The Story of a Soul (l'histoire D'une Âme): The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: With Additional Writings and Sayings of St. Thérèse
The Story of a Soul (l'histoire D'une Âme): The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: With Additional Writings and Sayings of St. Thérèse
Translated by Thomas N. (Thomas Nimmo) Taylor
She was twenty-three when she began writing, and she would be dead before twenty-five. In the brief, bright span of her life within the walls of a Carmelite convent in provincial France, Thérèse Martin discovered what millions would come to call "the little way" - a spirituality of small gestures offered with immense love, of childhood as the measure of faith, of trusting God as a child trusts her father. Written with the urgency of someone who knows her time is short, this autobiography is not theology but confession, not instruction but intimacy. Thérèse writes of her struggle with scruples, her longing for martyrdom, her discovery that sanctity might live in the smallest acts of kindness rather than in grandheroics. She died of tuberculosis in 1897, but her words - simple, luminous, startlingly honest - have never stopped speaking. What makes this book endure is its radical accessibility: here is a saint who insists that you need not be extraordinary to be holy, that love can fit into the smallest corners of ordinary life, that God is nearer than we dare believe.
Editions
X-Ray
“God would never inspire me with desires which cannot be realized; so in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a saint.””
— Saint Thérèse de Lisieux
“I know now that true charity consists in bearing all our neighbors'defects--not being surprised at their weakness, but edified at their smallest virtues.””
— Saint Thérèse de Lisieux
“If a little flower could speak, it seems to me that it would tell us quite simply all that God has done for it, without hiding any of its gifts. It would not, under the pretext of humility, say that it was not pretty, or that it had not a sweet scent, that the sun had withered its petals,or the storm bruised its stem, if it knew that such were not the case.””
— Saint Thérèse de Lisieux
“And it is the Lord, it is Jesus, Who is my judge. Therefore I will try always to think leniently of others, that He may judge me leniently, or rather not at all, since He says: "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.””
— Saint Thérèse de Lisieux
“when something painful or disagreeable happens to me, instead of a melancholy look, I answer by a smile. At first I did not always succeed, but now it has become a habit which I am glad to have acquired.””
— Saint Thérèse de Lisieux
“joy is not found in the things which surround us, but lives only in the soul.””
— Saint Thérèse de Lisieux
“I am convinced that one should tell one's spiritual director if one has a great desire for Communion, for Our Lord does not come from Heaven every day to stay in a golden ciborium; He comes to find another heaven, the heaven of our soul in which He loves to dwell.””
— Saint Thérèse de Lisieux
“Another time I was working in the laundry, and the Sister opposite, while washing handkerchiefs, repeatedly splashed me with dirty water. My first impulse was to draw back and wipe my face, to show the offender I should be glad if she would behave more quietly; but the next minute I thought how foolish it was to refuse the treasures God offered me so generously, and I refrained from betraying my annoyance. On the contrary, I made such efforts to welcome the shower of dirty water, that at the end of half an hour I had taken quite a fancy to this novel kind of aspersion, and I resolved to come as often as I could to the happy spot where such treasures were freely bestowed.””
— Saint Thérèse de Lisieux
“to dedicate oneself as a Victim of Love is not to be dedicated to sweetness and consolations; it is to offer oneself to all that is painful and bitter, because Love lives only by sacrifice and the more we would surrender ourselves to Love, the more we must surrenderourselves to suffering””
— Saint Thérèse de Lisieux
Link to this book
Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/the-story-of-a-soul-l-histoire-d-une-me-the-autobiography-of-st-th-r-se-of-lisie-fbbd6f40-99aa-49ba-8786-af7e85ac1c55"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read The Story of a Soul (l'histoire D'une Âme): The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: With Additional Writings and Sayings of St. Thérèse by Saint Thérèse de Lisieux free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/the-story-of-a-soul-l-histoire-d-une-me-the-autobiography-of-st-th-r-se-of-lisie-fbbd6f40-99aa-49ba-8786-af7e85ac1c55)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/the-story-of-a-soul-l-histoire-d-une-me-the-autobiography-of-st-th-r-se-of-lisie-fbbd6f40-99aa-49ba-8786-af7e85ac1c55][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read The Story of a Soul (l'histoire D'une Âme): The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: With Additional Writings and Sayings of St. Thérèse by Saint Thérèse de Lisieux free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/the-story-of-a-soul-l-histoire-d-une-me-the-autobiography-of-st-th-r-se-of-lisie-fbbd6f40-99aa-49ba-8786-af7e85ac1c55Cite this book
Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.
Lisieux, Saint Thérèse de. The Story of a Soul (l'histoire D'une Âme): The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: With Additional Writings and Sayings of St. Thérèse. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-story-of-a-soul-l-histoire-d-une-me-the-autobiography-of-st-th-r-se-of-lisie-fbbd6f40-99aa-49ba-8786-af7e85ac1c55.Lisieux, S. T. D. (n.d.). The Story of a Soul (l'histoire D'une Âme): The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: With Additional Writings and Sayings of St. Thérèse. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-story-of-a-soul-l-histoire-d-une-me-the-autobiography-of-st-th-r-se-of-lisie-fbbd6f40-99aa-49ba-8786-af7e85ac1c55Lisieux, Saint Thérèse de. The Story of a Soul (l'histoire D'une Âme): The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: With Additional Writings and Sayings of St. Thérèse. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-story-of-a-soul-l-histoire-d-une-me-the-autobiography-of-st-th-r-se-of-lisie-fbbd6f40-99aa-49ba-8786-af7e85ac1c55.
