The Little Flower of Jesus

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux was a nineteenth-century French Carmelite nun known as the Little Flower of Jesus. From her childhood she wanted to become a saint and to become perfected in God. Her deep desire to be constant to the will of God, to his wisdom and to his love led Thérèse to live a life of self-sacrifice and self-immolation and to put all of the strength of her heart's love into drawing souls into the light of Jesus Christ.

She ascended at the conclusion of her brief life.

Thérèse was canonized on May 17, 1925, less than 28 years after her death. Many miracles have been attributed to her. In 1927 she was declared patroness of foreign missions and of all works for Russia.

Her feast day is October 1.

Thérèse Wasn't Born a Saint

Sometimes we like to think of the saints as having been “born saints.” Thérèse’s life shows us that this is not so.

Thérèse is often remembered as being sweet, loving and obedient. Yet this did not come naturally to her. In fact, when Thérèse was a child, Mrs. Martin characterized her daughter as “unconquerably stubborn.”

Thérèse learned how to turn her stubbornness into an iron will. She described how she had a “great victory” in a “certain combat.”

She writes: “There is in the community a sister who has the faculty of displeasing me in everything, in her ways, her words, her character, everything seems very disagreeable to me. And still, she is a holy religious who must be very pleasing to God. Not wishing to give in to the natural antipathy I was experiencing, I told myself that charity must not consist in feelings but in works; then I set myself to doing for this Sister what I would do for the person I loved the most… I wasn't content simply with praying very much for this Sister who gave me so many struggles, but I took care to render her all the services possible, and when I was tempted to answer her back in a disagreeable manner, I was content with giving her my most friendly smile and with changing the subject of the conversation…Frequently, when…I had occasion to work with this Sister, I used to run away like a deserter whenever my struggles became too violent… Never did she suspect the motives for my conduct, and she remained convinced that her character was very pleasing to me.”

Ascended Lady Master Thérèse of Lisieux

The ascended lady master Thérèse of Lisieux has given some insights into her experiences in the heaven-world:

“Following my ascension, I was accorded the grant to spend a portion of my heavens on earth. But for another portion, the Father did assign me to study under the three masters El Morya, Koot Hoomi [Kuthumi] and Djwal Kul.

“These three wise men, adepts of the East who did come and tend the birth of the Lord Christ, therefore did tend with me the full flowering and birth of that Christ in my being multiplied many times over by their presence after my ascension.

“Therefore, through their hearts I did learn the mysteries of the East, the profundity of the message of the Buddha and his oneness with our Lord.

“Thread upon thread, they did assist me in weaving and weaving again the fullness of the garment of light that does comprise the whole complement of the teaching of God to this age.

“Therefore, beloved, I had full opportunity to receive that instruction that did fill in for me all of those sacred mysteries that had not been revealed through the established Church. Therefore you understand that much teaching that is given to you in this hour I received at inner levels after my ascension.”

The Way of Discipleship

“Therefore, beloved, I come to tell you that the way of discipleship can be seen by you as a thousand stairs upon a thousand-tiered golden spiral, and that step by step there is an orderly path of discipline.

“These masters who have sponsored your messenger and this activity, who have supported Jesus in establishing through the messengers the true Church Universal and Triumphant on earth, have seen fit to also establish an ordered ritual, for they are fully aware what it takes to mount one of these steps.”

Archetype of the Soul

“The figure of the nun burdened with the cancer in her body, concealing this from all others and occupying herself with the humble task of scrubbing the stairs of the enclave must be seen as archetypal of the soul who, bearing her karma, recognizes that she must clear the debris in each step of consciousness, scrubbing by the violet flame until that level of record and ideation is fully and wholly transmuted.

“In the process, she may mount a single step. In past ages it would take a soul perhaps an entire lifetime to mount a single step, for the only purging of karma and record and self, as well as its outcropping in the body as disease, would be manifest through prayer and works of penance.”

Gift of the Violet Flame

“Thus, beloved, to know ‘how great, how great thou art, O God, my Father, my Mother, how great is the gift of the violet flame!' you must establish a co-measurement, a sense of realism that such a gift is also an experiment.

“For it is a dispensation for which ascended beings of the seventh ray, not the least of whom being your beloved Saint Germain, have given this opportunity.

“And after a certain lapse of cycles, they will give accounting before the Lords of Karma and the four and twenty elders who stand round the great white throne, and they shall determine whether a people have taken that flame and used it only to deliver themselves of their discomforts, or whether they have used it seriously for the path of initiation as an adjunct, as a mighty assistance to the soul's entering in.”

You are Watchmen of the Night

“You must therefore understand that you are watchmen of the night, keeping the watch in your time and in your place as many who have gone before you have kept that watch. In this dark night of the age of the Kali Yuga,* you bear violet-flame torches and torches of illumination with the beloved Mother Liberty. Therefore, beloved, understand that all holy orders have had their rituals and their disciplines and their rules.”

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*Kali Yuga is the term in Hindu mystic philosophy for the last and worst of the four yugas (world ages), characterized by strife, discord and moral deterioration.

Excerpted from The Masters and Their Retreats, by Mark and Elizabeth Clare Prophet.