There is . . .
“There is nothing as mysterious as those preparations attending man on the threshold of life. Everything is played out before we are twelve.”
In what concerns St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, everything was not really played out until September 30, 1897, when, consumed by tuberculosis, she expired at the age of twenty-four years and nine months.
And still her contemporary, Charles Péguy, was speaking about her too, so true is it that a human destiny is rooted in a soil, an epoch, a family, and is dependent on a heredity and a history. As John Donne wrote: “No man is an island.” Thérèse did not descend from heaven like an angel, but was born on Norman soil, dependent on her ancestors and her country.
Before the whole world was to honor St. Thérèse of Lisieux and her “Way of Childhood,” a child already existed, namely, Thérèse Martin of Alençon.
She is truly the mysterious fruit of those secret preparations. Had her parents followed the inclinations of their heart, “the greatest saint of modern times” would never have seen the light of day.