Our cultural selection on Sainte Thérèse of Lisieux

Album. Natasha St-Pier asks only to believe

Believe, MCA, €14.99.

The Acadian singer’s new spiritual album, “Croire”, comes out on the occasion of the Assumption Day and gives thanks to women. “Whether they are anonymous mothers or saints, they have a quiet strength within them, a gentleness that inspires me”, confides the singer who could not help but wink at Saint Thérèse, of whom she once again set a few poems to music. Indeed, she had signed her two previous albums in homage to the saint of Lisieux, “Vivre d’Amour”, in 2013, and “Aimer c’est tout donne”, in 2018. This new musical project also includes a text by Mother Teresa. “These two Thérèse, continues Natasha St-Pier, had in them an unfailing faith which was not expressed in a virulent way but by love. I wanted to make it known and to honor their humanity. .” But it is to the Blessed Virgin, “Ultimate Mom” ​​that the artist has reserved most of his new disc. Four of the twelve tracks, including a tasty cover of Sancta Maria, are dedicated to the Mother of God. And for good reason: according to the Christian artist, “Mary meditates on all things in her heart. She has this strength of self-sacrifice, this power of love that transports.” A power that we find in this luminous and soothing opus!

Eyoum Nganguè

Documentary. Thérèse, the little saint of Lisieux

Stéphane Bern had accustomed us to telling the life of crowned heads. This time he dwells on the exceptional destiny of a “haloed” head: Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. On this occasion, Secrets d’Histoire set up its cameras in Alençon (Orne), where Marie-Françoise Thérèse Martin was born in 1873, then in Lisieux (Calvados) where little Thérèse, who had become a Carmelite nun, strengthened her faith, was crossed by doubt and had mystical experiences before dying on December 30, 1897, at the age of 24. Based on period photos, reconstructed scenes, the testimony of historians and religious, the presenter shows how this young girl, from a pious family and inhabited by an extraordinary will, succeeded, according to a specialist, “to put holiness within everyone’s reach”, by inventing “a new way of speaking to God”. In fact, her writings have already been read by more than 500 million people and Saint Thérèse – she was canonized in 1925 by Pope Pius XI and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997 by John Paul II – has inspired many believers . Secrets of History accurately retraces the brief existence of the one who had declared before expiring: “I will spend my heaven doing good on Earth.”

Eyoum Nganguè

This episode of Secrets of History is available for rental on France television website.

Book. The act of offering of Thérèse of Lisieux

At the school of Saint Thérèse Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897) makes us discover a God far removed from the avenging God whom many Carmelites feared in her time. This is evidenced by his Act of Offering to Merciful Love, consisting of a parting on June 9, 1895, the day of the Holy Trinity. In this short text, Thérèse declines her master intuition of a God who forgives and in return calls upon the confidence of men. A God to whom the young nun does not hesitate to offer herself without reserve and without return. A priest at Angoulême and a great connoisseur of the saint, Father Jacques Fau signs a beautiful meditation on this text which condenses the essence of Teresian spirituality: his infinite desire to unite himself to Jesus and the acceptance of suffering as a path to better resemble him. The keys to a rich and dense spiritual universe.

Samuel Lieven

The act of offering of Thérèse of Lisieux, Ed. Cerf.

Book. Oh take my soul

O take my soul. The little way of love experienced and revealed by Thérèse of Lisieux, texts chosen by Bénédicte Delelis, illustrations chosen by Pierre-Marie Varennes.

Unknown during her lifetime, planetary phenomenon after her death, at the age of 24, in the Carmel of Lisieux, Thérèse Martin (1873-1897) reached hearts by playing on cultural barriers and generational divides. This book beautifully honors the centenary of the birth of the little saint of Lisieux (January 2) by offering a judicious choice of her autobiographical texts, echoed by the works of many contemporary painters of her brief trajectory (Maurice Denis , George Desvallières, Rouault, Berthe Morisot…). Emmanuel Editions also publishes the texts of the still young Norman, with introductions and notes, including the bestseller “Story of a soul”. More simply than any other doctor of the Church, she teaches and illustrates the Christian life.

Christophe Chaland

O take my soul. The little way of love experienced and revealed by Thérèse of Lisieux, texts chosen by Bénédicte Delelis, illustrations chosen by Pierre-Marie Varennes, Ed. Magnificat, 194 p.; 29 €.

Photo album. A face of love

Could the chubby cheeks of Thérèse’s laughing face be linked to the “6 months diet of soup and potatoes” imposed on the whole Carmel, as Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart wrote? One thing is certain, the godmother of the little saint from Calvados did not like this portrait taken in 1889 by Abbé Gombault, even going so far as to find the figure of Thérèse “puffy”. The 47 photographs listed by the Carmelite Didier-Marie Golay, specialist of the most famous Normandy on the planet, are full of anecdotes about the context in which the portraits were taken. Sometimes surrounded by her Carmelite sisters in scenes of daily life, sometimes alone, Thérèse appears to us in a new light. Through a gesture, a look, a dress, it comes alive and becomes more intimate to us.

Therese Thibon

Faces of Thérèse of Lisieux, by Didier Marie Golay, Ed. du Cerf, 232 p. ; 29 €

Our cultural selection on Sainte Thérèse of Lisieux