Saturday, May 1, 2010

St. Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus

Today is Theme Day for the City Daily Photo bloggers around the world. The theme this month is STATUES. I thought I'd join in on this blog and feature one of my favorite statues in all of the churches I've visited in France.

Notre Dame de Lorette church is undergoing some much needed restoration as you can see by the wall behind this lovely statue of Saint Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus, the patron saint of missions. Pope Pius XI considered her the "star of his pontificate". She died at the age of 24 and is thought to be one of the greatest saints of the 20th century. I love the simplicity of this beautiful piece of sculpture.

12 comments:

vicki archer said...

She is lovely Virginia....and I really love your 'voyeur shot' below. Hope all is well with you, xv.
PS Those red doors from a while back on my blog are just near the Élysée Palace on the rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré.

Yvi said...

Great theme day photo!

Daryl said...

Now I must GOOGLE her to find out why she achieved sainthood ... lovely statue

MadAboutParis said...

That was a fun day...just hated that the Rose Bakery was closed - I guess that we'll have to go back!!!

Vagabonde said...

That is a pretty statue Virginia. It is good that they are restoring the wall since the churches don’t have much money in France (not enough people going.) I was just reading an interesting article in Times yesterday, which is the French church is going on an ad campaign to try to enroll more priests as they are drastically running out of them. They are going to even put ads on Facebook! They were saying that in a country of (on the books) 41.6 millions saying they are catholic, only 2 millions attend church, that is less than 5% compared this to the US going to church like 60%, that is quite a difference. Here is the link to the article: http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/article425573.ece/French-priests-recruit-on-facebook.

Amanda said...

Beautiful statue.

Unknown said...

Lovely! And I like the contrast to the old frescoes. Well done, V.!

Starman said...

Considering my opinion of The Church, I don't put much credence to whatever comes out of the Vatican. But I do like this picture.

Alexa said...

Lovely photo! If I recall from my early Catholic school education, she is the saint we refer to here as "the little flower of Jesus." Pretty soon maybe all the beautiful old European churches will have to charge an entrance fee (as some in Italy already do).

TheChieftess said...

Lovely shot...ditto about the contrast from statue to frescos!!!

Thérèse said...

I have been named after her Virginia, a lovely statue! We are both from Normandy!

Thérèse said...

No I don't think I ever went inside Notre Dame de Lorette Virginia but perhaps one day I will...
There is a lovely statue of her in the Basilica of Lisieux, Calvados, built in her honor in the 1920s, finished in the 60's. It's the second place of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes!