Lecture given in May 1968
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
“A Roman and Apostolic Catholic, the author of this text submits himself with filial devotion to the traditional teaching of Holy Church. However, if by an oversight anything is found in it at variance with that teaching, he immediately and categorically rejects it.”
The words “Revolution” and “Counter-Revolution” are employed here in the sense given to them by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in his book Revolution and Counter-Revolution, the first edition of which was published in the monthly Catolicismo, Nº 100, April 1959.
Crucifix venerated at the Sanctuary of San Damiano in Assisi (Italy)
I think that it is appropriate before we began the development of the question of the thirst for souls”, for us to make a rapid recapitulation what was considered in the previous meeting.
We began by recalling that Our Lord speaks of thirst in at least two Gospel passages. The most notable passage was His cry from the height of the cross: “Sitio” – “I thirst” (John 19:28). This meant to say that He had a thirst for souls. Of course He also had a material physical thirst caused by the great amount of blood He had shed, but that material thirst, which led him to lament and ask for water, was a material symbol of the enormous His thirst for souls. And all the interpreters of the Gospel’s that I have read teach “Sitio” had this meaning.
In the beatitudes he also refers to hunger and thirst for Justice (Matthew 5:6). In the Gospels, justice is not merely the virtue of giving each his due, but the ensemble of virtues, or sanctity. Blessed are the souls that hunger and thirst for sanctity, because they will be filled.
The value of souls
Applying these teachings to our life, we conclude that a fruitful Apostolate depends on a thirst for souls. That means it depends on a notion of the soul’s beauty in thesis, and a notion of how virtue gives the soul the necessary compliment for it to be beautiful in fact, for virtue is the order of the soul. Although a soul may be beautiful by its spiritual nature, it is left disordered when it has no virtue, and therefore it becomes hideous, for the corruption of the best is the worst. Therefore a spiritual nature, like anything else, only finds its true beauty what it is in order. In this way the fine point, so to speak, of soul’s beauty is virtue. The soul draws its beauty from virtue.
If it is true that the whole universe was created for man to know and through it rise up to God, then the masterpiece of the sensible universe before us is man. But it is man mainly as having a soul, rather than a body, because there is nothing in nature more beautiful than souls.
We insist that there is nothing more beautiful than souls in the state of virtue, just as there is nothing more horrendous than souls in the state of sin. In this manner the person who wishes to truly have a Catholic formation, a well-made Catholic formation, must know the virtue of souls and make of that the object of his most tender devotion. He must have thirst for those souls to become like unto God, for them to be united to God. That person, truly an Apostolic person must have the thirst that Our Lord Jesus Christ had of those souls, he must have in himself Our Lord’s “Sitio.”
What is a thirst for souls?
This thirst has a unique point. It is that to be very concerned about individual souls, is less than to be very concerned about souls. Because to have thirst for something is almost to want drink, to make it part of ourselves. So we must truly have thirst for souls. Our virtue must thirst to unite itself to the virtue of other souls.
The best of our instinct of sociability is the appetite which our virtue has be with the virtue of other souls and to strengthen itself there so as to grow in love for virtue and to grow in the love of God. When two virtuous souls know each other they slake the thirst they have for each other, according to the metaphysical principle “simile, simili gaudet” – like things attract.
This explains that great effusion some Saints had when they met each other. For example the famous meeting of St. Dominic, St. Francis and Saint Angelus the Carmelite. They met in a sacristy of Rome and if my memory serves me correctly, and they didn’t know each other. When they saw each other, all three fell on their knees in front of each other. Although they were from different places, with different missions, they all fell on their knees before the other, and sang the praises of God. And I believe it was St. Angelus who predicted the others future.
Thinking of this meeting, how we would like to be in a little corner of the room, some tiny spot and spend a hundred years appreciating the scene because it is truly marvelous. Those saints evidently had thirst for each other. We can say that the soul of each one of them penetrated, so to speak, the soul of the other and united itself to it and satisfied itself and slaked its thirst.
It is clear of course that behind that thirst for souls what really exists is a thirst for God. Because it is not the romantic friendship of a soul’s thirst for another to satisfy its sentimentalism, its tastes and its caprices. Much less is it a kind of utilitarian sympathy to take advantage of the other as a useful instrument. But it is properly a disinterested thirst in which the soul desires the other for that which it is, for the likeness of God inside it. And for that reason it seeks the sanctity of that other soul.
