During the First World War, Fr. Daniel Brottier, a priest of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, volunteered as a military chaplain. Assigned to the 26th infantry division, he spent the entire war on the front line. He helped wounded soldiers, accompanying the dying and hearing their confessions, without ever being wounded himself. It was a “miracle” he attributed to St. Thérèse, and one that would have a major impact on his life and spirituality.
At the end of the war, he met up in Paris with his friend Bishop Jalabert, with whom he had worked as a missionary in Senegal. Fr. Brottier told him about the horrors of war, and expressed his astonishment at having escaped alive. “One day,” he exclaimed, ”a bullet even went through my overcoat without touching me.”
At this point, Bishop Jalabert, overcome with emotion, removed from his breviary a card with two images of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and handed it to Fr. Brottier. The priest opened it and discovered his own photo inside, with this inscription written by the bishop: “Little Sister Thérèse, keep my Fr. Brottier safe for me.” Bishop Jalabert then said, “If you’re looking for who protected you, don’t hesitate any longer, it’s her… She is the one who ensured the ongoing miracle of your protection.”
A witness at the time, Fr. Paul Rigault, then reported what Fr. Brottier told him shortly afterwards: “These words [from Bishop Jalabert] were immediately an overwhelming revelation for me. So the work I’ll have to accomplish, I thought, will be something desired by little Sister Thérèse. And, in the depths of my heart, I have put myself at Thérèse’s disposal for the moment Providence would like to indicate to me.”
A chapel for Thérèse
From that moment on, Fr. Daniel Brottier, who until then had felt little interest in the young Carmelite nun from Lisieux (who had not yet been beatified), began to read Story of a Soul. He was deeply moved by it and developed an intense devotion to Thérèse.
Providence soon manifested itself. In 1923, Fr. Brottier was asked to take over the management of an orphanage of Apprentis d’Auteuil. At the time, the institution had 170 children and was riddled with debt. Fr. Brottier, seeing this request as a sign from Thérèse, accepted. “When Bishop Le Roy spoke to me about taking on the management of the Œuvre d’Auteuil, I felt that it was there that I was awaited by the little Carmelite saint of Lisieux. That’s why I accepted, not yet foreseeing how she would help me, but sure of her shower of roses.”
No sooner had Fr. Brottier arrived than he set about building a more dignified chapel than the “shed made of bricks” that had served as church until then. The chapel was to be dedicated to Thérèse of the Child Jesus, in gratitude for her protection during the war but also to offer “his” young orphans a maternal and protective figure.
Permission granted…
On the very day of his arrival, November 21, 1923, he wrote to the Mother Prioress of the Carmelite convent in Lisieux, setting out his idea and asking for a sign from Providence. “The chapel we have is inadequate, ugly (…). I would like to build one overlooking the street, spacious, beautiful, for the orphans and also for our neighborhood, and dedicate it to the Blessed. It would be her first shrine in Paris itself… and I’m convinced that the Blessed will love to protect my dear children, and receive in their home the homage of the Parisians who will not fail to flock to this sanctuary.”
Fr. Brottier suggested that the prioress consider the two authorizations required for the project (from the archbishop of Paris, and from his own superior Bishop Le Roy) as an assent from Providence. The financial aspect didn’t seem to faze him; he was totally confident that “the dear little Blessed would take care of sending [them] the few hundred thousand francs needed to complete the project.” And to be sure, he invited the Carmelite community to join in the novena for the project.
The decisive sign
In addition to the green light from Heaven, Fr. Brottier was waiting for a very concrete sign from Thérèse. He asked her to get him the sum of 10,000 francs before his meeting with the Bishop of Paris on November 30. “Little Thérèse, if you want me to speak to the cardinal about your chapel, make sure I receive 10,000 francs before I go to see him. Otherwise, it means you don’t want this chapel and I won’t talk about it.”
On November 30, the novena came to an end. At 4pm, Fr. Brottier was due to meet the bishop, but the sign had still not arrived… As he went down into the courtyard to hail a cab, a woman approached him. “Father, I asked you last week to pray for my child, whose condition was desperate. He’s cured! Here’s an envelope in thanks,” she said. The priest opened the envelope, sure of what he would find… The envelope contained 10,000 francs.
During the meeting, the bishop suggested using young saints as role models for the young orphans, rather than a Carmelite nun. Fr. Daniel Brottier stood firm, emphasizing Thérèse’s maternal aspect. “On the contrary, these children who have been deprived so young of a mother’s affection feel such an emptiness in their hearts that they will cling with all their soul to this young saint, to whom they will owe everything: she will be their little mother.” According to the traditional story, the priest then whispered, “My boys may not care much for her, but she will care for them a lot.”
A “very pretty dress” for Thérèse
Fr. Brottier worked on building his chapel and running Apprentis d’Auteuil with the same trust in Divine Providence. Fundraising for the shrine began on December 8, 1923.
The plans, designed by the architects Chailleux and Sons, were for a large, beautiful basilica. “I’ve been criticized for wanting a chapel that was too luxurious, but it was I who put the question to little Thérèse. I asked her, ‘Do you want a simple dress or a very pretty one?’ And in a few weeks, she sent me a very large sum of money… and I understood.”
The first mass in the chapel was at Christmas, on December 25, 1925. Now open to the public all year round, the St. Thérèse Chapel is home to relics of St. Thérèse, donated by the Carmelite monastery of Lisieux in 1923, as well as the tomb of now-Blessed Daniel Brottier.
Throughout his apostolate, Fr. Daniel Brottier made his own the words of Thérèse, which invite us to trust almost blindly: “One can never have too much trust in a God so good and so merciful… It is trust and nothing but trust that must lead us.”
And today we celebrate...