St Therese: Chapter II

• Death of her mother
• Les Buissonets
• Paternal love
• First confession
• Winter evenings
• Prophetic vision

Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God. Mark X, 14

Therese's mother died in her 46th year in 1877, leaving her husband and five daughters. The two eldest daughters, Marie and Pauline, took on the role of mother. The father moved the family from Alençon to Lisieux, to a large house called Les Buissonets, to be near their uncle and aunt.

Excerpts

I  could  tell  you  much  about  our  winter  evenings  at  home.  After  a  game  of draughts my sisters read aloud Dom Guéranger's Liturgical Year,and then a few  pages  of  some  other  interesting  and  instructive  book.  While  this  was going  on  I  established  myself  on  Papa's  knee,  and  when  the  reading  was done he used to sing soothing snatches of melody in his beautiful voice, as if to  lull  me to  sleep,  and  I  would lay  my  head  on  his  breast  while  he  rocked
me gently to and fro.

When I was six or seven years old I saw the sea for the first time. The sight made a deep impression on me, I could not take my eyes off it. Its majesty,and the roar of the waves, all spoke to my soul of the greatness and power of God.....That  evening  at  the  hour  when  the  sun  seems  to  sink  into  the  vast  ocean, leaving behind it a trail of glory, I sat with Pauline on a bare rock, and gazed for  long  on  this  golden  furrow  which  she  told  me  was  an  image  of  grace illumining the way of faithful souls here below. Then I pictured my soul as a tiny  barque,  with  a  graceful  white  sail,  in  the  midst  of  the  furrow, and I resolved never to let it withdraw from the sight of Jesus, so that it might sail peacefully and quickly towards the Heavenly Shore.