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communion each day, she tells Jesus: “Remain in me
as in a tabernacle”. Her gaze remained fixed not on
herself and her own needs, but on Christ, who loves,
seeks, desires and dwells within.
Daily abandonment
The confidence that Therese proposes has to
do with more than our individual sanctification and
salvation. It has an integral meaning that embraces
the totality of concrete existence and finds applica-
tion in our daily lives, where we are often assailed
by fears, the desire for human security, the need to
have everything under control. Here we see the im-
portance of her invitation to a holy “abandonment”.
The complete confidence that becomes an aban-
donment in Love sets us free from obsessive calcu-
lations, constant worry about the future and fears
that take away our peace. In her final days, Therese
insisted on this: “We who run in the way of love
shouldn’t be thinking of suffering that can take place
in the future; it’s a lack of confidence”. If we are in
the hands of a Father who loves us without limits,
this will be the case come what may; we will be able
to move beyond whatever may happen to us and, in
one way or another, his plan of love and fullness will
come to fulfilment in our lives.
Together with faith, Therese experienced a deep
and boundless trust in God’s infinite mercy: “confi-
dence that must lead us to Love”. Even in her dark-
ness, she experienced the complete trust of a child
that finds refuge, unafraid, in the embrace of its father
and mother. For Therese, the one God is revealed
above all else in his mercy, which is the key to under-
standing everything else that can be said of him: “To
me he has granted his infinite mercy and through it I
contemplate and adore the other divine perfections!
All of these perfections appear to be resplendent with
love, even his Justice (and perhaps this even more so
than the others) seems to me clothed in love”. This is
one of the loftiest insights of Therese, one of her major
contributions to the entire People of God. In an extra-
ordinary way, she probed the depths of divine mercy, learned that Pranzini, after mounting the scaffold,
and drew from them the light of her limitless hope. “suddenly, seized by an inspiration, turned, took hold
of the crucifix the priest was holding out to him and
A most firm hope kissed the sacred wounds three times!” This intense
Before entering the Carmel, Therese had felt a experience of hoping against all hope proved funda-
remarkable spiritual closeness to one of the most mental for her: “After this unique grace, my desire to
unfortunate of men, the criminal Henri Pranzini, sen- save souls grows each day”.
tenced to death for a triple murder for which he was Therese was conscious of the tragic reality of sin,
unrepentant. By having Masses offered for him and yet she remained constantly immersed in the mys-
praying with complete confidence for his salvation, tery of Christ, certain that “where sin increased, grace
she was convinced that she was drawing him ever abounded all the more” ( Rom 5:20). The sin of the
closer to the blood of Jesus, and she told God that world is great but not infinite, whereas the merci-
she was sure that at the last moment he would par- ful love of the Redeemer is indeed infinite. Therese
don him “even if he went to his death without any testifies to the definitive victory of Jesus, through his
signs of repentance”. As the reason for her certainty, passion, death and resurrection, over all the powers
she stated: “I was absolutely confident in the mercy of evil. Filled with confidence, she dared to explain:
of Jesus”. How great was her emotion when she “Jesus, allow me to save very many souls; let no soul u

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