St. Therese Lisieux worldly photographs

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7rosario said:
I was a bit scandalized by the fact that St. Therese allowed herself to be photographed in a theatrical costume in a wordly pose, when she was a nun, and also shortly before she entered the convent, dressed in an unbecoming fashion. Could this be explained somehow?

I also noticed that St. Pius X called St. Therese the greatest Saint of modern times, but I see that St. Therese is not a physically incorrupt saint, while a few of her contemporaries are incorrupt: St. Mary Mazzarello, St. John Bosco, and St. Pius X himself.

St. Bernadette and St. Gemma allowed themselves to be photographed, but in a praying pose.

St. Therese Liseux at age 15 shortly before going to the convent: oyemagazine.org/files/imce/St__Therese_of_Lisieux.jpg

A picture of St. Therese of Lisieux dressed as St. Joan of Arc (a play she wrote and acted out for her sister in the Convent): thelittleway.com/images/products/290.jpg

Thérèse of Lisieux dressed as Joan of Arc Lisieux, France, 1894.: radio.weblogs.com/0144108/images/2005/03/23/st_therese.Joan.arc.jpg

Close up photo of St. Therese’ face, when she was dressed as Joan of Arc: images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://catho62-lievin.cef.fr/images/therese14.jpg&imgrefurl=http://catho62-lievin.cef.fr/vie_paroisse/ste_therese.htm&h=400&w=300&sz=14&hl=en&start=6&sig2=IaYoYfbm_eQXUw8tFu7nUw&tbnid=qF2RrnhJVvsWQM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=93&ei=w3yXR8ynHpiCiAHG5ITPCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtherese%2Blisieux%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
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Hello 7Rosario,
The photo of St. Therese at 15 was taken after she had an audience with the Bishop of Bayeux. The occasion was her visit, with her father, to ask permission to enter Carmel at the age of 15. She had put up her hair in a bun as seen in this photo to make herself look older.
Her photo dressed as St. Joan of Arc was taken by her sister Celine (Sr. Genevieve). Celine had brought her camera when she entered Carmel. The occasion was for Good Shepherd Sunday normally celebrated as a special day of the Mother Prioress. As you said, it was a play Therese wrote and acted in.
St. Therese’s convent photos were taken by Sr. Genevieve with no intention to be published. If St. Therese did not end up to be such a great Saint, all these pictures would have ended in the Carmel Community Archive in the convent. We have them today because of the great fascination with Therese. We can’t get enough of her. In the past, hagiographers (those who write Saints biography) preferred to portray them in an out-of-worldly manner. When you read their stories you’d think they were Saints from the womb!
Hagiographers in most recent times make it a point to make us see the Saints as they truly were, people who had flaws and imperfections but rose to sanctity because of their own imperfect efforts and the grace of God.

Incorruptibility is not a sign of holiness, shocking as that may seem to sound. There have been incorrupt persons who were not even Christians. An article put out by Catholic Answer on this subject is worth reading. When I find the link I’ll post it.
St. Therese is called the “Greatest Saint of Modern Times” because she had embodied in her message the Gospel message of spiritual childhood and complete trust in God. She experienced in her life the greatest temptations which assail modern man which are crisis of faith and and how it feels to suffer in darkness and seemingly complete abandonment by God, like Jesus on the Cross. All Saints went through this of course but Therese was able to articulate and communicate that so very well that “little souls” found in her ordinary ways an extraordinary path to holiness. She had also asked God to preserve her from incorruptibility because she saw that as an “extraordinary” thing which goes against her understanding of being 'little " and “ordinary.”
 
Oh no… does that mean I won’t have a chance to be a Saint?

200 years from now…

“How could he be a Saint? I found his worldly photos all over Facebook/Friendster/My Space and he wasn’t in praying position…” 😃
Just kidding hehe…

C’mon, Saints were human being too…
 
Sister_Helena said:
Incorruptibility is not a sign of holiness, shocking as that may seem to sound. There have been incorrupt persons who were not even Christians. An article put out by Catholic Answer on this subject is worth reading. When I find the link I’ll post it.
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Abraham Lincoln’s body wasnt corrupt… 36 years after he as killed.

I would love to see the post you refered to… very interesting.

Silly question… when someone is considered for sainthood… is this checked for?
pope John Paul… is this something that will be checked?

Seems kind of morbid to me but… just curious.
 
