<html> <HEAD> <TITLE>Beautiful Death St. Th&eacute;r&egrave;se</TITLE> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <LINK REL=STYLESHEET TYPE="text/css" HREF="site.css" TITLE="Style"> <csscriptdict import> <script src="GeneratedItems/CSScriptLib.js"></script> </csscriptdict> <csimport user="../Test2.data/Components/footer.html" occur="82"></csimport> </HEAD> <body bgcolor="#ffffff"> <div align="center" style="width: 928; height: 498"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="619"> <tr> <td><img src="images/portrait2.jpg" width="161" height="133" border="0" alt="Saint Th&eacute;r&egrave;se"><img border="0" src="images/Image1.jpg" width="431" height="136"></td> <td></td> <td> <div align="right"> &nbsp;</div> </td> </tr> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="620"> <tr> <td bgcolor="#eeeeee" width="35" valign="top"><img src="images/side_rose.gif" width="35" height="200" border="0" alt="&quot;&quot;"></TD> <TD bgcolor="#eeeeee" valign="top" width="108"> <b><a href="Article%20Index.html">Back</a></b><p>&nbsp;</TD> <td bgcolor="white" width="4">&nbsp;</TD> <TD valign="top" bgcolor="#ffffcc" width="415"> <div align="center"> &nbsp;</div> <div align="center"> &nbsp;</div> <div align="left"> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"> <b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt">  It s really beautiful to think of death in this way. </span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 8.0pt">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"> <b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt">by Fr. Raymond Zambelli</span></b></p> <h1 align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"> <b> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; font-style: normal"> former Rector of the Basilica, Lisieux</span></b></h1> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"> <b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt">now (2003) Rector of Lourdes.</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 8.0pt">&nbsp;</span></p> <h2 align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-style:normal">(From</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10.0pt"> </span><span lang="EN-US">Thérèse de Lisieux</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-style:normal">, September, 2001)</span></h2> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"> <span lang="EN-US">_____________________________</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> <span lang="EN-US">Every year, in Autumn, when the first leaves fall and life seems to withdraw, we remember the going away of Thérèse in the infirmary of the Lisieux Carmel on 30<sup>th</sup> September 1897. We possess numerous testimonies of her last days. Here is one of them, overwhelming in its truth and emotion. It is that of her cousin, Sister Marie of the Eucharist (Marie Guérin), writing to another cousin, Céline Maudelonde, who herself had been a childhood friend of Thérèse.&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> <span lang="EN-US"> I thank the good God for having made me know this little saint, for here in the Community, she is so loved and appreciated. If you could see her you d say the same as us and you d long for only one thing and that would be to follow in her steps. It isn t an extraordinary holiness, it isn t a love of extraordinary penances; no, it is Love of the good God. People in the world are able to imitate her holiness, for she has set herself just to do everything for Love and to accept all the little annoyances, all the little sacrifices that occur every moment, as coming from the hand of the good God. She has been seeing the good God in everything and doing all her actions as perfectly as possible. &nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> <span lang="EN-US"> Oh! What merits she has acquired, if you only knew! & what a bank-loan she will take to Heaven! I asked her the other day:  Have you at any time refused anything to the good God? & She replied:  No I can t recall having done so; even when I was very little, from the age of three years, I started to refuse nothing the good God asked of me. It says it all, doesn t it, the making of that reply and it s rare to hear it even in our Carmels. Never to have refused anything to the good God!! &nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> <span lang="EN-US"> And if you could see her joy about dying! Dying so as to go and live with the life of the good God, dying so as to go to Heaven  that is her only desire & And her face lights up when someone says to her that her desire is about to be realised. It s really beautiful to think of death in this way and it s a comfort for those who remain. That stops you being afraid of it; one thinks of it oneself with more happiness. &nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> <span lang="EN-US"> I thought, my little Céline, that in giving you our little invalid as an example I could not give you any better advice. Oh! If she were in your place, if she like you had a little trial so far as her family was concerned, how she d be able to profit from it! She d see the good God in all circumstances and she d offer Him every little thorn wounding her heart as an act of perfect love. That is what she would do, and she would feel a great peace. She has said to me many times that:  it s not that one shouldn t feel pain, feel suffering; where would be the merit if one didn t feel it? One can feel it very keenly even, but offer it to the good God and find in that offering in the midst of the greatest sufferings a great peace.  &nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> <span lang="EN-US"> I have read her your little letter and she has charged me to give this reply:  Tell Céline that I shall never forget my little childhood friend and when I am in Heaven I shall watch over her in an altogether particular way. Tell her that the good God is calling her to be a true saint in the world and that He keeps His eyes on her and has a love for her that is altogether particular. I transmit these words to you as she said them to me .&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> <span lang="EN-US">In this month of September, which brings again to our mind the terrible agony of Thérèse and her  Entry into Eternal Life , it seemed to me that this letter deserved to be quoted in full. It can but increase our admiration and our affection for her we love so much.&nbsp;</span></p> &nbsp;</div> </TD> </TR> <tr> <td colspan="2"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="&quot;&quot;" hspace="74"></td> <td width="4"></td> <td width="415"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="&quot;&quot;" hspace="205"></td> </tr> </table> <hr noshade width="620"> <csobj w="650" h="25" t="Component" csref="../Test2.data/Components/footer.html" occur="82"> <div align="center"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="620"> <tr> <td> &nbsp;</td> </tr> </table> </div> </csobj><br> <p></p> </div> <p>&nbsp;</p> </body> </html>