it that I still remained a little child.”
-Balthasar p145, N 20 / LC 51

"There are other desires of another kind that Jesus was pleased to grant me, childish desires, like the snow."
-Balthasar p143, SS 175

“How happy Our Lord makes me, how sweet and easy is His service in this life! He has always given me what I desired, or rather He has made me desire what He wishes to give.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 11, pg 162

“In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own Justice and to receive from your Love the eternal possession of yourself”
-Prayer 6, Act of Oblation to Merciful Love (9 June 1895): Prayers, p. 54; Story of a Soul, pp. 276-277.

Excerpt from The Story of a Soul, Chpt 6, p90

For some time I had been accustomed to offer myself as a plaything to the Child Jesus. I told Him not to treat me like an expensive toy which children look at but dare not touch. I was a cheap little ball which He could fling on the ground or kick or pierce or leave neglected in a corner or even press to His Heart if it gave Him pleasure. To put it in a nutshell, I longed to amuse the little Jesus and offer myself to His childish whims.

He answered my prayer. In Rome, Jesus pierced His little toy. He wanted to see what was inside and then, having found out, He let His little ball drop and went to sleep. What did He dream about and what happened to the abandoned ball? Jesus dreamt that He was still playing with it, picking it up and dropping it, letting it roll away from Him, but in the end pressing it close to His Heart and never letting it slip again from His little Hand. You can understand, Mother, how sad the little ball was to see itself lying on the ground, but she went on hoping against all hope.

On Early Childhood Faith

“I have wished to give myself to God from the time I was three.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 5, pg 75, when speaking to the Bishop

"My visits to the convent were becoming more and more distressing, for I could not speak of my desire to enter without encountering opposition. Marie, considering me too young, did all that was possible to thwart my plans."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 5, pg 67

"God, in His goodness, did me a favour of awakening my intelligence when I was still very young, and He has so deeply engraved in my mind the impressions of childhood that past events seem to have happened but yesterday."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 1, p5

On the Little Way

“I am a very little soul, who can offer only very little things to the Lord.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 11, pg 162

“No, I am not a saint. I have never accomplished saintly deeds. I am quite a little soul on whom the good God has heaped graces. What I say is the truth. You shall see in heaven.”
-Balthasar p110, N 133 (LC 143)

"Oh no, I have never wished for extraordinary graces. That does not fit in with my little way."
-Balthasar p337, Pt 93

“To reach Heaven I need not become great; on the contrary I must remain little, I must become even smaller than I am.”
-Story of a Soul, Chpt 9, pg 127

“I know, O Mother full of grace, that you lived in great poverty in Nazareth. You did not long to leave it; no raptures, miracles, or ecstasies lightened your life, O Mother of the Chosen One! . . . O Mother beyond compare, you chose to tread the everyday paths so as to show little ones the way to heaven”
-Balthasar p337

“it [the little way] is a way in which one is imbued with a sense of trusting abandonment to divine mercy, which makes even the most rigorous spiritual commitment light.”
-Pope John Paul II, homily declaring Therese a doctor of the Church

“O my God, O most blessed Trinity, I desire to love you and make you loved, to work for the glorification of Holy Church by saving souls on earth and delivering souls suffering  in Purgatory. I desire to accomplish your will perfectly and attain the degree of glory you have prepared for me in your Kingdom. In a word, I desire to be a saint, but I feel my powerlessness, and I ask you, O my God, to be yourself my sanctity.”
-Balthasar p111, SS 276

“Sanctity does not consist in this or that practice, it consists in a disposition of the heart that makes us humble and little in God’s arms, teaches us our weakness and inspires us with an almost presumptuous trust in his fatherly goodness”
-Balthasar p111, N 112-12 (LC 129 note)

“No, I do not consider myself a great saint; I only think that the good God has planted seeds in me that are for my benefit and for the benefit of others… No, I do not consider myself a great saint, I believe I am quite a little saint.”
-Balthasar p110, G 463 (ET 370)

