Thérèse of St. Augustine

In 1770, at the age of 33, Louise of France made the decision to leave the court permanently. With her father's consent, she passed through the doors of the Carmel of Saint-Denis on April 11, 1770. This monastery was then reputed to be one of the poorest and most austere in the kingdom. She took the habit there on September 10, 1770, under the name Sister Thérèse of St. Augustine, in homage to Saint Teresa of Avila. She pronounced her solemn vows on September 12, 1771.

Refusing any preferential treatment linked to her royal blood, she adapted with humility to the rigors of cloistered life, participating in the simplest daily tasks, such as washing dishes. She quickly assumed responsibilities within the community: * Mistress of novices from October 2, 1771. * Bursar (depositary) from December 1771. * Prioress of the monastery, a position to which she was elected three times: on November 27, 1773 (reelected in 1776), and again in 1785.

During her priorships, she worked to materially restore the dilapidated convent. Thanks to the financial support of Louis XV, she carried out major works and commissioned the king's architect, Richard Mique, to build a new neoclassical church.

She also deployed active charity beyond her community. In 1783, she welcomed to the Carmel of Saint-Denis the Carmelites of Brussels and Termonde, who had been expelled from their convents by the reforms of Emperor Joseph II. She also supported destitute future nuns, notably Madeleine-Claudine Lidoine (the future martyr of Compiègne), by obtaining from the Dauphine Marie-Antoinette the payment of her dowry to allow her to enter religious life.

Mother Thérèse of St. Augustine passed away suddenly on December 23, 1787, in Saint-Denis, at the age of 50, taken by a short illness. Her final words, faithful to her energetic temperament, were: "To paradise! Quickly! At a full gallop!"

She was initially buried in the vault of the Carmelites of Saint-Denis. However, in 1793, during the French Revolution, the convent's tombs were desecrated by revolutionaries and her remains were thrown into the mass grave of the Saint-Denis cemetery.

After her death, her reputation for holiness spread widely. Her confessor published a collection of her thoughts written at Versailles, titled Eucharistic Meditations, as well as her Spiritual Testaments, gathering her advice and maxims intended for the novices.

The cause for the beatification of Mother Thérèse of St. Augustine was introduced in the 19th century. The ordinary investigative process took place from 1855 to 1867. * On June 19, 1873, Pope Pius IX signed the decree of introduction of her cause, conferring upon her the title of Venerable according to the canon law then in force. * After a long period of dormancy, the cause was resumed in Rome on December 13, 1985, as a historical cause. * On December 18, 1997, Pope John Paul II signed the decree confirming the heroic nature of her virtues.

To this day, the official recognition of a miracle attributed to her intercession is required for the Church to proclaim her Blessed.

The spirituality of Thérèse of St. Augustine is deeply rooted in the spirit of reparation and self-offering. Upon entering the Carmel, she made a vow to offer her life for the conversion of her father and for the salvation of France, summarizing her impulse with the phrase: "I, a Carmelite, and the King all for God!".

Her interior life rested on an intense Eucharistic devotion and a constant search for the divine will. Her spiritual pedagogy, marked by common sense and gentleness, rejected excessive scruples: "Let us not make for ourselves a broad conscience, but a peaceful conscience.".

Her legacy remains alive within the Order of Carmel and the Church in France, where she is honored as a model of evangelical detachment, having freely abandoned the honors of the court to embrace the poverty and silence of monastic life.