Stjudeprayforus said:
I would love to see the post you refered to… very interesting.
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This is the information I found on Catholic Answer Magazine on Incorruptibles. I don’t know how to find the link to it:

Catholic Answer about The Incorruptibles (July/August 2007 p.19) by Fr. Longnecker
 
oh lol… come on… there is nothing wrong with those photographs. If anything it shows how simple and childlike St Therese was 🙂 she is indeed very holy in her love and obedience to God. She’s a real Saint.

Saints can laugh and have fun too… St Teresa of Avila said: God save me from sad faced saints… lol! 🙂
 
7rosario said:
I was a bit scandalized by the fact that St. Therese allowed herself to be photographed in a theatrical costume in a wordly pose, when she was a nun, and also shortly before she entered the convent, dressed in an unbecoming fashion. Could this be explained somehow?

I also noticed that St. Pius X called St. Therese the greatest Saint of modern times, but I see that St. Therese is not a physically incorrupt saint, while a few of her contemporaries are incorrupt: St. Mary Mazzarello, St. John Bosco, and St. Pius X himself.

St. Bernadette and St. Gemma allowed themselves to be photographed, but in a praying pose.

St. Therese Liseux at age 15 shortly before going to the convent: oyemagazine.org/files/imce/St__Therese_of_Lisieux.jpg

A picture of St. Therese of Lisieux dressed as St. Joan of Arc (a play she wrote and acted out for her sister in the Convent): thelittleway.com/images/products/290.jpg

Thérèse of Lisieux dressed as Joan of Arc Lisieux, France, 1894.: radio.weblogs.com/0144108/images/2005/03/23/st_therese.Joan.arc.jpg

Close up photo of St. Therese’ face, when she was dressed as Joan of Arc: images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://catho62-lievin.cef.fr/images/therese14.jpg&imgrefurl=http://catho62-lievin.cef.fr/vie_paroisse/ste_therese.htm&h=400&w=300&sz=14&hl=en&start=6&sig2=IaYoYfbm_eQXUw8tFu7nUw&tbnid=qF2RrnhJVvsWQM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=93&ei=w3yXR8ynHpiCiAHG5ITPCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtherese%2Blisieux%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
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My dear friend

There is nothing wrong here. No sin! Perhaps you expect too much and have erroneous ideas. Saints expect very little of others and a great deal of themselves. St Therese was a great saint. If anyone wants to criticise her perhaps they would do well to become a saint so there judgment is better first. That’s my advice.

God bless and peace to you:thumbsup:🙂
 
John_Russell_Jr said:
My dear friend

There is nothing wrong here. No sin! Perhaps you expect too much and have erroneous ideas. Saints expect very little of others and a great deal of themselves. St Therese was a great saint. If anyone wants to criticise her perhaps they would do well to become a saint so there judgment is better first. That’s my advice.

God bless and peace to you:thumbsup:🙂
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I’ve been painstakingly saving all my pictures in case the Holy See look for them after I die!😃
I don’t want to hear criticisms about the way I look, all right??
 
Sister_Helena said:
I’ve been painstakingly saving all my pictures in case the Holy See look for them after I die!😃
I don’t want to hear criticisms about the way I look, all right??
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Dear Sister
Funny. I’m sure you know but I’ll say it for the benefit of others. How your body, clothes, posture in or out of prayer etc etc look does not matter. What matters is how your soul looks. A soul filled with grace makes you holy, a soul overflowing with grace means sanctity. Our Lady was full of grace- meaning she had the most grace of all.

God bless you:)
 
vince2paul said:
Oh no… does that mean I won’t have a chance to be a Saint?

200 years from now…

“How could he be a Saint? I found his worldly photos all over Facebook/Friendster/My Space and he wasn’t in praying position…” 😃
Just kidding hehe…

C’mon, Saints were human being too…
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LOL! 😃 That’s okay vince2paul, at least they’ll have a lot of photos of you 200 years from now. hehe… and videos too… 😃
 
She had also asked God to preserve her from incorruptibility because she saw that as an “extraordinary” thing which goes against her understanding of being 'little " and “ordinary.”
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this sounds to me like pride, if she deemed herself so holy that she would become incorruptible.
 
😦 I think it’s kind of sad that St Therese is being criticized, to be honest…

she’s a Saint and a Doctor of the Church. God has confirmed her sanctity by all the miracles that happened (and still happen) through her intercession. If she wasn’t truly a Saint, there wouldnt be miracles.

She’s helped me a lot with her prayers.

She was very childlike and trusting before God and to really understand her, we have to think that way too.

What makes a Saint is their love for God. Not their appearance or whether or not they smile in photographs or ANYTHING like that. The truth is that St Therese loved God probably much more than any of us, and suffered for love of Him… at the end of her life, she even said that she can’t suffer anymore cause all suffering is sweet to her. She only cared about God’s will.

Maybe you should read her book first and then criticize her. Just a suggestion.

Peace
 
btw, the website about the Pope’s hats is so ridiculous!! lol!!! I actually think his hats are kind of cool, cause they suit him in a way, haha 😉
 
barb_finnegan said:
I know what photos the OP is referring to-and they are definitely NOT INAPPRPOPRIATE!

In the one of her at 15, it was taken before she even entered Carmel. She has her hair up adult-fashion, and the Bishop of Bayeux complimented her on it when she and her father visited him.
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actually she was trying to make herself look older so that he would let her enter Carmel.
As her being incorrupt. it didn’t happen. In fact, when she was dying, one of the Sisters made a reference to incorruptibility, and she said no, it would not happen to her. She wanted all ‘little souls’ to imitate her. She even said, ‘Only my bones will be found’, when she appeared to a Carmelite prioress in Italy before her exhumation.
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this is what I love about St Therese 🙂 that she would rather do God’s will for her than have everyone say what a great holy Saint she is. If she had wanted to be incorruptible, that would probably be from pride. But she was content to just be the “little flower” and of course because of that God exalted her to Doctor of the Church. 🙂

When St Therese first joined Carmel, she wanted to be a missionary, an apostle, a martyr, in other words she wanted to do everything for God that she could. And He showed her, He just wants her to be little. And no doubt this was a sacrifice on her part but it brought her great peace, as she realized that her place in the Body of Christ is to be the ‘heart’, to “love for those who fight”. So she embraced her place as a ‘little soul’ before God and her mission is to teach other ‘little souls’ to love Him as she does. And this is what made her a great Saint.

Christ said, those who exalt themselves will be humbled… **those who humble themselves will be exalted. ** This is exactly what happened with St Therese.

I heard this theology professor once talk about how St Therese did nothing but decorate statues with flowers. That is a horrible misunderstanding of her. It was precisely in her littleness, in her simplicity, that she became great.

If anyone thinks she is ‘lesser’ than some other Saints cause she never performed big miracles or preached to thousands… well neither did the Blessed Mother. St Therese lived humbly, in imitation of Mary, and in imitation of Jesus. All Saints are different, some started new religious orders or were given important revelations, others simply lived for God, but they all reached their full potential of holiness.
vince2paul said:
Oh no… does that mean I won’t have a chance to be a Saint?

200 years from now…

“How could he be a Saint? I found his worldly photos all over Facebook/Friendster/My Space and he wasn’t in praying position…” 😃
Just kidding hehe…

C’mon, Saints were human being too…
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LOL! 😃
 
CORRECTION:

I find nothing scandalous in the least in Therese’s photographs. And the fact that her body did not pass incorrupt says nothing of her being less a saint than the saints who do die incorrupt. It is just another way Therese was and died a saint “of the ordinary.”
 
7Rosario… a request is not prideful…a demand or an assumed outcome is prideful…she apparently did not care about being incorruptible- and she wanted to let God know it was alright with her if she wasn’t… why do you presume yourself to sit in judgment of her?
 
HOPEFUL_IN_UK said:
I was just reminded of this amusing website by somebody who is scandalized everytime the Pope cracks a smile or puts on a silly hat:

traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A190rcRatzHats.htm

(Scroll down to bottom of page for more scandalous Pope behavior. ;))
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The photos are a hoot, but the captions given for them… Ay-yi-yi-yi. The website maintainer wouldn’t know humor if it tickled them, and they need to be stuck in elevator with St. Philip Neri – he who wore his cassock inside out and a blue cushion on his head for a hat – and/or St. Francis of Assisi, who once played “air guitar” with a stick to cheer up some gloomy members of his order, and/or St. Ignatius of Loyola dancing a jig for the same reason. To say nothing of St. Thomas More, who played innocent practical jokes on people and kept pet monkeys, and, during the last stroke of his martyrdom, cracked a joke or two with the executioner.

Back to the original subject: Man, I see nothing scandalous about those pictures of St. Therese dressed as St. Joan of Arc.
 
they need to be stuck in elevator with St. Philip Neri – he who wore his cassock inside out and a blue cushion on his head for a hat
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LOL!!! 😃

St Philip Neri definitely had a sense of humour 👍
 
Monica-you’re also right about the picture of St. Therese with her hair up.
 
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