I checked two autobiographies by Dom Willbrord Verkade, but he makes no mention of the Saint or any visit to Lisieux. I have not found any records of any other photographer being granted admission to the Carmel in June of 1897. But she is facing the other direction in all three.
#THE HIDDEN FACE IDA GORRES ARCHIVE#
Therese sat for a photo session on June 7, 1897, and the Archive includes three photos. This photo corresponds to none of the photos in the Archive. These photos may all be viewed at the online Lisieux archive at this website. As Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face (her name in religion), she took 40 + photos that included St. Therese as a nun because her birth sister, Celine Martin, brought a camera with her when she joined the Lisieux convent. Who was Thérèse of the Child Jesus in reality? In stunned silence we gazed at the familiar and yet so alien features, and someone said: “Almost like the face of a female Christ.” From that August morning on I was determined to pursue the riddle of her look and her smile-so different from the honeyed insipidity of the usual representations of her. The Carmel at Lisieux, and a French bishop as well, protested vehemently against its publication.” A small group of young people gathered around him the picture passed from hand to hand. “Dom Willibrord Verkade, the monk-painter of Beuron, discovered and published it. “This is the true appearance of Little Thérèse”, he said. The author says the book was prompted in part, by a colleague sharing the above photo with her and a group of colleagues:ĭuring a meeting at Burg Rothenfels, then the centre of the Catholic Youth Movement in Germany, a student showed me a small picture, like a passport photograph. I am not an expert on the Saint, so its possible that some of her findings have been eclipsed by more recent scholarship. The book was a deliberate response to earlier biographies or portrayals of the Saint that the author believed were shallow or not a true representation of her life. It was originally published in 1959, and resissued in English by Ignatius Press in 2003. It is a study of the Saint’s time on earth, her spirituality, her canonization process, and the public reaction. Therese of Lisieux, by Ida Friederike Gorres, which I purchased and read in March. It is a close up of a photo that I first saw in the book The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Perhaps you can solve the mystery for me? This is strange, because I have my doubts whether the photo is even authentic. I usually take a break a few times a day just to stare at it a little while. There is something about the look, a certain resolve, expression of concern, etc. It has become my favorite picture of her. Therese on my desk the last few months while I have worked from home. In 2009 her relics (some of her bones) were brought to the UK – that’s the kind of event that outsiders find hard to understand about the RC church, but the numbers of people who turned out to see the casket were truly staggering.I have had this photo of St. The whole phenomenon of St Therese is very hard to look at clearly. It also honestly assesses the points where the reader can’t help feeling Therese must have been a difficult and painful companion at times.Ī much more recent book – Shirt of Flame: A year with St Therese of Lisieux, by Heather King – looks at her relevance to modern-day life, as the author tries to learn useful lessons from the Saint. The biography above is long (especially considering how short Therese’s life was), but does an excellent job of giving context to the church of the time, the convent she was in, and the people she was with. Her story is fascinating: she wrote her own ‘Story of a Soul’ – outlining her Little Way to God, it has been a massive bestseller ever since. It is also true that you rather fear for any young girl now who acted as Therese Martin did: she was brought up in a very devout family, and outdid her parents and sisters in her piety – she knew from an early age she wanted to be a nun, and petitioned the Pope of the time for special permission to break the rules and enter a Carmelite convent at the age of 15. St Therese seems to belong to an older tradition. Of course there are recent saints and potential saints – Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul II – but they are modern figures, each of whom died after a long and scrutinized life of great achievement. St Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower, is the strangest of saints: because there are photos of her, because one of her sisters was still alive in 1959, and because she lived her 24 years in a small area of France without any particular deeds to mark her life.
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