“For me, prayer is an uplifting of the heart, a glance towards Heaven, a cry of gratitude and love in times of sorrow as well as of joy… something supernatural which expands the soul and unites it to God.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chapter 11, pg 155

“The science of love, Oh… I desire that science alone… love is the sole treasure that I covet. Jesus condescends to show me the only way that leads to this divine furnace. It is the surrender of a small child who sleeps without fear in its father’s arms. ‘Whoever is a little one, let him come to me,’ was what the Holy Spirit said through the mouth of Solomon.”
-Balthasar p236, SS 187-88

“I will seek out a means of reaching Heaven by a little way – very short, very straight and entirely new. We live in an age of inventions: there are now lifts which save us the trouble of climbing stairs. I will try to find a lift by which I might be raised unto God, for I am too small to climb the steep stairway of perfection.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 9, p127

On the Little Flower

"Go in peace, dear child, you are a privileged little flower which Our Lord wishes to gather for Himself; I will no longer put any obstacle in your way."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 5, pg 71, this is Therese's uncle speaking to Therese regarding her desire for Carmel

"Picking one [a little white flower like a miniature lily], he gave it to me, and remarked with what loving care God had brought it to bloom and preserved it until that day. I thought I was listening to my own life story, so close was the resemblance between the little flower and little Therese. I received it as a relic."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 5, pg 69, when Therese' father gave her a flower

"I put my whole heart into the reading of the prayer, and besought Our Blessed Lady always to watch over me. It seemed to me that she [Mary] looked down lovingly, and once more smiled on her Little Flower."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 4, pg 49

"I would offer myself to Our Lord to be His little flower, and I longed to dwell in the shadow of the Tabernacle, like the flower in the picture, consoling Him, being affectionately cared for by Him, finally to be gathered by His hand."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 4, pg 43

"[God] has no need of our fine thoughts–has he not his angels, his legions of heavenly spirits, whose knowledge infinitely surpasses that of the greatest geniuses of our sad earth? So it is not our intellects or talents that Jesus has come upon earth to seek. He became the Flower of the fields solely to show us how he loves simplicity."
-Balthasar p338, S 187

"He allowed her to see the light in a holy soul fragrant with the odour of purity. He caused eight fair white lilies to spring up there before she appeared. In His love He willed to preserve her from the poisoned breath of the world, for hardly had her petals unfolded when this good Master transplanted her to the mountain of Carmel, Our Lady's garden of delight."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 1, p4

"When a gardener gives special attention to a fruit which he wishes to ripen early, it is never with a view to leaving it on the tree, but rather to placing it on a well-spread table. In the same way did Our Lord lavish His favours on His Little Flower, for He, who while on earth cried out in a transport of joy, "I bless The, O Father, because Thou hast hidden these things form the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones," willed that His mercies should shine forth in her. And because I was small and frail, He deigned to stoop down to me and instruct me gently in the secrets of His love."
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 5, pg 66, with a biblical quote from Luke 10:21

On Energy, Vitality, and Combat

"In order to be holy, the most essential virtue is energy. With energy one can easily reach the height of perfection."
-Balthasar p239, S 254

"I must die with my weapons in my hand, in my mouth the sword of the spirit that is the word of God."
-Balthasar p239, H 295

"Sanctity! It has to be won at the point of a sword"
-Balthasar p238, S 101

"Let us always grasp the sword of the spirit… let us never simply allow matters to take their course for the sake of our own peace"
-Balthasar p238, H 298

"God wanted to make me conquer Carmel at the sword’s point."
-Balthasar p238, S 298 (GC II:1017)

On Suffering

"I rejoice that God still lets me suffer for love of Him."
-Therese writing to Maurice (Aug 10) in her last letter to him before her death, after talking about how comforted she was to know that her exile (life) was almost at an end, after months of painful tuberculosis.

