Told not to speak, Saint Thérèse asked the Pope anyway

ROME, November 20, 1887 AD — Canon Delatroëtte was the priest the bishop had put in charge of the Carmel of Lisieux. In 1887 AD he told Saint Thérèse of Lisieux she could not enter it until she was twenty-one. She was fourteen. Six more years.

She was Thérèse Martin then; Pope Pius XI declared her a saint in 1925 AD. She lived at Lisieux, in northern France. A Carmel is a house of nuns who go in and stay inside for life. Two of her older sisters were already inside: Pauline since 1882 AD, Marie since 1886 AD.

The rule said sixteen

There is a written rule about the age. You have to be sixteen before you can make your vows, the promises that make you a nun for life. You also have to have lived in the convent for a year first. St. Thérèse wanted to go in at Christmas 1887 AD.

Yes, yes, and a flat no

It was Pentecost Sunday, May 29, 1887 AD. St. Thérèse found her father in the garden at home and asked him. Saint Louis Martin cried, and then said yes.

Her uncle was next. Isidore Guérin was the Martin girls’ deputy guardian. He said that entering an order that strict at fifteen was against all common sense. After three days of rain and no sun he changed his mind. On October 22, 1887 AD, he told her to go in peace.

Then the priest. Canon Delatroëtte could refuse anyone the nuns wanted to take in. St. Thérèse went to his house with her father and asked. He was cold with her, and they left with a flat no — not before twenty-one. On the way out he added: “I am only the Bishop’s delegate; if he allows you to enter, I shall have nothing more to say.”

The hair she put up to look older

Next was the bishop. On October 31, 1887 AD, St. Thérèse and her father travelled to Bayeux to see Bishop Hugonin. That morning she put her long hair up for the first time in her life, to look older. She told him she had wanted to give herself to God since she was three. He promised her an answer while she was in Italy.

Nobody was allowed to speak to the Pope

In November 1887 AD her father took her and her sister Céline to Rome on a pilgrimage. On Sunday morning, November 20, the pilgrims were let into Pope Leo XIII’s private chapel at eight o’clock. He said Mass there. Afterwards he saw them one at a time.

Each person knelt, kissed his foot and took his blessing. Two of the Noble Guards, the Pope’s own bodyguards, waved them on. Nobody spoke.

Then Father Révérony, the Vicar-General of Bayeux, spoke up at the Pope’s right hand. In a loud voice he forbade anyone to speak to the Holy Father.

St. Thérèse looked at Céline. Céline said: “Speak!”

She knelt and kissed his foot. When Pope Leo XIII held out his hand she looked up, her eyes full of tears. “Holy Father,” she said, “in honour of your jubilee, will you allow me to enter the Carmel when I am fifteen?”

Father Révérony cut in and said the superiors of the Carmel were looking into it. The Pope told her to do whatever the superiors decided. She put her hands on his knee and tried again: if he said yes, everyone else would agree. He looked straight at her: “Well, well! You will enter if it is God’s Will.”

She was still on her knees with her hands on the Pope’s knee. The guards had to lift her to her feet. As they pulled her up, Pope Leo XIII put his hand gently on her lips. Then he raised it to bless her, and watched her go for a long time.

No answer came from Bayeux at Christmas. The prioress had had the bishop’s permission since December 28, but she kept the doors shut until Lent was over. St. Thérèse walked into the Carmel of Lisieux on April 9, 1888 AD, at fifteen. She made her vows there two and a half years later.