Mother Marie de Gonzague, the superior at the cloistered convent at Carmel, wrote this of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: “Tall and strong, with the air of a child, with a tone of voice and an expression that hide in her the wisdom, perfection and perspicacity of a 50-year-old . . . a little ‘untouchable saint,’ to whom you would give the Good God without confession, but whose cap is full of mischief to play on whomever she wants.

“A mystic, a comic, she is everything. She can make you weep with devotion and just as easily faint with laughing during recreation.”