Children
Therese has suffered, in the early months of life, serious illnesses that have led almost on the threshold of death. However, Therese writes, "How happy at this age! Already begun to enjoy life.
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The happy childhood
As the years passed quickly filled with sunshine of my childhood, but as sweet nostalgia they have left in my soul" (Ms A, 11r.v) and again "with a nature like mine, if I had been brought up by parents without virtue... I would be very bad, and maybe I would have lost" (Ms A, 8v).
Early childhood is the beginning of a story in which no outcome is precluded both holiness as perdition. Without a mother to help pray, the words froze in his mouth and heart. Therese feels that it is the irreparable loss of her mother, "Ah, it's not like my mother... She always made us do our prayer!" (Ms A, 12v).
It was a family where God was loved and wanted as a living person, as a loved one and present.
"Later, when I appeared for perfection, I realized that to become saints must suffer much, always seek the most perfect and forget themselves...
(Ms A, 10r.v.)
Childhood suffering
With the death of Mother Therese experienced the pain and his character loses radiance that distinguished him"... my character changes completely happy, I so lively, so expansive, I became shy and gentle, sensitive to excess...". Therese chooses a second mother in his sister Pauline makes everything possible, but the child knows that the world is the mother forever barred. It is therefore the level of love that personality has been shaken. When Therese will attend, as all the sisters, the pensioner of the Benedictine Abbey, those five years are a torment for her. "By my nature shy and sensitive, I could not defend myself and I am content to cry without saying anything...".
(Ms A, 22v)
There is an irrepressible tendency in us to bring the good with the gentleness, understanding with the help, patience with weakness. A child is removed repeatedly Therese's mother, suffers to death and still in desperation, until this very invocation seems desperate to delete every other vital impulse. The Virgin made me feel that it was really she who had smiled at me and I was cured.
The Graces
Therese as a teenager already knows from experience the opportunity to touch the hearts of men even the most hardened. Since the early years, it is clear that there is a specific gift of the Holy Spirit, which gradually fills every space of his soul, his heart and even his work both interior and exterior that is the gift of Piety. Be happy for God and make him happy then becomes the secret of his life.
"That I came to do in Caramel I stated at the feet of Jesus Eucharist, the examination which preceded my profession: I came to save souls and to pray especially for priests".
Childhood to the Holy Face
Therese decided to walk the path of mortification, not as ascetic commitment, but as loving kindness for the groom present, who wanted everything to give. Therese suffering huge blow in the early months of his monastic life, a suffering that absorbs in itself and reformulates any pain, any other dry, every other affective detachment: the father's serious illness. Therese wants it to hide in the adorable face of Jesus, to be sure not to sin again, because of his constant torment and be sure not to have offended God so as to prevent its opposition; the thought that such misfortune could happen to without her she was aware of, is enough to hurl it into anguish.