"Suffering has long since become my heaven here below, so that I find real difficulty in imagining how I should acclimatize myself to a land where joy reigns untouched by sadness"
-In Balthasar pg 74, S 353 (GC II:1142)

“Before “resting in the shadow of him whom I desired,” I was to pass through many trials, but the divine call was so strong that had I been forced to pass through flames, I would have done it out of love for Jesus.”
-Story of a Soul, Chpt 5

“The more crosses I encountered the stronger became my attraction to suffering.”
-Story of a Soul, Chpt 7

“I understood what real glory was. He whose Kingdom is not of this world showed me that true wisdom consists in “desiring to be unknown and counted as nothing,” in “placing one’s joy in contempt of self.” Ah! I desired that, like the Face of Jesus, “my face be truly hidden, that no one on earth would know me.” I thirsted after suffering and I longed to be forgotten.”
-Story of a Soul, Chpt 7

"I will cherish the feelings that the good God sends me now; there will be plenty of time to bear the other kind."
-N12 (LC 46)

"I would never ask God for greater sufferings."
-Balthasar p68, N 136

"I am glad that I have never prayed to God for suffering."
-Balthasar p68, N 162

“Martyrdom was the dream of my youth and this dream has grown with me within Carmel’s cloisters. But here again, I feel that my dream is folly, for I cannot confine myself to desiring one kind of martyrdom. To satisfy me I need all. Like You, my Adorable Spouse, I would be scourged and crucified. I would die flayed like St. Bartholomew. I would be plunged into boiling oil like St. John; I would undergo all the tortures inflicted upon the martyrs. With St. Agnes and St. Cecilia, I would present my neck to the sword, and like Joan of Arc, my dear sister I would whisper at the stake Your Name, O Jesus.”
-Story of a Soul, Chpt 9

“I really feel that I would have no disappointment, for when one expects pure and unmixed suffering, the smallest joy becomes an unhoped-for surprise. And you know, Mother, that suffering itself becomes the greatest joys when one seeks it as the most precious of treasures.”
-Story of a Soul, Chpt 10

“I am sure that you understand me. (What does it matter after all whether life is cheerful or sad, we would nonetheless reach the end of our journey here below). A day of a Carmelite spent without suffering is a day lost. For you it is the same thing, for you are a Carmelite at heart.”
-A letter to her sister Céline, May 1888

On Doubt and Atheism

“I get tired of the darkness all around me. The darkness itself seems to borrow, from the sinners who live in it, the gift of speech. I hear its mocking accents: ‘It’s all a dream, this talk of a heavenly country, of a God who made it all, who is to be your possession in eternity! All right, go on longing for death! But death will make nonsense of your hopes; it will only mean a night darker than ever, the night of mere non-existence!’”
-Story of a Soul (trans. Ronald Knox)

“I would not even want to tell you the degree of blackness that is in my soul for fear of making you share in my temptations.”
-Therese in a conversation with one of her former novices

"I was then having heavy interior trials of all sorts (to the point of wondering sometimes if there was a Heaven)."
-Story of a Soul

"When I sing of the happiness of heaven and of the eternal possession of God, I feel no joy in this, for I sing simply what I want to believe."
-Story of a Soul (Ms C, 7v)

"[Jesus] knows that although I have no joy of faith, I still try to carry out the works of faith. This last year, I believe, I have made more acts of faith than during the rest of my life."
-Balthasar pg 340 (not cited in Balthasar)

"Often I pray to the saints, but the more they are deaf to my voice, the more I love them… For my desire not to see God and the saints but to live in the night of faith is stronger than other people's desire to see and understand everything"
-N 136 (LC 146), in Balthasar 338

“Watch carefully, Mother, when you will have patients a prey to violent pains; don’t leave near them any medicines that are poisonous. I assure you, it needs only a second when one suffers intensely to lose one’s reason. Then one would easily poison oneself.”
-Therese making a urgent plea to her Mother Superior a month before her death

“Yes! What a grace it is to have faith! If I had not any faith, I would have committed suicide without an instant’s hesitation.”
-In response to a fellow Carmelite who remarked on St. Thérèse’s sufferings, a week before her death

