by Susan Fox
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| Thérèse Martin, age 8 |
One day in 1961, little
eight-year-old me sat on the floor happily reading my Treasure Chest Catholic
Comic Magazine about the life of St. Theresa of Lisieux.
I was looking at the scene
where her father came home, and asked her for a hug. She was about four years
old, and she told her father to come to her for the hug. Then she ignored him,
and continued to swing on her swing. When her father started to return to the
house, she was deeply saddened by her own actions and ran to him in tears.
She became my big sister
until I turned 24, the age she died. I’m 62 years old now. So I tell her she is
my little sister and my favorite saint. (St. Anthony, you didn’t hear that.) I
can still remember the image in that “comic” book of Theresa on the swing
ignoring her father. Her regretted actions pierced me deeply as they did her. "What matters in life," she wrote, "is not
great deeds, but great love.”
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| St. Thérèse, age 15 |
In 1888, Theresa entered the
Discalced Carmelites at the age of 15. She held various offices in the
cloistered convent, but died at the age of 24 of tuberculosis. At her death,
one of her fellow sisters wondered what they would say about her because she
hadn’t really accomplished anything.
However, the accomplishments
of the hidden flower of Carmel are no longer unknown because of the publication
of her autobiography. In fact, she is deeply revered -- even among Eskimos, and
Pope Pius X called her the “greatest saint of modern times.”
Theresa taught us to do our
ordinary actions with great love. It was in her Little Way
of love that she discovered
a swift and sure elevator to Jesus. If you find climbing stairs
burdensome, her Little Way
is the way for you too. The
Church declared her a doctor of the Church because she
showed us how to be
saints by practicing a very simple form of spiritual childhood with complete
trust in God who Himself became a little Child. Unlike many living in the Fantasyland of our current culture, Theresa
was firmly rooted in the reality of the present moment.
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| St Theresa holding statue of the Christ Child |
Such a great gift to me was
the story of this girl’s life, offered when I was so young through the Treasure
Chest Comic Books. Her mother died when she was four years old. My father died
when I was four years old. She was extremely sensitive as a child. I was the
same way until the age of 39. In my 20s, I was a White House News
correspondent. I can remember sitting in the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s office
waiting for a one-on-one interview feeling like crushed eggshells inside. LOL.
I still gave them hell. Through deep prayer when I was a young mother, I
received the grace to firmly step off the eggshells. Theresa overcame her
sensitivity at the age of 10 while suffering a terrible illness after her older
sister Pauline entered the convent. Theresa felt like she lost her mother for
the second time since Pauline raised her after her mother’s death. She matured
rapidly through that trial so that she was ready to enter Carmel when she was
15, considered a very early age to enter the convent -- even then.
That’s where the similarities
end. Theresa and I both wanted to be nuns. She did it. But I had career,
motherhood and marriage. Theresa is a canonized saint. Her parents, Louis and
Zellie Martin, are due for canonization in October 2015 in connection with the
Synod on the Family.
The cause for the
canonization of St. Theresa’s sister,
Servant of God Leonie Martin, was opened
this year. An only child, my only sister is St. Theresa herself and my only Brother
is Jesus.
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| The forgotten sister Servant of God Leonie Martin |
But now every child can have a
real St. Theresa doll for his or her own big sister. Every child now has the opportunity
to embark upon the Little Way.
Dr. Brian
and Esmeralda Kiczek, founder of the End of Abortion Movement, are rolling out Dolls from Heaven. And the first offering is St. Theresa of Lisieux. The Kiczeks remind us that “Saints
are important for our time. They teach us to be a witness for Christ.”
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| First Doll from Heaven: St. Theresa of Lisieux |
St.
Theresa is 18 inches tall, has a cloth body, and a movable, vinyl head and
limbs. She comes with a child’s version of her classic autobiography, “The Story of a Soul.” It’s a paperback version called, “I am Therese.”
