← [[f2-c-apx-f|Determined Determination — Dr. Rudolf v. D'Souza, OCD]] | [[formation-II-c-handbook-toc|Table of Contents]] | [[f2-c-apx-h|JPII Homily, Proclamation of St. Thérèse Doctor of the Church]] → # St. Thérèse's Poem Strewing Flowers From the Poetry of Thérèse of Lisieux Copyright Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc. ICS Publications. Used with permission. PN 34 — Strewing Flowers (June 28, 1896) Every night during June of 1896 Thérèse and the five young sisters in the novitiate would meet after Compline — about eight o’clock — at the granite cross in the courtyard. They would gather the petals shed beneath the twenty or so rose bushes there and throw them at the Crucifix. Thérèse would say, “Let’s see whose will go highest and touch the Face of our good Jesus!” (Sister Marie of the Eucharist, 6/24/1896). Thérèse herself would carefully choose: her petals “so as only to strew very fresh ones,” (Sister Genevieve). Naturally Mother Agnes of Jesus liked this symbolic rite. For her feast day (June 29, Saints Peter and Paul), Thérèse composed — we do not know whether of her own accord of by request — a canticle on this theme. In spite of some nice ideas (Refr. 1, 2-3) and some beautiful versed (2, 1), this test makes no great poetic pretentions. Its Virgilian grace and sweet tone, its tender style, and its charming images (not always developed very coherently) diminished somewhat the strength of this powerful symbol (cf. GCI, pp. 182-183). Perhaps too, our sensitivity is a little irritated by the stereotypes image associated with Thérèse (strewing flowers, the unpetalled rose, saccharine statues, little angels) for which this poem is a special medium. Never the less, it would be a shame for all that to make us neglect this essential poem in Thérèse’s repertory. The symbol of the unpetalled rose has deep roots in her childhood: “How I loved the feasts!… I especially loved the processions in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. What a joy it was for me to throw flowers beneath the feet of God!... I was never so happy as when I saw my roses touch the sacred Monstrance...” (SS, pg. 41). In 1896 Thérèse’s childhood gesture took on a new expressive power. Those flowers strewn on the Christ in the courtyard signify her whole life of love as a Carmelite. Three months later, she made this explicit in a text that is that is even more powerful and beautiful, even richer and more triumphant: pages 196-197 of Manuscript B of her autobiography. In that passage sacrificial love and giving to others are inseparable, in accord with her Carmelite vocation. She sings the ultimate stage in this giving of self in “The Unpetalled Rose” (PN 51). In that poem it is no longer a matter of acts of love, but her very life that she is lavishing. This is the harsh 75 reality of the sacrifice that, right up to the end, she wants to give meaning to this elegant symbol. Flowers also illumine Her Last Conversations with the “smile”1 (HLC, pg. 319). That vivid image of Thérèse’s mission after death, “a shower of roses” (HLC, pg. 62) unveils — or rather should not veil — her only ambition in heaven as on earth: to love Jesus and make Him loved. (Melody: “Oui, je le crois”) Strewing Flowers 1 Jesus, my only Love, how I love to strew Flowers Each evening at the foot of your Crucifix! In unpetalling the springtime rose for you, I would like to dry your tears… R.1 Strewing flowers is offering you as first fruits My slightest sighs, my greatest sufferings. My sorrows and my joys, my little sacrifices, Those are my flowers!..... 2 Lord, my soul is in love with your beauty I want to squander my perfumes and my flowers.on you. In strewing them for you on the wings of the breeze, I would like to inflame hearts!.... R.2 Strewing Flowers, Jesus, is my weapon When I want to fight to save sinners. The victory is mine…. I always disarm you With my flowers!!!... 3 The flower petals caressing your face. Tell you that my heart is yours forever. You understand the language of my unpetalled rose, And you smile at my love. R.3 Strewing Flowers, repeating your praise. That is my only delight in this valley of tears. Soon I shall go to Heaven with the little angels To strew Flowers!... 1 “The flower is the smile of God,” she wrote at Christmas of 1894 (RP 2). 76 01.24 1-24-2024 --- **Source:** Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, *Formation II Year C: Story of a Soul (The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux)* (US National Formation Program, 2024).