This photograph of our friend was taken by her sister Céline in the inner courtyard of the convent at Lisieux. According to the convent archives, Thérèse holds in her left hand a parchment on which she has written these words of Teresa of Avila: “I would give a thousand lives to save a soul.”
She would give her own life fairly soon. The convent says the date of the picture is after July 3, 1896 (because of the book Thérèse holds in her right hand from Fr. Roulland, which for various reasons gives the earliest date of the picture.) This means Thérèse was at least three months into her tuberculosis, which had started on the eve of Good Friday (April 3 that year). Tuberculosis was terminal in those days; everybody knew it. In a way of understanding that is saint-like but not like we think, at the coming of the disease, the first coughing up of blood on Good Friday, Thérèse was filled with joy. She wrote “I was interiorly persuaded that Jesus, on the anniversary of His own death, wanted to have me hear His first call!” Our Saint would waste away for another year before she answered that call and joined Him in Heaven.
(source: www.archives-carmel-lisieux.fr)
We print it on special art paper with archival quality pigments, rated to last for many generations without fading when kept out of the direct sun.
– 8.5 x 11" acid-free paper
– Archival pigments, rated to last for generations.
– Cardboard backer
– Above story of the art
– Enclosed in a tight-fitting, crystal clear bag.
** IMPORTANT ** There is about an inch-and-a-third of white space around the picture, so the image is smaller than the paper.
Thanks!
Sue & John