Here we have the delicate, sensitive point of the apostolate. We have an apostolic sense when we perceive other souls. At times we see a despicable individual walking down the street. And we think: “That man, if he were virtuous, would be another. How marvelous if he different. I would be willing to work, to fight, to pray, to suffer, so that he would be like that! Even if he never knew me and didn’t know who it was who struggled and prayed for him. It matters little. I would see him go by restored and would understand that the God’s work was accomplished in him.” Then would I exalt from the depths of my soul on seeing that work, because I love the God’s works in themselves, because they come from Him, and I go through them up to God.
It’s a type of friendship that does not demand retribution. If I was the instrument of his becoming good, I do not demand his thanks. I do not want his esteem, except to the degree that esteem is a virtue he must have. But I would be just as happy if it were better he never knew. So what I have is a thirst for his soul. It is thirst for souls communicated by the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I have thirst for his soul to be holy.
The reason for our thirst for souls
I am making a point of disinfecting -in the literal sense of the word – this introductory summary of any odor of “white heresy.” When one of us has thirst for souls, he thirsts for a soul to be ultramontane. Not that he may have those languorous good sentiments of those saccharine sweet and sentimental kinds of piety which deep down the person uses without any vision of reality. No, it’s not that. We have thirst that the true spirit of the Catholic Church, great, sublime and ordered – in a single word, the wisdom of the Church – may exist in the souls.
This is what we thirst for. All the virtues considered individually – chastity, truthfulness, piety, and monetary honesty – are nothing more than applications of wisdom to concrete fields. We have thirst that those souls may have wisdom –that grave, serious, sublime, ordered, highly combative, most dynamic, but also super contemplative, super placid wisdom which truly gives the note of the spirit of the Catholic Church.
We have an example of this before us. And in that light, it is quite impressive. We have before us a full auditorium. When we look at a great number of souls and imagine the wisdom in each one of them, the Divine Plan of complete wisdom in those souls, we cannot help but have thirst for souls. We marvel at the wonders of God’s work when the ultramontane, the slave of Our Lady, the apostle of the last days, is completely constructed. Then we feel like looking toward each face and saying “sitio”, I thirst for that. I want him for Our Lord, even if he does not know it is I who want him. I want him for Our Lord, as good as he ought to be.
The personality of St. Therese in a photograph
Someone could object that to thirst for souls like this, one must feel them. How do we sense this? How do we perceive souls? What is the orderly attitude we must have when we do see this?
For this very important problem to be quite clear, I thought that nothing would be better than to bring this magnificent photograph of St. Therese of the Infant Jesus (at eight years old, holding a jump rope. File attached called 402.jpg). It is really magnificent. The only thing lacking is relief. Then one could say she is alive.
To comment on that soul, I would ask you gentlemen for a rather singular effort. Do not pay so much attention to what I am saying but to yourselves. This will be an unusual conference. I shall not try to explain what I think of St. Therese, but what some of you think of her. That is to say what impression this photograph produces in some of you.
Naturally, I’m going to improvise. When prepared beforehand, these things lose their vitality. It is possible that as I improvise, I make two or three different images, according to how she appears to one or another of you gentlemen.
Visualizations of a soul
The first impression
The first impression after looking at her is “wow, what a girl.” The first reaction, the first outburst should be that. She is still quite young, full of life, freshness, hopping and skipping in with that kind of extrovertness proper to a girl still in her infancy. We see the beauty of a childlike soul with the delicacy, the fragility and elegance of the feminine nature. What a good photograph! Look how captures that girl so well! This is the first impression.
The idea of purity
After that impression we receive another. It is as recognition of that we just said. But alone with the charm of the innocence, vivacity and elegance of that little girl, we have an idea of purity associated with it. It applies to more or less everything. Above all, we see purity is present in the good spontaneity, used in the true sense of the word.
She is a girl who doesn’t hide anything, and who has the habit of not hiding anything. She knows perfectly well that she has nothing to hide. She has neither fraud nor dissimulation. We can refer to her the same way Our Lord did to Nathaniel: “Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile.” (John 1:47) Here we have a truly pure girl, the daughter of a Catholic family. She has inside all the purity, all of the candor, of the life of a Catholic family. She has all that virginal delicacy that the life of a Catholic family communicates especially to a little girl. And she has all this without guile. She has it entirely. And she does not have the habit of sin.
