The reason for this brief post is that, in my own life, I have recently run into a situation which seems to use Thérèse’s teaching in a way that would call into question her deep concern for abuse in the Church. This, for me, won’t do. The Thérèse I know is resolutely against abuse. In fact, I wanted to say in the title of this post that Thérèse was disgusted at abuse, and while this appears to be true from the story I will relate from her lifetime, it seems insufficient to cover the entire range of what I want to draw attention to.

In her own lifetime

For the story I have in mind, we are indebted to the testimony of Aimée of Jesus, a fellow nun at the convent in Lisieux who “was one of the instruments God had used to sanctify her [Thérèse]” (STL 279).[1] In other words, this Sister Aimée was not fond of Thérèse, probably made her life difficult, and certainly was not rushing to declare her a saint in her lifetime. In fact, the “devil’s advocate” is the one who called for her as a witness in the collection of information for the cause for beatification.

Sister Aimée tells this story:

Only once did I see Sister Thérèse lose this [habitual] calm just a little. Her sister Céline (Genevieve of St Teresa) had a violent upset some weeks before her profession, and she could not hide it. The cause of it was Mother Gonzague, the novice-mistress. I did not know exactly why Sister Genevieve had been humiliated, but I remarked in a general kind of way to Sister Thérèse: “Mother Marie de Gonzague has a right to test Sister Genevieve, so why be surprised?” She retorted with some feeling: “There are some ways in which people should not be tested, and this is one of them.”

This answer surprised me at the time, and I thought it sprang from a love that was too natural. But I was not sure, because I did not know what exactly had happened. For a long time now, I have been convinced that she answered like that out of a spirit of discernment. (STL 280)

The nun refers to this incident as “the little imperfection I mentioned (and maybe it was not an imperfection at all)” (STL 280), yet, as she also notes, it seems more like a spirit of discernment. And that discernment issues in “some feeling.” It rather seems to me that the feeling in question is anger and disgust. The person in authority had, in Thérèse’s estimation, abused her authority, and it seemingly had harmed another person seriously at the emotional level.

It is remarkable that this is the only incident that the “devil’s advocate” witness produces which may be an example of Thérèse visibly losing her cool in the convent. (And even then, she admits that, with hindsight, this wasn’t undue. It may have been entirely appropriate.) If we ask the simple question: What is the only thing that makes Thérèse appear at first blush to be uncharitable? The answer is: abuse within the Church along structures of power and authority. That’s what the “devil’s advocate” witness supplied—that’s it.

For me, that says a lot about Thérèse. In responding to abuse in such a fashion, she even showed how she was “the mature fruit of the reform of the Carmel” (C’est la Confiance 4). Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross being prime examples of saints who dealt with clerical abuse (spiritual, psychological, and corporal), their modern heir knows instinctively not to accept this behaviour or its analogues in religious communities of women—and she lets that come to the surface, even though she would normally be so careful not to do anything that might be interpreted as showing special favour to her blood sisters in the convent. If Sister Aimée is correct and Thérèse was acting from discernment, then we can say that she risks her normal behaviour and her reputation for this. This is no small event. She genuinely cares; she is angry, she is disgusted. No doubt about it.

In the next life

We know well that Thérèse wanted to spend her heaven doing good on earth (LT 254; CJ 17.7; STL 68, 84, 154, 252–253)[2] and to come back to earth and make Love loved (STL 131). If we are confident that she had very strong feelings about abuse along structures of power and authority in the Church, then we should not be surprised if she should take abuse survivors under her now-heavenly wings.

That is exactly what happens with Marcel Văn, who had been subjected to sexual, physical, emotional, and psychological abuse before he started reading Story of a Soul. A short time after he read this book, he met the saint herself in some mystical way. Although most summaries of Văn’s life omit it, at their very first encounter, Thérèse tries to address the wounds that Văn has suffered to his self-image and image of God as a result of the abuse, i.e., what modern psychologists would call his moral injury.

In his autobiography, Văn tells us that, at that time, he was still concerned that the sins of others have made him a bad person: “When I was small, I heard my mother teach me many things about God and perfection, but during my stay at Hữu Bằng [where the abuse happened] a thousand torments were used to divest me of all my beautiful thoughts” (A 594).[3] Upon hearing this distraught adolescent boy, Thérèse asks him whether he has ever approved as good what “these inhuman creatures” did. Văn replies:

No, I have never approved of them in such an insane manner. Neither have I ever lost confidence in God, since, if I had abandoned God, who then would I have been able to follow? Nothing was more painful to me than to notice in my relations with God that there was a sort of veil which separated me from him. (A 595)

In response, Thérèse assures him that

the cruelty of these inhuman creatures towards you should be considered as nothing more than a veil or layer of dust covering all your beautiful thoughts of which it was absolutely impossible to divest you. And thanks to your sincerity, this layer of dust has already been completely removed. (A 595)

In other words, Thérèse goes to Văn in large part because he is a survivor. Of course, she cares about more in Văn’s life than this. There’s no denying that. She cares about all kinds of people. There’s a reason why she is one of the most popular saints. But her mission to Văn is in large part because of one thing: the abuse he suffered and its long-term effects on him.

Just as she was disgusted and angry at the treatment Céline got in the convent, so too is she disgusted and angry at “these inhuman creatures” who subjected a little boy to abuse in the name of Jesus and his Church. That’s who Thérèse is.

That’s who Thérèse is to me.

She is much, much more. But she is also this.

[1] STL = St Thérèse of Lisieux by Those who Knew Her, trans. and ed. Christopher O’Mahony (Dublin: Veritas, Publications, 1975).

[2] LT, CJ = Œuvres complètes (Paris: Cerf / Desclée de Brouwer, 2023).

[3] A = Marcel Van, Autobiography, trans. Jack Keogan (Complete Works 1; Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2019).