The Story of a Soul

Summary

The Story of a Soul is the autobiography of Thérèse Martin, a young Carmelite nun of Lisieux in Normandy, written at the request of her superiors in the last years of her short life and published a year after her death. In the library text, Thomas N. Taylor's 1912 translation, it is arranged in eleven chapters addressed to her sister Pauline, by then Mother Agnes of Jesus, and framed by a prologue on her parents and birth and an epilogue on her final illness. Thérèse explains at the outset that she is writing the story of the little flower gathered by Jesus, and that God has made great saints like lilies and roses and lesser ones like violets and daisies, each beautiful in its place. She recalls a happy early childhood at Alençon as the youngest of nine children, five of whom lived, and her cry as a small girl that she chose everything God willed. Her mother dies of illness in August 1877, when Thérèse is four, and her father Louis moves the family to Les Buissonnets in Lisieux. When her sister Pauline, whom she had chosen as a second mother, enters the Carmel in 1882, Thérèse falls into a strange illness of tremors, fears and frightening visions, from which she is cured in May 1883 when, she writes, a statue of the Virgin smiled at her. She makes her First Communion, suffers a long period of scruples, and on Christmas Eve 1886 receives what she calls her conversion, the grace to master her excessive sensitivity. She prays for the condemned murderer Pranzini and rejoices when he kisses the crucifix before his execution. Determined to enter Carmel at fifteen, she travels with her father and sister Céline on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1887 and, against instructions, asks Pope Leo XIII for permission; he tells her she will enter if it is God's will. She enters on 9 April 1888 and makes her profession on 8 September 1890. Later chapters describe the trial of her father's long illness, her work with the novices, her small daily acts of patience with difficult sisters, and her discovery of the little way: since she is too small to climb the stairway of perfection, she will let the arms of Jesus be the lift that raises her. In the final chapter she finds her vocation in the heart of the Church: to be love. The epilogue tells of the hemorrhage on Good Friday 1896, her trial of faith, her suffering from tuberculosis and her death on 30 September 1897, with her last words of love. Mother Agnes edited the manuscripts for the first edition, Histoire d'une âme, printed in 1898; Taylor's volume adds counsels and reminiscences, letters, poems and prayers.

Top Lessons

• The little way

  Thérèse feels too small to climb the stairway of perfection, so she seeks a lift: the arms of Jesus, who invites the little ones to come to Him. Holiness, for her, lies not in great deeds but in trusting God like a child and doing small things with great love.

• Every flower in its place

  At the start of her story Thérèse explains that God makes some souls like lilies and roses and others like violets and daisies, and that the garden would lose its beauty if all wished to be roses. Each person's call is beautiful because God chose it.

• Growing out of over-sensitivity

  Thérèse admits that after her mother's death she cried at the smallest thing and was tormented by scruples. On Christmas Eve 1886 she receives the grace to hold back her tears and think of others first, and she calls this her conversion. Maturity, in her story, is a gift received and a habit practiced.

• Love as a vocation

  In Chapter XI Thérèse longs to be a priest, apostle, missionary and martyr all at once. Reading St. Paul on the body of Christ and the greater gift of charity, she discovers that love holds every vocation together and that her place is to be love in the heart of the Church.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The book contains a careful patient's account of two illnesses. In 1883, after her sister Pauline left for Carmel, the ten-year-old Thérèse suffered a weeks-long illness that she describes as tremors, seeming delirium with retained awareness, torpor in which she could still hear the least whisper, and terrors in which nails in the wall looked like blackened fingers and her father's hat took a horrible shape; she attributes her sudden cure on 13 May 1883 to the smile of a statue of the Virgin. Retrospective readings have ranged from a nervous illness provoked by grief and separation to an infection; these are speculative, and the text presents the episode in religious terms. She also describes about two years of scruples after her First Communion, which she calls a terrible disease, and her sensitivity after her mother's death at four. The epilogue and Chapter IX record pulmonary tuberculosis: a first hemoptysis on the night of Holy Thursday to Good Friday 1896, received with joy as a call from Christ, continued austerities, progressive weakness, the doctor's remark that he had never seen anyone suffer so intensely with such joy, and her death on 30 September 1897. Her trial of faith in the last eighteen months, a darkness about heaven that she endured while continuing to act in faith, is a spiritual rather than a medical category and should be read as she presents it.

• Chapter II

  Her mother's death in August 1877, the Extreme Unction she witnessed, and the change in her temperament afterward.

• Chapter III

  The illness of 1883 with terrors, apparent delirium and torpor, Marie's nursing, and the cure she attributes to the smile of the Virgin.

• Chapter IV

  The years of scruples after her First Communion, which she calls a terrible disease.

• Chapter IX

  The first hemorrhage from the lungs on the night before Good Friday 1896, which she receives as the first call of her Beloved.

• Epilogue

  The final months in the infirmary, the doctor's visits and remedies, her suffering and her death on 30 September 1897.