Baptismal innocence
Look at her. She is integral in everything she does. When she speaks or walks, she does it with a naturality entirely her own, a spontaneity much like the French lightness and grace, but above all she does it with a lot of batismal innocence never broken. This soul was never disfigured by sin. She has purity not just stemming from modesty. I don’t think a watered down comment like “See how her arms are covered by her dress and how it goes down to the knees” does not fit here. I am referring to the purity in her eyes. This purity of gaze, the purity in her soul, s not just the purity of chastity. It is the purity of someone who never sinned. It is the state of baptismal innocence with all its perfume, all its candor. It is more or less like life in a body. The life of the body is not localizable. It is here as well as there. It is in the whole living body. So also baptismal innocence is spread throughout the whole person.
Putting our thoughts in order
We have traveled through many impressions. The first impression was that of a little girl. The second impression was that of purity. From the second impression we went up to the idea of virginal purity. From this already high idea we went higher to the baptismal innocence, the unbroken state of grace in a soul. We could use a French word that I don’t know how to translate. We see the state of grace never flétri [soiled, tarnished, or wilted] in a soul.
Now begins an analysis. This is better made by comparisons. Up until now we have not made comparisons, because they were not necessary. I ask, is it only what we have seen? She is such a lively little girl. But she is not heedless or unreflecting, not even a little bit. If she began to play with her jump rope, would she jump in a ridiculous way like a clown? Would she play with her jump rope in an unreflective way? If she suddenly set out running, she would not do it like an idiot.
We all perceive that her spontaneity is presided over by a certain rule, by which she never does what she should not do. And that, therefore, within her spirit, there is a whole order, and therefore, a whole thought, a reflection. Naturally it is the reflection of a child, the thought of a child, the order of a child, instinctive and subconscious, but real, by which everything which she does would be of a child and of a true child. No airs of the precocious little scholar, of the forward little woman and philosopher. Quite the contrary, she is entirely natural, but a child who is very highly ordered, and who possesses in herself a great internal order. We do not imagine this little girl doing anything foolish. We see that she would not do it. So it is through this that we understand the order within her.
The Smile
Now we go to the face – and here is a more delicate part of the analysis. We can see that her mouth is straight, with thin and very firm lips. There is not a drop of bitterness in this firmness. On the contrary, there is a certain indefinable smile. They talk about the smile of Giocanda… This is a smile! Pay attention; she is not smiling even a little bit, but there is an indefinable smile on her lips. There is something in her which smiles, without being able to say properly that she is smiling.
One has the impression that the photographer told her to smile, and she in order not to be impolite to him, sketched something vaguely after the manner of a smile. That is the impression we receive; there is something of a smile spread out on her face. It is a little bit in the eyes, a little on the lips, it is in the general affability of her person. She is in a position which is very affable and very friendly, the position of very good will in relation to the whole world.
Nevertheless, it is a smile, a smiling attitude, that indicates at the same time so much strength of soul and so much character in the proper sense of the word, that it is contrary of the faces of those Sulpician images. You gentlemen have observed those images of St. Teresa of the Little Flower which one finds all about: spreading roses and smiling heaven knows how! They don’t have anything of this smile. That smile of theirs is the smile of a china doll. This before us has nothing of the china doll. It is a smile – we shall reach this in a moment – behind which there is a thought. And it is the side of the thought, which properly we should reach. Because if we don’t reach the thought, we don’t reach anything.
The Nose, the Mouth and the Forehead
Now gentlemen look at her nose. It has slightly prominent form – she has very beautiful features – and they have a bit of combat, a bit of struggle in them. The lips, in spite of the smile, are the fine and firm lips of one who has true character.
But analyzing her forehead one sees that it is slightly protuberant and moreover very high. The person who combed her hair went so far as to comb it down in order to disguise it. One sees here that she had really a lot of hair. I saw the tress of her hair in the museum in Lisieux, a magnificent blonde tress of abundant hair. But her hairline is a little high.
The eyes
Now considering the eyes, we see that the smile above all resides in them. Note that the expression of her physiognomy, the expression of the gaze has something which the French call a little bit of espliège –a certain amount of brightness, a certain grace, in the expression of her gaze. When we concentrate our attention on them – it would actually be worthwhile to take an isolated picture of her eyes – one ends by perceiving another thing: there is in this gaze a whole firmament; there is a world of reflection – of beginning of reflection.
