Turning to Thérèse of Lisieux

Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Center for Action and Contemplation

Spirituality, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to Season 13 of Turning to the Mystics. This season we are turning to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux for spiritual guidance. In this episode, James Finley and Kirsten Oates cover the life and person of Thérèse and discuss how we can work with her ideas to transform our lives. Resources: Turning to the Mystics is a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more about James Finley, visit his faculty profile ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. 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.
0:04.3	To learn more, visit cac.org.
0:08.3	Greetings. I'm Jim Finley.
0:11.1	And I'm Kirsten Oates.
0:13.1	Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.
0:30.5	Welcome, everyone, to Season 13 of Turning to the Mystics, where we'll be turning to St. Therese of Lesotho.
0:32.7	And I'm here with Jim to introduce you to St. Terese.
0:36.3	Welcome, Jim.
0:40.4	Yes, I'm looking forward to sharing her teachings with our listeners. And you have a way you'd like to invite us into understanding
0:46.3	the mystic's life and spirituality, so I'll hand over to you, Jim. Yes, as I always do. We'll begin by
0:52.9	understanding who she was historically.
0:56.1	It'll help us understand who she is spiritually as our guide to God.
1:00.8	And so a kind of historical overview of her life.
1:04.6	Therese was born in 1873 in France, where she lived until her death in 1897, 24 years of age.
1:14.6	She was born into a large family.
1:17.6	She was the youngest of nine children.
1:19.6	And by the time, Terez was born, three of the youngest of us had already died in infancy and child death and so on.
1:26.6	So she had four older sisters,
1:29.6	so the five living children. And another contributing factor to her, in France at the time,
1:36.4	the Catholics saw themselves as a faithful remnant to God in a world that had turned secular.
1:43.4	So the kind of separation from the world and a kind of a piety, a devotional sincerity,
1:49.2	separate from the world.
	...

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