The anecdote of Saint Pius X’s meeting with a missionary bishop who had given him a portrait of Saint Therese of Lisieux is well known. The Pope had told him:This is the greatest saint of modern times.”. The knowledge that Pope Sarto had of Teresa came from afar and that is why he did not hesitate to initiate the cause of her beatification.
Barely 10 years after his death, the Pope had received the gift of the French edition of Story of a Soul. Pius X, who would admire this young Carmelite for the simplicity of her spiritual doctrine and her insistence on the absolute necessity of grace, knew that there were some ecclesiastics who when they heard about Teresa “frowned”.
This would lead him to respond decisively to one of his detractors: «Its extreme simplicity is the most extraordinary and worthy of attention in this soul. He returns to study his theology ».
The indication of the Pope to one of those ecclesiastics was not something trivial… the studies on the process that led to the proclamation of Santa Teresita as a doctor of the Church show that The road was not easy…
Through the corridors of the Roman congregations, in the debates of some theologians, objections similar to the cause were repeated like a refrain… How could this title be given to one who he had consummated his life with almost 25 years within the walls of a cloistered monastery, a young woman who had not attended theology classesnor had he systematically expounded his “doctrine”?
God has his times… the objections faded away and the increasingly widespread testimony of the affection of the faithful, pastors of the Church, theologians and authors of spirituality, priests and seminarians, men and women religious, ecclesial movements and new communities, men and women of any condition and from all continents became a universal clamor.
Rain of petals on the relics of Santa Teresita in her proclamation as a doctor in 1997.
25 years ago, the October 19 1997, on the Domund Day, Pope John Paul II signed the apostolic letter Divini Amoris Scientia and proclaimed Teresa Lisieux as the 33rd Doctor of the Church before the crowd gathered in Saint Peter’s Square.
Following John Paul II in his apostolic letter, we summarize in 10 reasons that led to the Church to proclaim to Teresa, the youngest Doctor of the Churchas a universal teacher in the doctrine of love
1.- The meteoric career with which his writings spread: in the year 1921 story of a soul (his autobiographical writings) had been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Sri Lankan… today his autobiography has been translated into nearly 50 languages, as well as his other writings.
two.- His holiness was recognized by the Church very quickly. She died in 1897. On June 10, 1914, Pius X signed the decree initiating the cause of beatification; on August 14, 1921 Benedict XV declared the heroic virtues of the Servant of God, Pius XI proclaimed her blessed on April 29, 1923. A little later, on May 17, 1925, the same Pope, before an immense crowd, canonized her Peter’s Basilica, and two years later, on December 14, 1927, accepting the request of many missionary bishops, he proclaimed it, together with Saint Francis Xavier, patron saint of missions.
3.- The universal authority of Teresa’s doctrine lies in the ability to have gone with a simplicity and depth unique to the heart of the gospel. She embodies and preaches with her life and her word the centrality of the gospel: the call of Jesus to become like children, to recognize ourselves being so poor and small as “beloved children of God”.
4.- Doctor for our times because has put on the candlestick the message of Divine Mercy opening the doors of hope to so many who find themselves crushed by the moral and spiritual misery to which the ideologies of the modern world have led.
In some ways, St. Therese of Lisieux is a forerunner of Divine Mercy spirituality.
5.- His teaching manifests with coherence and unites in a harmonious whole the dogmas of the Christian faith as a doctrine of truth and life experience. At the end of his life, he wrote with his own blood the Creed of the Apostles, as an expression of his unreserved adherence to the profession of faith.
6.- The main source of his spiritual experience and teaching is the word of God, in the Old and in the New Testament. She herself confesses it, especially emphasizing her passionate love for the Gospel (cf. Ms A 83 v). In her writings there are more than thousand biblical quotes: more than four hundred of the Old Testament and more than six hundred of the New.
7.- Contact with his writings leads to a effective and affective love for the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. It is in the Heart of the Church drinking from the sacramental source where she places us to live the “vocation to love” hand in hand with her.
8.- Circumstances converge in it that make her doctorate more significant. CHow a woman makes the feminine genius shine in the vital and sapiential reading of the gospel. as a contemplative it highlights for our days the primacy of God over all things and the beauty of life consecrated to Christ as spouse of the Church.
Saint Therese of Lisieux, who died at the age of 24, among the doctors of the Church, in an icon of classical style.
9.- As a young person, she presents herself as a teacher of evangelical life, particularly effective in illuminating the paths of the young, to whom it corresponds to be protagonists and witnesses of the Gospel among the new generations.
10.- How “missionary in the cloister” it never fails to draw men of all races and nations to the gospel. His letters to his two missionary “spiritual sons”, Fr. Roulland and Abbé Bellière, were an announcement of his missionary vocation exercised today from heaven, from where he does not fail to proclaim in season and out of season his desire for “to love and make Jesus love”.
Shortly before her death, Teresa prophesied that “she would spend her heaven doing good on earth.” Today, 125 years after his death, As a teacher and Universal Doctor, she continues to teach the poor and simple of heart the path of abandonment, humility and love to all the ends of the world.
The 10 reasons why Therese of Lisieux, in her twenties, was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church