Published January 26 2023

February 21, 1888 at Les Buissonnets. "Theresita", (this is how she signs the letter to her sister Marie at the Carmel), shares the joy that their father gave her: "My dear little Marie, on Ash Wednesday dad gave me a gift […] a lovely, curly-haired little Lamb” (LT 42).

The joy of the whole family warms the atmosphere of Les Buissonnets, which a blanket of white snow has covered: “Everyone was happy, Céline was delighted that we had a little day-old lamb. The desire of Saint Louis Martin? To please Thérèse, quite simply: “This good little Father told me when he gave it to me that he wanted, before I entered Carmel, that I have the pleasure of having a little lamb. »

Certainly, Therese is happy. Not only by the gift that delights her. But Thérèse is also happy with what she understands about her dad's heart: “What touched me above all was Dad's kindness in giving it to me. Papa's kindness expands the heart of his little Thérèse. In this surge of the heart which frees love, it is given to it to grow...

Indeed, it is snowing in Lisieux and the little newborn lamb, although pampered and surrounded, does not resist the journey that takes him to Les Buissonnets: “But alas! the pretty little animal died in the afternoon, she had been too cold in the car where she was born; poor little one, barely born, she suffered, then she died. »

So Louis digs the soil in the garden in front of the laundry room. Céline sketches “her portrait on a small canvas”. “The little lamb… so nice… looking so innocent” is laid carefully in the ground. His coat of virgin and immaculate wool now merges with the snow: "I didn't want it to be the earth that covered him, we threw snow on him and then it was all over..."

Therese is 15 years old. Her fortitude is impressive and she is already showing us the path of her “little way”: “You don't know, my dear Godmother, how much the death of this little animal has given me something to think about. She continues: “Oh yes! on earth you shouldn't get attached to anything, not even the most innocent things because you miss them when you least think about them. »

The abnegation of the young Thérèse is already great. She lets herself be traversed by the paschal mystery of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. She told her older sister Marie: “Only what is eternal can satisfy us. »

May the light of Jesus Christ Himself please us! May the season of Lent dispossess us of ourselves in order, in the Church, to follow Saint Thérèse and abandon our own will to the will of God in order to repeat with her: “My God, I choose whatever you want” (Ms A, 10v).

Happy Lent with Saint Thérèse and Saints Louis and Zélie Martin.

Father Olivier Ruffray, Rector of the Sanctuary, for the February issue of the Review Therese of Lisieux

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