Bridge with Protestants

(^personal relationship with God & Biblical focus over tradition, rules, and works)

“I cannot recite them all [beautiful prayers] and, not knowing which to choose, I do like children who do not know how to read, I say very simply to God what I wish to tell him, without composing beautiful sentences, and He always understands me.”
-MS C, 25r (as referenced in The Prayers of Saint Therese of Lisieux), from Chpt 11 of The Story of a Soul, pg 155

It is from here [scripture] that I derive everything my poor little soul needs. I constantly receive fresh illuminations and detect new, hidden meanings."  …  "I can find nothing in books any more; the Gospels are enough for me. Is it not implied, for example, in the words of our Lord, 'Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart'? How sweet to learn nothing except from the mouth of Jesus."
-Balthasar pg 82 (2 P 240)

"Reveal to me the hidden mysteries of the Gospels! Oh, that golden book is my most precious treasure."
-H 389 from Balthasar pg 82

“[M]y way is all confidence and love. I do not understand souls who fear a friend so tender. At times, when I am reading certain spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown through a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires; I close the learned book that is breaking my head and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons, perfection seems simple to me. I see that it is sufficient to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself like a child into God’s arms.”
-Letter 226 to Father Roulland, 9 May 1897

"I would not have picked up a single straw in order to avoid the first of Purgatory. Everything I have done I have done in order to give joy to the good God and to save souls for him"
-N 98-99 (LC 118) from Balthazar 77

"My sister, if you look for the justice of God you will get it. The soul will receive from God exactly what she desires." 
-Therese, at 19, responding to criticism about her supposedly lenient position on purgatory, from sister Marie Febronie, a 67 year old subprioress at Lisieux. From 33 Days to Merciful Love, reference 110.

“Merit does not consist in doing or in giving much, but rather in receiving.”
-Letter 142 to Céline, 6 July 1893.

“If I had committed all possible crimes, I would always have the same confidence; I feel that this whole multitude of offenses would be like a drop of water thrown into a fiery furnace.”
-Last Conversations. Yellow Notebook, 11 July 1897, 6.

“Her whole relationship to God was always personal and never merely formal. Thus, even when she is obeying, she is obeying out of love for a person, never out of compulsion or a bare concern for some ‘law’”
-Balthasar’s commentary, Balthasar p126

Additional Quotes

“My folly lies in the hope that Thy Love accepts me as a victim… As long as Thou wiliest I shall remain with my gaze fixed upon Thee, for I long to be fascinated by Thy divine eyes, I long to become Love’s prey. I am filled with the hope that one day Thou wilt swoop down upon me, and bearing me away to the source of all Love, wilt plunge me at last into its glowing abyss, that I may become for ever its happy victim.”
-The Story of a Soul, Chpt 13 (A Canticle of Love), pg 184. Chpt 11 in Audiobook.

"In order to live in one single act of perfect Love, I offer myself as a victim of the holocaust to your merciful love, asking you to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within you to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a Martyr of your Love, O my God!"
-Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, in The Prayers of Saint Therese of Lisieux, translated by Aletheia Kane, pg 55

“You know that I myself do not see the Sacred Heart as everyone else. I think that the Heart of my Spouse is mine alone, just as mine is his alone, and I speak to him then in the solitude of this delightful heart to heart, while waiting to contemplate him one day face to face.”
-Therese speaking about her devotions to the Sacred Heart and Holy Face in Letter 122 to Céline, 14 October 1890

Poem 23, “To the Sacred Heart of Jesus”, June or October 1895

“I need a heart burning with tenderness,
Who will be my support forever,
Who loves everything in me, even my weakness…
And who never leaves me day or night…
I must have a God who takes on my nature,
And becomes my brother and is able to suffer! …
Ah! I know well, all our righteousness
Is worthless in your sight…
So I, for my purgatory,
Choose your burning love, O heart of my God!”