She comes with a floor-length Carmelite habit, a
brown scapular, a black veil, a two-pieced white wimple and brown sandals. She
also has an optional blue outfit – her Sunday best, available for purchase.
It’s really rather amazing what you can accomplish
with a gift like this for a child. I didn’t realize the impact that the
Treasure Chest Comic books had on me until I went to Lisieux, France in 2000 in
my late ‘40s. I didn’t plan it. I was on a 9-day silent retreat in Lourdes, and
I signed up for the four-day trip afterwards not realizing I would go to St. Theresa’s
own home in Lisieux.
In fact, in my typical oblivion I was busy talking
in the bus from Paris, and then suddenly I found I was in Lisieux. I can’t explain
adequately what happened when I reached St. Theresa’s home. I actually knew
every inch of the building and all the events that had occurred in each room. The
house was entirely familiar – like I had been there before.
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| Les Buissonnets, the childhood home of Léonie Martin and St Thérèse in Lisieux |
But I was not prepared for the experience. I only
had one Kleenex, and I was in the little tour group with the priest leading us. How embarrassing. I spoke to no one, only wept into my horribly inadequate Kleenex. There was the
fireplace where Theresa had left her shoes on Christmas Eve in 1886 in
anticipation of receiving gifts from the Child Jesus, as was the custom for
French children. As she went up the stairs, she overheard her father say
regarding the shoes, "Well, fortunately this will be the last year (she
would receive gifts)!"
Theresa had begun to cry, and then suddenly she
pulled herself together and ran back downstairs, knelt by the fireplace and
then unwrapped her packages as jubilantly as ever.
Later she said this was the instant that Jesus
healed her of her nine-year struggle to overcome her mother’s death. "In
an instant Jesus, content with my good will, accomplished the work I had not
been able to do in ten years," she wrote. She re-discovered the joy of
self-forgetfulness: "I felt, in a word, charity enter my heart, the need
to forget myself to make others happy -- since this blessed night I was not
defeated in any battle, but instead I went from victory to victory and began,
so to speak, ‘to run a giant's course.’”
Then I went to the museum in Lisieux, and I
discovered an amazing secret. They had shaved off all her hair when she entered
the convent at the age of 15, and they saved it! It’s in the museum. I had
always assumed that St. Theresa was a brunette like me. But she had the most
glorious long blond curly hair I’ve ever seen. With hair like that, she could
have been an actress! I had always wanted to be a blond.
So naturally, I found myself standing outside her
house near the statue of 13-year-old Theresa sitting on the bench with her
father as she told him that she wanted to enter Carmel.
Her father tenderly
picked up a little white flower, root intact, and gave it to her, explaining how
carefully God brought it into being and preserved it to that day.
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| St. Theresa, age 13 |
Theresa believed she was hearing her own story, the story of the Little Flower of Jesus. The flower
seemed to be a symbol of herself destined soon to be transplanted into the soil of
Carmel. I stood across from the statue, and looked at the priest leading the
tour, a
tall man from Goa, India. He stood behind the statue.
“Father, Father!” I yelled excitedly, “St. Theresa
was a blond!” Suddenly I noticed that there were several women in our group
standing around Father, and all of them were stunning blonds! He muttered
quietly something about not knowing why people think blonds are dumb... That,
of course, was not why I was excited since I believed that blonds were
beautiful and greatly to be envied.
Now if you order a St. Theresa doll for your
daughter, niece, godchild, please do not expect her to have blond hair.
The Kiczeks carefully considered the hair color and decided to go with a lovely
chestnut brown because that is how she looks in most black and white pictures. But consider
the wonderful surprise your grown niece, daughter or godchild will experience
when they arrive in Lisieux and see the museum for the first time, suddenly
learning St. Theresa was really a blond!
But please Esmeralda and
Brian, consider a St. Anthony doll at some point soon? He would look so cute holding an even
smaller Child Jesus doll. For you know, St. Anthony held the Christ Child in his arms.
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| St. Theresa doll in her Sunday best |
