Thérèse of Lisieux: Session 1

Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Center for Action and Contemplation

Spirituality, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the first session which focuses on Thérèse of Lisieux. In the tenor of the ancient practice of Lectio Divina, James Finley reads passages from the John Clarke translation of Thérèse's Story of a Soul, reflects on core themes, and finishes with a meditative practice. Resources: The transcript for this episode can be found here. The books we will be using this season are: Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Third Edition, translated by John Clarke, which can be found ⁠here⁠, and ⁠here⁠. ⁠St. Thérèse of Lisieux: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series), edited by Mary Frolich⁠ Connect with us: Have a question you'd like Jim or Kirsten to answer about this season? Email us: ⁠⁠⁠podcasts@cac.org⁠⁠⁠ Send us a voicemail: ⁠⁠⁠cac.org/voicemail⁠⁠⁠ We'll be accepting questions for our Listener Questions episode until May 15, 2026. This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would love to support the ongoing work of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the continued work of our podcasts, you can donate at ⁠⁠⁠https://cac.org/support-cac/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠ Thank you!

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation.
0:04.0	To learn more, visit cac.org.
0:08.2	Greetings. I'm Jim Finley.
0:11.9	Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.
0:33.6	Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our time together, turning for trustworthy guidance to the teachings of St. Therese, the little flower. But when Therese was still a young nun in the monastery, the prioress came to her and told her under obedience that she wanted Therese to write the story of a soul.
0:47.3	And she said that in the story of the soul, she wanted Therese to share how she, going back to her experiences a little girl,
0:56.8	began to experience God's presence in her life, and how the deepening sense of God's presence
1:02.6	moved her to enter the monastery, the cloistered monastery when she was 15 years old.
1:09.0	Tres did that. So here we have the story of a soul. And so this is how she was 15 years old. Trez did that. So here we have the story of a soul.
1:12.7	And so this is how she begins.
1:16.7	This is in the third edition of the story of the soul,
1:20.6	translated by John Clark.
1:22.8	And it says, page 13, January 1895,
1:28.3	It is to you, dear mother, to you who are doubly my mother,
1:33.3	that I come to confide the story of my soul.
1:37.3	I'd like to start there.
1:40.3	It's interesting how she begins by responding to the prioress in such affectionate terms, calling her dear mother, and that she's, you're my dear mother twice over.
1:54.3	And she's speaking in such a loving way because the prioress who told her to write the story of a soul was her older sister who entered
2:03.1	the carmelite monastery before trez and uh when terz was very young and their mother died
2:10.1	her older sister took trez on kind of took a watchful eye over her so she's like her mother twice
2:17.2	over so her mother is her mother twice over. So her mother is her
2:19.0	mother who died, and now the Prius is her mother. And in a way, she's three folks, now she's
	...

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