Quotes about Therese

“Dear little Therese, I was seventeen years old when I read your Autobiography. For me it was like a bolt from the blue. ‘Story of a little flower’ you called it. To me it seemed like the story of a ‘steel bar’ because of the will power, the courage, and the decision that shone from it. Once you had chosen the path of complete devotion to God, nothing then could stand in your way.”
-Pope John Paul I (when he was Patriarch of Venice). Albino Luciani, Illustrissimi, Letters from Pope John Paul I, p146, as quoted in Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux Volume 1 p6

"Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face is the youngest of all the "doctors of the Church", but her ardent spiritual journey shows such maturity, and the insights of faith expressed in her writings are so vast and profound that they deserve a place among the great spiritual masters."
-Pope John Paul II, in his proclamation of Therese as the 33rd Doctor of the Church, 100 years after her death (1997). https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1997/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19101997.html 

"it [the little way] is a way in which one is imbued with a sense of trusting abandonment to divine mercy, which makes even the most rigorous spiritual commitment light."
-Pope John Paul II

“Love is truly the "heart" of the Church, as was well understood by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, whom I proclaimed a Doctor of the Church precisely because she is an expert in the scientia amoris [science of love].”
-Pope John Paul II, in his apostolic letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2001/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte.html 

“I would like to invite you to rediscover this small-great treasure, this luminous comment on the Gospel lived to the full! The Story of a Soul, in fact, is a marvellous story of Love, told with such authenticity, simplicity and freshness that the reader cannot but be fascinated by it!”
-Pope Benedict XVI, in an April 6th, 2011 general audience, https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20110406.html 

“At a time of great complexity, she [Therese] can help us rediscover the importance of simplicity, the absolute primacy of love, trust and abandonment, and thus move beyond a legalistic or moralistic mindset that would fill the Christian life with rules and regulations, and cause the joy of the Gospel to grow cold.”
-Pope Francis, On Confidence in the Merciful Love of God, for the 150th anniversary of the birth of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20231015-santateresa-delbambinogesu.html 

"She probed the depths of divine mercy, and drew from them the light of her limitless hope."
-Pope Francis about Therese, On Confidence in the Merciful Love of God

“In the case of Saint Therese… we are dealing with a ‘Doctor of synthesis.’”
-Pope Francis, On Confidence in the Merciful Love of God

"Mary was the first to experience the “little way” in pure faith and humility."
-Pope Francis, On Confidence in the Merciful Love of God

“Therese never uses the expression, common enough in her day, “I will become a saint”.”
-Pope Francis, On Confidence in the Merciful Love of God

“More than divine justice, it was the fact that Christ’s love might be refused that troubled the heart of Saint Therese, because for her, God’s justice is understood only in the light of his love.”
-Pope Francis, On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, Oct24, 2024

Notes:

• BODLING in quotes is from me, not Therese, whereas italics indicates her own emphasis, often by her underlining the text or using a different style of handwriting.

• These quotes generally don’t skip part of the quote with ellipses – Therese often wrote with ellipses (...). Brackets [ ] are an indication of an insertion I made, typically to clarify a pronoun.

• These quotes are from various translations, and I do not indicate which one is used most of the time. However there are the most common sources used…

-Most citations of The Story of a Soul cite back to the 2009 Baronius Press version which I have in print (the translation used for the quote may occasionally be different).

-The Audiobook of The Story of a Soul, is sometimes referenced, which is the John Beevers translation, narrated by Sherry Kennedy Brownrigg, as found on Audible. In this audiobook, the last 5 chapters (9-13) are condensed into 3. Chpt 9 is extended through most of Chpt 10. Chpt 10 is the end of Chpt 10, Chpt 11, and Chpt 12. The final chapter, Chpt 11, is Chpt 13.

-Balthasar from the 1992 Two Sisters in the Spirit: Thérèse of Lisieux & Elizabeth of the Trinity

-Maurice and Thérèse: The story of a Love from the 1998 Patrick Ahern book.

-Therese’s  letters can be found in the Carmel de Lisieux archives online: https://www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr/english/carmel/index.php/oeuvres-de-therese/correspondance-lt