Saint Therese of Lisieux and the Missionaries of Africa
Maurice Bellière, a Missionary of Africa, and Therese of Lisieux never met. Their correspondence made an important addition to her spiritual autobiography “The Story of a Soul”. Maurice’s vocation generated a missionary desire in Therese and the Church declared her Patron Saint of the Missions. Beginning of the friendship between Father Maurice Bellière and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux Maurice Bellière was in his second year of theology at the Diocesan seminary when he wrote a letter to the Prioress of the Carmelite convent at Lisieux begging her to, as he said – “entrust to the prayers of one of your sisters, the salvation of my soul so that she may obtain for me the grace of remaining faithful to the vocation which I have received from God.” Young Therese, who had joined the Carmel at age 15, was chosen by the mother superior for that undertaking. That is how a…