Lovely Lisieux

It has been a desire of mine to come to Lisieux for almost 5 years now – ever since I read “The Story of a Soul” (the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux). I can now honestly say that this town was everything I had hoped for... and so much more! After 2 overnight trains within 3 days, and a VERY overcrowded Lourdes, we were really hoping that our last stop – a three night stay in Lisieux – would be a restful one. Well, God REALLY outdid himself this time! We arrived around 10am, after about 20 hours of travelling and countless espressos. By the time lunch rolled around we were STARVING and ready to eat just about anything. Luckily, the center for pilgrims where we’re staying not only costs a mere 30E/night; it also includes 3 meals a day. So we headed down to lunch, expecting to find cold sandwiches, and were served a full 4-course French meal: red wine, salad, rice, steamed veggies, chicken, bread, cheese and caramel flan! Oh, but it didn’t stop there: when everything had been served the community of young women who live here and run the center all come out with their djembes and guitars and sang to us! These lavish meals were served daily for each lunch and supper, always including 2 songs by the sisters (and an Ave Maria at supper time).

Food aside, Lisieux is a lovely, peaceful place. We were lucky to have started out our time here with a free, 3 hour guided tour for pilgrims, given by one of the many youth volunteers swarming the town. We saw the Basilica of St Therese as well as her home, parish and convent (Carmel) where she spent her religious life. We finished by stopping to pray at her tomb in the chapel at Carmel. These were all very profound experiences for me as I have always had a strong devotion to St Therese, and seeing the exact rooms, statues, gardens and streets that she spoke of in her autobiography made it all seem so real. Yes, I know it IS real, but sometimes reading books about far away and long ago Saint can make them seem almost like a fairy tale.
The Cathedral of St. Therese was absolutely incredible. I still think the Basicila we saw in Turin is my favourite, but this one comes in a close second. Building of the basicila began just before the second world war, and was completed shortly afterwards. The paintings, mosaics and stained glass windows all told a story, and all represented something related to Therese, her life or her teachings. For example, the windows on the right were blue, to represent mercy, and the windows on the left were red for love. The mosaics at the front contained scenes from the Old Testament involving angels and demonstrating God’s faithfulness to his people (she loved angels). The scene just behind the altar showed Mary and St Therese holding open the cloak of Jesus with lambs approaching (there were leading people to Jesus). The Basilica also contained 18 side-chapels, each dedicated to a country that had made a contribution in the building of the basilica. We were pretty excited (and proud) to see the Canadian Chapel, featuring the patron Saint of Canada, St Joseph.

Since we had 3 days here we decided Lisieux would be a sort of retreat stop for us. So, on our second day here, we slept in and then decided to take the day to be apart... I need my alone time sometimes! I had a great afternoon, wandering through the woods, writing, reading and calling my sister. The only bad part came when I had a bit of a problem getting my phone card to work and broke down crying (for the first time since being away) out of pure exhaustion and frustration. After 2 hours, 2 different people’s help and a long wait outside the phone booth, though, I got to talk to Meg. At the end of our conversation a man burst into my phone booth (after arguing with the guy in the booth next to me) and starting yelling that he had been waiting for 25 minutes and was going to call the police if I didn’t hang up. Oh, the funny characters to run into in places like this...

The rest of our stay here involved daily mass, a beautiful evening prayer led by the youth volunteers, lavish meals, coffee, drinks at cafes with free WiFi and my first (yummy) Crème Brulée. Although I am very sad to leave Lisieux, I am very thankful to have had this as our last stop before heading back to Canada. It was a great way to relax and re-focus before re-entering the real world.