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The famed French saint, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, affectionately known by devotees as “The Little Flower,” born Thérèse Martin, is pictured in the Carmel of Lisieux in an undated photograph.
OSV News/Carmel de Lisieux
February 19, 2026
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My February pilgrimage to the Normandy Region of France in the company of seven Canadian Catholic priests, a representative from Air Canada and the great team from the Connaissance Travel and Tours was spiritually satisfying and visually entrancing.
It also gave me with yet another gift in the reminder of how you never know where storytelling ideas derive.
During a lunch at the Hermitage Sainte Thérèse reception house in Lisieux overseen by the Sisters Servants of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, I struck up a conversation with Olivier Valentin, the sanctuary’s director general of communication and pastoral development.
Valentin expressed curiosity in the piece I planned to write later that day, and I told him that it would centre on our impetus as Catholics to safeguard our souls and the need to remember and pray for the souls who have departed the Earth.
He shared that Thérèse always looked towards the sky because of her fervent desire of her heart to always be in communion with God. This passion registers loud and clear in her famous poetry.
“Above the clouds, the sky is always blue. One touches the shores where God reigns,” she wrote in “Abandonment is the Sweet Fruit of Love” six months before her death on Sept. 30, 1897.
The French Carmelite nun also famously said: “Prayer is a simple look turned towards Heaven.”
I am so grateful for Valentin approaching me at the end of our hearty lunch to share a burst of inspiration. He extemporaneously proclaimed, “I know what you should call your story: ‘The sky is not the limit!’”
He nailed it.
That simple phrase encapsulated everything I want to say about this journey. Every step along the journey coalesced into a vital message of how we must invest in the sanctity of our own souls and those of our brothers and sisters in Christ – both present and deceased – if we wish to walk the shores where God reigns.
We should follow the example of the woman who authored Story of a Soul. She cared deeply about her own eternal destination, but she also passionately prayed for everyone to experience Heavenly splendour. Famously, Thérèse prayed for the conversion and salvation of a notorious triple murderer named Henri Pranzini.
It appeared that he would remain unrepentant as he headed up the scaffold for his execution on Aug. 31, 1887. However, the following day, when Thérèse opened the paper, she saw that her prayer had been answered, as Pranzini was pictured seizing a crucifix from a nearby priest and kissing the sacred wounds of Christ.
The level of care for everyone to be forever unified with Christ was resoundingly evident at the Notre-Dame de Montligeon Sanctuary in La-Chapelle-Montligeon.
Both clerical and lay members of the pilgrimage group learned about this place’s unique mission to pray for the deliverance of souls in purgatory — especially the forgotten — every day.
A designated prayer display for miscarried little souls at the sanctuary was touching. The importance of praying for children who pass away in the womb or early into their earthly life was reinforced the following day in Alençon during a visit to the home where Thérèse lived for the first four years of her life. We learned how her parents, Louis and Zellie Martin, lost four of their nine children in infancy.
Visiting the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey atop the rocky tidal island called St. Michael’s Mount on Feb. 7 aligned with the overall theme as praying to the archangel is viewed as a way to safeguard one’s soul from Satan, who seeks the ruin of souls.
Visiting Juno Beach, where many Canadians sacrificed their lives on D-Day, June 6, 1944, weightily underscored the need to remember brave, deceased souls. I felt the presence of the heroic fallen as I walked the beach and as I knelt down and touched the water.
The whole day in Lisieux was illuminating. We learned how Thérèse became a vessel of love and prayed for everyone she knew – and didn't know – to be welcomed into the Heavenly paradise. Afterwards, we visited Les Buissonnets, the childhood home of Thérèse and her family when they moved from Alençon after Zellie’s passing, and where she lived for 11 years before entering the convent) at age 15.
Our tour culminated in a visit to the Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse, which broke ground in 1929, four years after the canonization, and was completed in 1954. Art gracing the pillars, walls and ceiling showed Thérèse as an intercessor standing beside Christ.
Thérèse wants to help answer intentions. She once famously said, “I will spend my Heaven doing good on Earth. I will let fall a shower of roses.”
The Little Flower’s powerful message, delivered through Valentin, was a rose she gave to me during this pilgrimage. I thank you St. Thérèse very much.
(Amundson is an associate editor and writer for The Catholic Register.)
A version of this story appeared in the February 22, 2026, issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "Little Flower’s vessel of love".
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Photo courtesy Connaissance Travel and Tours