Contemplation
To whom is this gaze directed? She is not gazing at anything definite. This gaze is looking at a vague point, in undefined one. But it gazes at that vague undefined point with a kind of enlevo [enrapturment, enchantment, charm], with a kind of consideration, enlevado contemplation, affectionate, respectful contemplation, really proper to a spirit powerfully contemplative. I know that it is in its dawn, or springtime. But it is meditative, interior, proper to the gaze of things of the spirit, to the gaze of the metaphysical things, the gaze of more or less infinite mental horizons.
It is a gaze which rests in the infinite, in a sphere completely different from the one where the thought of men commonly rests. In his Confessions, St. Augustine said about his own infancy: “Such a small child I was, and already such a great sinner.” Of her one could say: “Such a tiny child she was and already such a great saint.” Because her gaze had something which is difficult for me to express adequately, but which is that makeup of soul in which her soul is resting on things which are entirely superior –not indifferent, nor hostile, nor strange to—but superior to the concrete, to the contingent, to the transitory, to the pressing, to the individual.
She is not worried about herself. She is not concerned with the way she affects the photographer. She stands as she is. They told her to come and pose for a photograph. She went, obedient like the children of the gospel, whom Our Lord caressed and for whom is reserved the Kingdom of Heaven. She went. If she is supposed to stand, she stands. And if she is supposed to smile, she smiles. And she is not a child philosopher, not even a little bit. She has nothing of that; it would be a caricature. She is not squinting, she is not in a pose, she paid attention to the camera, but it is like a part of the cellar of her soul.
Above this cellar, which works perfectly well, there is a whole other construction, by which at that age she could say to us that which Our Lord said by the mouth of the prophet Isaias and that which is one of the saddest phrases, one of His most beautiful complaints, and one where His Divine superiority is affirmed in my way of seeing things, in a most significant way: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” (Isaias 55:8) It is one of those phrases of Our Lord which one hears and after which the only commentary is silence. Nothing more. Because it associates the ideas of thought and way, man’s thought as the thing which directs and predicts his way. And the elevation of His thoughts! Think of the Holy Shroud. What thoughts! Now, that is real thought! And what ways! Couldn’t that face of the Holy Shroud say to us the same words as Isaias? It could perfectly.
St. Teresa here could also say to us: Cristianus alter Cristus as well as “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” It would be perfectly appropriate for her to have said it. Why? Because she has her soul in an entirely meditative state which is not very common. She is all sacral here. It is not the meditation of a philosopher or of a theologian, but of a Saint. What we have here is prayer, properly speaking, the conviviality of the soul with God.
Meditative Infancy
In the book, “The Story of a Soul”, this is confirmed in numerous passages. She was accustomed for example to the attic or roof of her house to see the stars at night, etc. And the book speaks of the infinities that there were in her thoughts, of the spaces that there were.
We have the impression that St. Theresa had in herself all the ultramontane doctrine, but that she did not have the mission of making it explicit. She had the mission of dying for the ultramontanes, of living, of tracing out the Little Way, which makes ultramontanism accessible to most of those that follow it. But already at this age she had a whole firmament of ideas already pronounced.
The Buissonnets (partial view): house where St. Therese lived during her childhood
She was a child much given to meditation. At the end of her life, when she was mature for heaven, and therefore, when she had attained the sanctity to which she had been destined by the design of providence, she said that when she was about 10 years old, a little bit older that she is here, she would talk with her sister in a belvidere[3] at Buissonnets. In those conversations she received as many or more graces than those which St. Augustine and St. Monica received in the famous colloquium in the guest house of Ostia. Those were a little before St. Monica died, therefore, when the sanctity of St. Monica was consummated, when she was ready to go to heaven.
You gentleman notice how, in depth, you can see this in her gaze. It is not possible to describe a gaze. If you were to ask St. Peter what the gaze of Our Lord looked like to him, what could he answer? He would answer: “He said something by which I wept for a lifetime. I wept the most bitter and the most sweet tears that were ever wept, after those of Our Lady”. And he would have nothing else to say. The gaze is something of the ineffable. Either one sees this gaze and one senses it, or one does not see it, and I can do nothing. That is the value of a gaze. To one single gaze is reserved something which is super excellent. It is to see, it is to gaze, with the eyelids closed. And it is that of the Holy Shroud. There Our Lord is with His eyelids shut, but He gazes. And what a gaze… The only reason we don’t weep, is because we are not St. Peter.
