Thomas Nevin begins his unconventional study by firmly rejecting any hagiographical objective, with a caveat that Thérèse has had more than her share of pious biographies. Is there anything left to unearth about the Little Flower, one of the church’s most beloved saints? This new monograph illustrates how an enterprising researcher can approach this saint’s deceptive simplicity and find there a complex spiritual universe for postmodern exploration. The complete body of her written work is available on the Web, and library databases list over 300 published volumes on the subject of Thérèse. She is venerated as “daughter of Allah” in Islamic circles, with her own shrine in Cairo. Her relics have circled the globe, including Iraq, Siberia and Cameroon. Thérèse of Lisieux still influences and fascinates millions, reaching a world unimagined by the French bourgeois Catholicism from which she emerged. Removed in time by more than a century, St. And then, there she was: pasted to the wall near a bare cross, a small, celebrated photo of a young Carmelite nun, the only human face this man would see during long hours of solitary contemplation at La Grande Trappe. At a recent viewing of the film “Into Great Silence,” I was mesmerized as the camera circled the austere perimeter of a new Carthusian novice’s cell and oratory, stripped of any comforts or signs of individuality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |