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Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and the Bible

Biography of Thérèse Martin (Histoire d'une âme, 1937)
Wikimedia Commons; public domain

Today (10/1/2020) is the Memorial of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus who died on Sept 30, 1897, at aged 24 in Lisieux, Calvados, France.

The Patroness of the Mission

She was a simple Carmelite nun but a "heavyweight" in Church. Pope Pius XI canonized her in 1925 and less than three years after, in December of 1927, declared her "Patroness of the Missions."  There were objections against this title as Terese never went to the missions (foreign lands as it was understood at that time), but the pope went ahead declaring her “equal to St. Francis Xavier, with all the rights and privileges that went with this title.” Pope John Paul II, in 1997, declared her a Doctor of the Church, even if she was not a theologian. A few years ago, Pope Francis made her parents saints.

The Little Flower and the Bible

But what impressed me the most was not so much her "Little Way" as her familiarity with the Bible. she quoted in her writings the Sacred Scriptures "aptly, frequently, and with authority" (Pope Pius XI).

Remember that in this period, Bible reading was almost exclusively a cleric activity, with Latin as its official language.

Speaking of the biblical languages, here's my favorite quotation from her, which sustained me "spiritually" when I was learning Greek and Hebrew. It was inscribed in the opening page of one of our indispensable textbooks (Grammatical Analysis of the New Testament by Zerwick and Grosvenor):

If I had been a priest I should have made a thorough study of Hebrew and Greek so as to understand the thought of God as he has vouchsafed to express it in our human language.

 The Hebrew Alphabet

Just in case you want to learn a bit the Hebrew language, here's some the lessons I conducted with seminarians.

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Fr. Randy is the current Parish Priest and Rector of the Sacred Heart Parish Shrine in Quezon City, Philippines. He is also the Director of the Biblical Apostolate of the Diocese of Cubao and the coordinator for the Biblical Apostolate of the SVD Philippine Central Province. He teaches Biblical courses at the Divine Word Seminary, Tagaytay City. He holds a doctorate from the Ateneo de Manila University (PhD, 2015) and from the Loyola School of Theology (STD, 2014); Licentiate in Sacred Scripture (SSL, 1999) from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome); an M.A. in Pastoral Ministry from the Divine Word Seminary  (1995). He served as president of the Catholic Biblical Association of the Philippines (CBAP), chairperson of the Tagaytay Religious Association (TRA), Dean of Studies (Divine Word Seminary), and editor of the academic journal  Diwa: Studies in Philosophy and Theology. He founded the Certificate in Theological Studies (CTS) at the Divine Word Seminary and the SVD Tagaytay Alternative Learning System (SVD-ALS), an educational program for the out-of-school youth. Visit also his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/biblicalapostolateph

Comments

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