“The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.” So said St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

The celebration of the 100th anniversary of the canonization of St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, falls on May 17, shortly after Mother’s Day and during the month of May dedicated to our Blessed Mother.

It is well to remember that when St. Thérèse was not yet 5 years old, she lost her mother, Zélie, now St. Marie-Azelie Guérin Martin. Although Thérèse never forgot her mother, she soon gained a heavenly one who accompanied her the rest of her life — our Blessed Mother — and to whom Thérèse always turned.

The new bond became apparent early in her life. As a mother will bring comfort and healing to her sick child, so did the Blessed Mother to her child, 10-year-old Thérèse, who was suffering a mysterious life-threatening illness and unusual mental torments. The problem began after her sister Pauline, who had been her second mother raising her after their mother died, entered the Carmelite monastery.

In Story of a Soul: Thérèse explains her love of the Blessed Mother, noting that she “knew that the Queen of Heaven was watching faithfully over her Little Flower, that she was smiling upon it from on high, ready to still the tempest just when the delicate and fragile stalk was in danger of being broken once and for all.”

At this point, a miracle was necessary. In May 1883, her sister Marie requested a novena for a cure said at the shrine of Our Lady of Victories in Paris, and the Martins brought a statue of the Blessed Mother into Thérèse’s room.

Then, on May 13, Pentecost Sunday that year, with the novena nearly completed, Thérèse later described what happened. In great distress, she called for Marie, who came and knelt at the foot of the bed, turned to the statue of Our Lady, and as Thérèse later described, “[S]he entreated her with the fervor of a mother who begs the life of her child and will not be refused.

“I too, finding no help on earth and nearly dead with pain, turned to my Heavenly Mother, begging her from the bottom of my heart to have pity on me.

“Suddenly the statue seemed to come to life and grow beautiful, with a divine beauty that I shall never find words to describe. The expression of Our Lady’s face was ineffably sweet, tender, and compassionate; but what touched me to the very depths of my soul was her gracious smile. Then, all my pain vanished, two big tears started to my eyes and fell silently, but they were indeed tears of unmixed heavenly joy.”

“Our Blessed Lady has come to me; she has smiled at me,” Thérèse marveled. “How happy I am, but I shall tell no one, or my happiness will leave me!” Such were my thoughts.” After this miraculous event, the statue has been named Our Lady of the Smile.

The Following May

May 8, 1884, was Thérèse’s first Communion day. She would later describe the reason for her tears. “[T]he absence of Mama didn’t cause me any sorrow on the day of my First Communion. Wasn’t Heaven itself in my soul, and hadn’t Mama taken her place there a long time ago? Thus in receiving Jesus’ visit, I received also Mama’s. She blessed me and rejoiced at my happiness.”

That afternoon, Thérèse made the Act of Consecration to the Blessed Virgin. And at the time, she lovingly remembered her own mother. She read the prayer and later described the event. “It was only right that I speak in the name of my companions to my Mother in heaven, I who had been deprived at such an early age of my earthly Mother. I put all my heart into speaking to her, into consecrating myself to her as a child throwing itself into the arms of its mother, asking her to watch over her. It seems to me the Blessed Virgin must have looked upon her little flower and smiled at her, for wasn’t it she who cured her with a visible smile? Had she not placed in the heart of her little flower her Jesus, the Flower of the Fields and the Lily of the valley?”

A Special Pilgrimage

In 1887 her father, now-St. Louis Martin, took her on pilgrimage, first stopping in Paris and Our Lady of Victories Shrine. Thérèse would write as a grateful pilgrim, “I can never tell you what I felt at her shrine; the graces Our Lady granted me were like those of my First Communion Day. I was filled with peace and happiness. In this holy spot the Blessed Virgin, my Mother, told me plainly that it was really she who had smiled on me and cured me.”

Thérèse concluded, “It was there that my Mother, the Blessed Virgin, made me feel that it really was herself who had smiled at me and brought about my healing.”

Motherly Remembrances

At her canonization proceedings, one of the nuns from Carmel said Thérèse described how she prepared for her Communions. She thought of her soul looking like a 3- or 4-year-old child with play clothes dirty and disordered. “But soon the Virgin Mary hastens around me. She quickly took off my dirty little apron, tied my hair back up and adorned it with a pretty ribbon or simply a little flower ...”

The Little Flower’s Marian devotion was evident to others.

Another sister testified, “Her devotion to Mary was touching; she had recourse to her in all her difficulties and urged me to do the same … she led me in front of the miraculous statue which had smiled at her in her childhood and said to me: ‘It is not to me that you go and say what weighs you down, but to the Blessed Virgin. Come on, start quickly!’ She listened close to me to everything I said, and when I had finished, she made me kiss Marie’s hand, gave me her advice, and peace was reborn in my soul.”

St. Thérèse constantly looked for her heavenly Mother’s help. At the very beginning of Story of a Soul, she wrote: “Before setting about my task I knelt before the statue of Our Lady which had given my family so many proofs of Our Heavenly Mother's loving care. As I knelt I begged of that dear Mother to guide my hand, and thus ensure that only what was pleasing to her should find place here.” She knew the importance of seeking our heavenly Mother’s help and pleasing her.”

It was proof that every day was Mother’s Day to her — even in suffering. When she was brought into the Carmel infirmary, she looked towards that miraculous statue of Our Lady that had been brought there. She looked at it and said to her sister Marie, “Never has she seemed to me so beautiful ... but today it is the statue, whereas that other day, as you well know, it was not the statue!”

For good measure, St. Thérèse also wrote several poems to and for our Blessed Mother, including Why Do I Love you, O Mary! that includes the line:

The mother's treasure belongs to the child / And I am your child, oh my dear Mother / Your virtues, your love, are they not mine?

And Song of Gratitude to Our Lady of Mount Carmel pays tribute too:

Close to you, O my tender Mother! / I have found peace of heart; / I don't want anything on earth anymore, /Jesus alone is all my happiness.

Why I Love Thee, Mary! is the last poem the Little Flower wrote, in May 1897. Excerpts include:

1. Oh! I would like to sing, Marie, why I love you Why does your name so sweet make my heart leap … That I'm your child I couldn't believe O Mary, in front of you, I would lower my eyes!...

2. It is necessary for a child to cherish his mother May she cry with him, share his pains O my dear Mother, on the foreign shore To attract me to you, how many tears you shed!....

4. Oh! I love you, Marie, saying to you the servant Of the God whom you ravish by your humility This hidden virtue makes you all-powerful

5. O beloved Mother, despite my smallness Like you I have in me the Almighty But I do not tremble when I see my weakness: The mother's treasure belongs to the child And I am your child, oh my dear Mother Your virtues, your love, are they not mine?

6. You make me feel it, it's not impossible To follow in your footsteps, O Queen of the elect,

With you, Mary, I like to stay small,

18. Waiting for Heaven, O my dear Mother, I want to live with you, follow you every day Mother, contemplating you, I immerse myself delighted Discovering in your heart abysses of love. Your maternal gaze banishes all my fears

25. Soon in the beautiful sky, I'll go see you You who came to smile at me on the morning of my life Come and smile at me again... Mother... here is the evening!... I no longer fear the brilliance of your supreme glory With you I suffered and now I want Sing on your knees, Mary, why I love you And say forever that I am your child!

Little Thérèse