When I’m in this state, the Bible and The Imitation come to my rescue. If I glance at a book, no matter how good and moving it is, my heart at once contracts and I read without understanding or, if I understand, I cannot meditate on it. But as I grew older, religious writers left me quite unmoved. When I was between seventeen and eighteen, they were my only spiritual food. “I have had great enlightenment from the writings of St. When I wept the sky wept with me, and when I was happy the sun shone without a cloud in the sky.” I have noticed that, at all the important moments of my life, nature has mirrored my soul.

The sun never shone once during those three days and the rain fell in torrents. Nature herself seemed to share my misery. Like Jesus during His Agony in the Garden, I felt myself abandoned and there was no help for me on earth or in heaven. But it was night, the dark night of the soul. There’s nothing reassuring about lightning, but, at least, if the storm had burst, I should have been able to glimpse Jesus. Not even a flash of lightning pierced the clouds. I knew that Jesus was there, asleep in my craft, but the night was too black for me to see Him. I was alone in a desert waste - or rather, my soul was like a fragile skiff tossing without a pilot in a stormy sea. Joseph as they searched for the Child Jesus. It brought sharply home to me the bitter grief felt by the Blessed Virgin and St. “But instead of letting me see any ray of hope, God afflicted me with a most grievous martyrdom which lasted for three days. ― Thérèse de Lisieux, quote from Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Perhaps it was because her mother wasn’t there, nor her Carmelite sister she loves so much.” They couldn’t understand that such a flood of divine joy cannot be borne without tears.” Her companions were amazed and afterwards they said: “Why on earth did she cry? Something must have been upsetting her. Her joy was too great, too deep to be contained. For had not Thérèse begged Him to take away her freedom? Freedom frightened her, for she knew herself to be so weak and feeble that she wished to be united with the divine Power for ever. Only Jesus remained - as Master and King.

Thérèse had disappeared like a drop of water lost in the depth of the ocean. On that day it was no longer a matter of gazing: it was a union. For a long time Jesus and little Thérèse had gazed at each other and they understood each other. I knew that I was loved and I declared: “I love You and I give myself to You for ever!” Jesus made no demand on me He asked for no sacrifices. “Oh, how sweet the first kiss of Jesus was! It was a kiss of love.

The story of a soul st therese