Buissonnets: St. Therese’s bed
The Principal stage of life
But I wish to insist on the following point: St. Therese died at 24, and she was very influenced by her childhood. That stage marked the direction of her life so profoundly that it is the most illustrative part for us if we want to know her spirit. I have the impression that in the life of St. Theresa, the culminating points are her infancy and the end, the eve of her death.
One of our collaborators reminded me of the fact that, when she made her autobiographical manuscripts, under obedience, she said almost nothing about her life in the convent. Only later, in order to heed her prioress, it was that she spoke of her life as a nun. For her, her infancy was everything. Why? Because it was an infancy that was profoundly conscious, meditative and reasoning. This is the point. But seeing the beauty of it – it is an infancy.
Here is, in my way of thinking, a precious element for the concept of spiritual infancy; it is not foolishness, it is not boobishness, much less is it irreflection. It is, from within a little soul, and from a soul of a child, to be capable of the greatest things, with an amiable, affable and authentic presentation –it is not the pure presentation of the spirit of a child. Here is the question, and here, to my way of seeing things, is the note: St. Therese could repeat here, that our thoughts and our ways are not hers…
But that is not what she would say to us. Her mission is to use her presence, like a flash, to present her way, to attract and sweep us along to her way. And this with the affable, with the littleness, the accessibility, and enchantment which infancy has. But then, what a meditative infancy! What a fruitful infancy! What an infancy which we can compare to St. Augustine and to the end of the life of St. Monica! It is not necessary to say. It is a saint speaking of herself.
Here you gentleman see the treasures of maturity, of meditation, of profundity, and if it were necessary of activity, which fit within a true spiritual infancy. It was she who said: “For love, nothing is impossible.” Which in our language is translated “for enlevo, for the zeal of the ultramontane, nothing is impossible.” Here is St. Theresa of the Infant Jesus, with all her treasure of meditation, and which can exist in the soul of a child, and as she preserves it to the very summum of her maturity. We must remark that she lived her infancy faithful to herself, and being herself to the very height of her maturity. It is a magnificent thing.
Buissonnets: the fireplace by which so many episodes of St. Therese’s childhood took place
III Different Attitudes in the Presence of Souls
After all these orientations of how it is that one analyzes souls, let us apply them to what we have seen about the thirst for souls.
For this purpose, let us imagine ourselves in a hotel, coming out of our room. From the room in front of ours where a family is lodged, a little girl comes out. And the little girl is this one here in the photograph. It is good to know that we don’t know that this little girl is going to be St. Therese. It is the youthful Therese Martin. A few years from now, it will be Mademoiselle Martin and nothing more. What is our reaction in the presence of this little girl? There are number of possible reactions.
Indifferentism
The first reaction –and I believe it would be the most frequent – would be that of not noticing. “Hmm! A little girl…” or then: “What foolishness, that jump rope in her hand”. Or any other ultra commonplace thought of this sort. And then the person goes on. He would pass by St. Therese and would not notice.
Are we quite sure we would notice? It is a valid question, because it would be normal for us to notice. It is not normal to cross paths with a saint and not notice. However, St. Therese passed unnoticed. No one in her convent, not even her sisters, imagined that she was a saint. It was also a deplorable convent, with a prioress full of whims. Let it be said in parenthesis, that St. Therese knew what to expect. Because when you have those eyes, you have an x-ray in your head, and you see through the walls of a convent. But they should have noticed. And it was a sign of the tepidity of the convent to not have noticed or recognized St. Therese. Would we notice her?
Ego-centrism
Let’s turn the page. We are no longer in a hotel, but renting rooms in the Buissonnets from Monsieur Martin. Let’s say we are paying in the good money of that time, 10 francs in gold for room and board. Would we notice that child? What impressions would the little girl cause in us? Perhaps a vague impression of sanctity – most vague. We would externalize this impression with some type of reaction. We would consider her quite charming. We would play a bit with her. We would enjoy hearing a bit of the timbre of her voice. We would be entertained by something she says. And at most we would conclude: “The daughters of Monsieur Martin are all very agreeable. But the one that entertains me most is little Therese.” And we would go no further.
Don’t you think this possible, at least with one of us? That is an egotistical utilitarian reaction. We vaguely notice the holiness. It pleases us. We think of the pleasure she gives us. And we take her as an instrument of our pleasure. A holy, legitimate pleasure, with nothing censored by the 6th commandment. It is the equivalent of considering her like a little doll, or a little cat, or a little mouse. She is a very enjoyable little child. Her sanctity doesn’t affect us.
