Preview: The 100th Anniversary of St. Therese of Lisieux's Canonization

On Monday, April 28, we'll resume our Son Rise Morning Show series on great 2025 anniversaries by looking back at the 100th Anniversary of the Canonization of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. 

I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Since this anniversary occurs during the Jubilee Year of Hope, her shrine in Lisieux has planned many events through the year:

From January 4 to Christmas, the Sanctuary of Lisieux will experience a new great Theresian year in 2025, marked by the 100th anniversary of the canonization of Saint Therese on May 17, rich in spiritual and cultural events. It is the story of Therese's life and posterity that inspired us to create a program on the theme of joy in holiness.

This approach is also at the heart of the jubilee of the Catholic Church, “Pilgrims of Hope”, desired by Pope Francis for 2025.

Saint Therese died on September 30, 1897; she was beatified on April 29, 1923 and canonized on May 17, 1925, both Masses celebrated by Pope Pius XI. Her Cause had been hastened through the years: Pope St. Pius X had opened the process of canonization on June 10,1914. Pope Benedict XV sped up the process, bypassing the required 50 year gap between death and beatification, and declared her Venerable on August 14, 1921.

More details here.

Pope St. Paul VI wrote a letter to the Bishop of Lisieux on the one hundredth anniversary of her birth in 1973. Before his brief pontificate, Pope St. John Paul I published a letter to St. Therese. Pope St. John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church in 1977. Pope Benedict XVI praised her Story of a Soul in a Papal audience in 2011. In 2023, Pope Francis wrote about her in an Apostolic Exhortation on the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of her birthday, C’est la Confiance. 

And we shouldn't forget that she went to Pope Leo XIII to try to get him to allow her to go into the Carmel in 1887, when she was too young! He may be the only pope who didn't cooperate with her "cause" at the time.

I think the historical circumstance of the Papacy in Rome during the time of her beatification and canonization by Pope Pius XI is important to consider when we look at some of the details about how her canonization was celebrated--with a packed St. Peter's, lights on the exterior of the basilica, massive crowds in the square. This blog offers some examples of the crowds and decorations of St. Peter's:

The New York Times reported that at least 25,000 French and fully 15,000 American pilgrims were present for the six-hour ceremony. The basilica held almost 60,000 pilgrims, and 200,000 more waited in the square outside. For the first time, loudspeakers were installed in the Basilica, so that all the pilgrims crowded inside (many of whom could not see the sanctuary) were able to hear the Pope’s every word. This innovation was a big success.

Countless electric lights had been installed in the basilica for the ceremony. The newspapers reported extensively that that night, for the first time since 1870, the outer façade of St. Peter’s was illumined.

The illumination was done entirely with thousands of torches and lanterns, which, flickering in the breeze, gave the impression that the whole basilica was enveloped in a curtain of fire. It is estimated that this beautiful scene was witnessed by about a million people. [The New York Times, May 18, 1925, p. 2.]

The illumination was considered a step toward the reconciliation of the church and the Italian state, for it was the first time the facade [of] the Basilica had been lit up since the Pope became a voluntary “prisoner in the Vatican” after the Italian government declared war on the Papal States in 1870.

You see it, don't you? Through this CLOISTERED Carmelite nun and saint, the Vatican opened up to the world and the world--hundreds of thousands of them--came into the basilica and Vatican City for the canonization and to see the basilica illuminated. Many thousands gathered in Lisieux and it was an international event.

The situation between the city of Rome and the city of the Vatican had been tense and difficult since 1870: Pope Pius IX had titled himself the Prisoner of the Vatican; Pope Leo XIII had even considered moving the papacy out of Rome into Malta, or Spain, or Austria. 

It would not be until 1929 that the Lateran Treaty would restore the sovereignty of the reduced Papal States of the Holy See. 

President Woodrow Wilson and others ignored Pope Benedict XV's peace and reconciliation efforts after World War I. Pope XI negotiated many Concordats with European nations to recognize Church interests before he died in 1939--did you know that the USA does not have an Concordat with the Holy See? The US Federal government did not establish official diplomatic ties with the Holy See until 1984.

Isn't that the wonder of St. Therese of Lisieux? Her canonization is an event of immense impact. A Bourgeois young woman with five years of formal education (and a student of St, John of the Cross) is named a Doctor of the Church (by a student of St. John of the Cross); a Cloistered Carmelite is named co-patron of the Missions with Saint Francis Xavier, the "Apostle of the Indies", "Apostle of the Far East", "Apostle of China" and "Apostle of Japan" in 1927.

Pope Francis described her "missionary soul" thus in 2023:

As with every authentic encounter with Christ, this experience of faith summoned her to mission. Therese could define her mission in these words: “I shall desire in heaven the same thing as I do now on earth: to love Jesus and to make him loved”. [15] She wrote that she entered Carmel “to save souls”. [16] In a word, she did not view her consecration to God apart from the pursuit of the good of her brothers and sisters. She shared the merciful love of the Father for his sinful son and the love of the Good Shepherd for the sheep who were lost, astray and wounded. For this reason, Therese is the Patroness of the missions and a model of evangelization. . . .

His closing prayer to her:

Dear Saint Therese,
the Church needs to radiate the brightness,
the fragrance and the joy of the Gospel.
Send us your roses!
Help us to be, like yourself,
ever confident in God’s immense love for us,
so that we may imitate each day
your “little way” of holiness.
Amen.

Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, pray for us!

Eternal rest grant until to him, O Lord, and let Perpetual Light shine upon him. May Pope Francis's soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace. May Pope Francis rest in peace.