2023 Reprint of the 1960 edition. Full facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Dorothy Day first read the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux in 1928 as a thirty-year-old convert to Catholicism. Fresh from the radical movements of the day, she found the story of the young saint from the world of the French bourgeoisie colorless, monotonous, and "too small" for her notice. She wondered what this saint who wrote like a schoolgirl had to offer a world in revolution, a world in need of immediate remedies for the hunger and injustice that abounded in it. Her answer came gradually as over the years she continued to study St. Therese and to reflect on the meaning of her life. The fruit of those years of reflection is
Therese.
Therese
is not a scholarly biography; it makes no attempt to give an exhaustive portrayal of its subject or to put forward any new interpretation of it. The work is, rather, a personal appraisal of the saint that reveals her to us in a way that more ambitious works have failed to do. We get, for example, a clear picture of what has too often been neglected in the studies of the saint. Specifically, we see her in the context of her family life, the natural setting in which she developed and which remained of such importance to her throughout her life. In
the Martin family, instead of remaining a collection of figures in stiff, pietistic attitudes in the background, becomes a group of real people. The deep feeling between Louis and Zelie Martin, the surprising differences in character in Therese's four sisters, the strong bond of love that was the family's unity, the social unrest that was threatening its world-all this is made present to us.
Perhaps the greatest advantage this life of St. Therese has is to be written by a woman deeply concerned to bring the message of the saint to those most in need of it today. The poor, the lonely, the oppressed, the hopeless all the "little people" whose number is so great in these times when bigness and uniformity are burying the individual person--these are the ones that Dorothy Day is especially concerned to reach with her book.
Dorothy Day's unpretentious account of the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux sheds light on the depth of Day's Catholic spirituality and illustrates why Thérèse's simplicity and humility are so vital for today. Whether you are called to the active life like Day or a more hidden existence like Thérèse, you will discover that these paths have much in common and can lead you to a love that has the power to transform you in ways that are unexpected and consequential.