Therese of Lisieux, four works selected by Hélène Mongin
“Je I will desire in Heaven the same thing as on earth: to love Jesus and make him loved”, wrote little Thérèse a few months before her death, in 1897. To help the saint of Lisieux pursue her mission, Hélène Mongin, editor at Éditions de l’Emmanuel, had the good idea of bringing together her main writings (in four books, released together), and to accompany them with a meticulous critical apparatus and 120 period photographs. Fervent admirer and expert of the Norman Carmelite for many years (she owes him nothing less than her conversion!), Hélène Mongin thus guides the reader step by step, page after page, in the exploration of these living sources of spirituality. whose power is too often still unsuspected.
First step of this exciting journey to meet Thérèse, and Jesus through her: story of a soul, the essential bestseller that the theologian William Clapier, in his preface, describes as“a hymn to the invincible force of trust and love in Him who is love itself”. The path continues with its poems and prayers, with such a singular evangelical flavor, then with its Last words collected during the last six months of her life by her sisters in religion and in the flesh. And, finally, his Letters. Therese reveals herself as a “true mistress of spiritual life”, believes Hélène Mongin. And the editor continues: “She opens a door for us to follow her in the ‘little spiritual way’ that she discovered to lead her friends to God through trust and love. » So, what are we waiting for to listen to it and to follow it? AV
story of a soul, €15; Last words, €16; poems and prayers, €14; Letters, €18, Editions de l’Emmanuel.
Only fools can be wise of Raphael Buyse
Our columnist, priest of the diocese of Lille, has cracked down again! His faith in “an always Other God” is reflected this time in his way of exploring wisdom, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. To “keep pious words”of a “easy morality”and of “reflections unrelated to what makes the ordinary and the banality of our daily life”the author ofOtherwise, God and D’Otherwise, the gospel (Bayard) offers us an invigorating meditation on the appearance of the Risen One at Lake Tiberias (John 21). To the seven disciples, vexed by the death of their Master, and humiliated by a fruitless night of fishing, the stranger of the lake said: “Cast your net to the right! » That’s to say : “Do the same thing, but differently. » Such is the wisdom of Jesus, folly in the eyes of men, into which the Spirit burns to initiate us. He alone can inspire us with the audacity to “we risk, with new words, to stammer a Christian faith for the 21ste century “. A challenge that the intrepid Raphaël Buyse takes up from book to book. AV
Salvador, €14.
The Power of Parental Prayer, of Stephanie Combe
We find here our colleague Stéphanie Combe, author of the bestseller Phew! Mom goes to the convent (Quasar), faced with the challenge of prayer. His subject is always as delicate as it is profound, punctuated by funny and guilt-free personal experiences: yes, it is good not to be perfect parents. The important thing for our children is elsewhere: They need a father and a mother who prays for them, whatever their age and their situation”, assures Stephanie Combe. As a family, as a couple or alone, this mother of three children knows how much daily prayer remains a demanding discipline, sometimes laborious. But for every Christian, prayer opens heaven. And if we have to hope for great things for our children, it is to give birth to eternal life “. So we are invited to a regular spiritual life which, she writes, ” frees us from our slavery, from this frantic race against time, from the grip of social networks so time-consuming that they disperse us” to make us on the contrary able to meet challenges “.
Our journalist enriched his remarks by giving the floor to around thirty parents, aged 35 to 78. They tell us how on a daily basis, during decisive choices or trials, they entrust their situations to a saint, to Mary, to the Lord… These practices, some of which are drawn from Protestants, can reach each of us. With this advice from one of the parents: don’t aim too high and start small. Invigorating. DV
Salvador, €14.80.
Archangel’s Wrath, by Bertrand Revillion
It is the story of a friendship between two men born in childhood, the friendship of a lifetime, broken by the irreparable. Two priests, Antoine whose fame grew as much as his questioning by the institution, and Baudoin who, despite his questions about the Church, did not give up on his episcopal office. This novel by Bertrand Révillion, ex-collaborator of Life, opens as violently as the lightning that sometimes strikes the archangel who dominates Mont-Saint-Michel. Antoine is prosecuted, more than 30 years after the facts, for abuses committed on children during a scout camp.
Justice follows its course, judges and condemns, while the bishop lays off Antoine, dismissing him from any ministry before a return to the lay state. Baudoin mourns the lost friend, proclaims at the bar his shame for this Church and enters the darkness of faith, without ceasing to advance. We will forgive the heaviness of style to attach ourselves to a plea that wells up between the lines for a renewed Church confronting its truths. FM
Salvador, €18.