Celebrating the centenary of the canonisation of St Thérèse of Lisieux, a rare first-edition of her biography will be returned home through the hands of an Irish priest. Fr Declan Hurley, Adm. St Mary’s Presbytery, Navan and Chairperson of the National Synodal Team, bought the book in an auction in 2022 and will return it to the Carmelite Convent during a pilgrimage on May 25-30.
The book titled Soeur Thérèse de L’Enfant-Jesus was published in 1898, only a year after Thérèse’s death and is the compilation of all the notebooks St Thérèse wrote telling her life story.
Isadore Guérin, St Thérèse’s uncle, commissioned the original 2,000 copies. Those books “were sent around to all of the common convents and monasteries and given to friends and visitors,” the priest said. “I always had this dream that maybe I was to find one of these 2,000 copies.”
The asking price at the auction was of only €60, so the priest thought it was not an original first edition. However, once the book arrived, “I just noticed among the blank pages a Latin phrase meaning ‘from the library of I. Guérin’, that’s her uncle”.
With that information, Fr Hurley “emailed the archives of the Carmelite Convent in Lisieux.” After some tests and analysis, the book was confirmed to be an original first edition.
“I firmly believe that in some way Thérèse wanted me to have this, because I would be aware of its significance. The Sisters in the convent were very kind and said that maybe I should keep this for my lifetime. Or maybe in my will, I could bequeath it to the convent.
“But I said, ‘look, you never know what can happen when things can go wrong,’” so the priest decided “it would be nice to mark the canonisation [anniversary] by returning [the book] to the convent.” Fr Hurley’s niece, who is ten, will be the one handing the book to the Sisters, so the book’s “memory will live on in the family.”
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Read the full interview in next week’s edition.
