Briefly Reviewed: June 2026

A Shower of Roses: The Most Beautiful Miracles of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

By Camille Burette

Publisher: Angelico Press

Pages: 196

Price: $17.95

Review Author: Michael Storck

First published in French on the 150th anniversary of St. Thérèse’s death (which coincided with the 100th anniversary of her beatification), A Shower of Roses was made available in English on the centenary of the saint’s canonization. The book consists of stories of a variety of miracles obtained through the intercession of St. Thérèse — a small selection of the more than 13,500 miracles documented in the archives of the Carmel of Lisieux. These stories, selected by the Carmel’s archivist, took place from the first years of the 20th century through recent decades and range in place from France and England to Mongolia, Egypt, Ecuador, Canada, and the United States. The shortest narrations are only a brief paragraph, leaving the reader wishing for more detail, while the longest extend to five or six pages. As a translation, the book does include the occasional odd turn of phrase and unusual word choice. On the whole, however, it is readable, and the stories lend themselves to thoughtful pondering and encourage the reader’s faith and devotion.

A Shower of Roses is organized by type of miracle. The first section contains miracles from the First World War. This is followed by sections containing healings, conversions, miracles involving missions (a special love of St. Thérèse’s during her life), miracles for children, the granting of material assistance, and a miscellaneous section called “Diverse Graces.” The final section shows the saint’s special love for the Carmelite order and for her own family and consists of miracles for both.

As well as ranging widely in time and place, the miracles granted through St. Thérèse’s intercession show a broad variety. They include the healing of a prize milk cow with a broken hip, the miraculous receipt of desperately needed funds both for individuals and several Carmelite convents, delivery from physical dangers (both during the First World War and in civilian life), and even the answer to a young girl’s prayer for money to buy a square of chocolate. But, as both the introduction and the stories themselves make clear, these graces were granted to increase the faith of Thérèse’s devotees as well as to provide for their material needs. Material blessings are given with a spiritual benefit in mind.

One memorable story is the healing of the child Édith Gassion (later and better known as the singer Édith Piaf). During the First World War, the young Édith was raised for a few years by her paternal grandmother, who ran a brothel in Bernay, Normandy. During this time, Édith suffered from keratitis, an inflammation of the cornea that left her blind. Her grandmother and five women from the household prayed to St. Thérèse for her healing and (modestly clothed in black dresses without slit skirts or low-cut necklines) took young Édith on a pilgrimage to Lisieux. There Édith prayed at and placed a rose on St. Thérèse’s grave. After her return from Lisieux, the child wore a little bag over her eyes containing dust her grandmother had gathered from Thérèse’s grave. Some days later, after continued prayers, Édith was healed of her blindness.

The most thoroughly documented miracles in this volume are those recognized in the process of the saint’s beatification and canonization. The accounts of these miracles, all of them healings, give the reader a sense of the rigor required for a miracle to be recognized in these canonical processes; they include the testimony of physicians and the confirmation of the healings with X-rays and, in one case, a blood test. The evidence for these miracles is, in fact, every bit as rigorous as the evidence required for a criminal trial in a secular court of law and should give confidence to Catholics who might be tempted to feel embarrassment at stories of miracles.

In fact, one valuable benefit a book of this sort provides, particularly for readers apt to engage in intellectual combat of a political and philosophical sort, is an antidote to over-intellectualism. The Catholic faith, while it does have political, moral, and cultural ramifications, is not primarily a matter of politics. Similarly, the faith, despite the deep philosophical reflection it presupposes and inspires, does not rest on rational demonstration. It rests, rather, on the gift of the Holy Spirit. When Our Lord instituted His Church, He accompanied His preaching with signs and miracles. As a reminder that these miracles, including miracles as well evidenced as any scientific discovery, continue even today, a book of this kind can strengthen the reader’s faith and encourage devotion to a saint of our time who is well known but not well known enough.

A Shower of Roses presents to the thoughtful reader a sacramental view of miracles. In contrast to a popular caricature of religion as a “magical” means of wish fulfillment, the physical universe, the beautiful variety and complexity of visible creation, serves to lead mankind, body and soul, to the greatest of realities, to God Himself. In the sacraments, material substances, spoken words, and sacred gestures serve spiritual realities. Similarly, other material things, whether images, relics, sacramentals, or miracles, serve to bring us to deeper spiritual realities. This book’s many examples of miracles led those to whom they were granted to conversion, deeper faith, and greater fervor, and it can do the same for us.

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