All of a sudden we see that the little girl did us an outstanding act of charity, say, she gave up her supper and spent the whole night hungry so there would be food left for us. We would say, “Ah, I am charmed. She likes me so much! How grateful I am! She has a heart of gold!” What we mean is, “She saw how much there is in me to love. Yes, she really understood me. And she understood how much I deserve this act of self denial”.
And so something like this would result, “Come here, little girl. I bought you a toy.” Or, “I really like this girl.” Or, “She really likes me!” Or even, “This girl has extraordinary virtue. I like to see the virtue of this little girl.” Whatever the case, it is to like the girl more as a distraction than as a mirror of virtue.
Disinterest
How few would reach the point of saying the following: “This little girl is eight years old. How many risks will she run in the course of her life! What a beautiful soul will she have when she reaches the end of the career God has established for her! What can I do so that this masterpiece will not deteriorate? What can I do so that this soul may ascend to the firmament of sanctity? I desire this more than anything. God made this marvel. What can I do? Pray, give her good counsel, protect her in every way, so that this marvel may reach its term? I thirst for this sanctity. I want this design of God to be accomplished. And when I see it, I shall be like Simeon who saw the Infant Jesus: even though I be old and gray, I shall be able to say: “Lord now canst Thou dismiss thy servant in peace, because mine eyes have see that which reflects my Savior.” (cf. Luke 2:29)
This latter is one who has feeling and thirst for souls. The other observations could have been stages in the way, but stages to be run through rapidly. The final point, even if it were our own daughter, is not that this soul likes us very much or that it returns the affection which like a father we pour out on it. But the point is that this soul be the masterpiece God created and wished to raise to such a degree of perfection. This is the point. And this is what makes us apostles, seeing a soul and having thirst for the perfection of that soul.
Now we will consider the photograph of St. Therese at the end of her life. She is before the chalice to drink or she is already drinking it. And she has an expression of sadness, but at the same time, of simplicity, of candor, or naturalness, of affability, of strength and elevation, of a capacity for contemplation carried to its plenitude, to the super apex. Here we see this design of God that has reached its perfection. So, by accompanying the trajectory of a soul, we see that it sanctified itself, and we can sing the Magnificat.
St. Peter’s Basilica in all its splendor during the canonization of St. Therese
Example of the Canonization of a Saint
I attended from the diplomatic corps gallery of St. Peters, in Rome, the canonization of St. Vincent Strambi. When all the bells toll and they lower the veil covering the picture of the saint, the pope declares that he is in the glory of heaven, with God, etc. There is a joy throughout the liturgy, and throughout the whole Catholic Church on account of it. What is the meaning of that joy? It is not what many people think: “That lucky fellow, now he has a good life.” It is something else. Obviously, we rejoice that he is happy, but that is not the dominant note, not by far. The dominant note is: “Really, the plan of God for this good and faithful servant, was accomplished. He attained the sanctity for which he was created.”
For one who has zeal, the sense of souls, this is great in itself, independent of the effect that it may have on the people, of the good that it may do for humanity, etc. independent of all that. Just in and for itself, this is so great, that it warrants all the Churches in and out of Christendom to set their bells ringing. The design of God was accomplished in a soul. A soul was entirely faithful. It actually carried its cross up Calvary and was crucified with God, Our Lord, for his love. This soul has become another Christ. It is the joy of the angels and the joy of the earth.
This must be said independent of another saying: “Oh! Good! Now the example of St. Vincent Strambi is going to do much good all over the region of Naples. Because the Neapolitans are going to be very happy”. I consider it enormously important that this do good for the Neapolitans. But neither this nor various other reasons of this type are the principle reason for joy. The principle reason is that Our Lord’s thirst was satisfied in this point. The soul of St. Vincent Strambi was like a full and aromatic goblet to slake his thirst during his Passion.
Lisieux Cathedral: It was here that, at the end of Mass in July 1887, Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus received from God the revelation of her Mission: to save souls through prayer and sacrifice. “I then experienced an ineffable feeling. I resolved to remain at the foot of the Cross. I felt devoured by the thirst for souls“ (”Story of a Soul”, chapter V).
Note: The vast majority of the photos used in this article were provided by one of the contributors to this website, who took them on one of his pilgrimages to Lisieux.