Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux [Paperback]

Heather King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2011

If you have not read Heather King before, her honesty may shock you. In this remarkable memoir, you will see how a convert with a checkered past spends a year reflecting upon St. Thérèse of Lisieux—and discovers the radical faith, true love, and abundant life of a cloistered 19th-century French nun.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

What do heather King and St. Thérèse of Lisieux have in common? Their lives of faith have been propelled by a revolutionary refusal to reduce their desire for happiness. Read this book and you will want to join them in their defense of the desires that make us human.

--Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete, author of God at the Ritz
 
"Heather King's sojourn with Saint Thérèse of Lisieux is a magnificent testimony not only to the Catholic conviction that the Saints endure in the life of the Church as real friends and lively companions, but also the uncanny ability of the "Little Flower" to graciously insinuate herself into the lives of the most unexpected people in the most surprising of circumstances.  One of the year's best reads in Catholic spirituality!" 

--Father Robert Barron, Francis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture
Founder and Director of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries
 
"Heather King's incisive honesty draws me in, makes me feel her agonies and joys, and sends me away enriched. St. Thérèse must be very pleased."
--Robert J. Edmonson, C.J., translator and editor, The Story of a Soul: A New Translation

From the Back Cover

"This book brings out the grit of sanctity, how it is a continuous, no-holds barred full-on contact engagement with reality. The episodes from St. Thérèse's life and Ms. King's reflections concerning her own path show how both the French Carmelite and her L.A.-based follower simplify their lives, not as an escape, but precisely in order to face without distraction the gargantuan challenge and adventure of love, surrender, living out, to the last drop their embrace of the Savior of the world."
--Fr. Vincent T. Nagle, Holy Family Parish, Ramallah, West Bank, The Palestinian Territories
 
"A moving book written with so much humility, confidence, and love. The true meaning of the Little Way shines through Heather King's grace-filled witness. The author's original prayers are some of the most beautiful I have ever read."
--Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P. editor-in-chief, Magnificat
 
"Heather King's walk with St. Thérèse is a profound account of turning one's life toward the light--a journey to which, as she makes clear, we are all invited."
--Bethany Saltman, Zen essayist and poet

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Paraclete Press (October 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557258082
• ISBN-13: 978-1557258083
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #29 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Catholicism > Saints

More About the Author

I'm an ex-lawyer, a former barfly, and a Catholic convert with three memoirs: Parched (the dark years); Redeemed (crawling toward the light); and Shirt of Flame (my year of wandering around Koreatown, L.A., reflecting upon and trying to live out the spirituality of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a cloistered 19th-c. French nun).

I also speak nationwide and blog at Shirt of Flame: Musings on Los Angeles, The Writing Life, Divine Intoxication, and the Thin Line Between Passion and Pathology (shirtofflame.blogspot.com).

For a complete list of publications, contact info, upcoming events, etc., visit heather-king.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Angel del Camino December 17, 2011

By Desert Father

Format:Paperback

As a 63 year old recovered male alcoholic, retired naval officer, and Catholic priest I have recently encountered an angel on my road to happy destiny. St. Therese de Lisieux. I don't know why this has happened, but the saint continues to haunt me like the "hound of heaven".

This volume was given to me by a fellow alcoholic in recovery. Again, I know not why. But, it touched me as much as any book I've ever read.

King reminds me of a 21 century Dorothy Day. Unashamed of the gritty past that brought her to her great surrender to the god of her understanding, King shows us the way to dialog with a community of fellow pirgirms who have gone before us...marked with the sign of faith.

She demonstrates that the Communion of Saints is not some fresco on a Vatican wall, but rather a community of wisdom figures alive and well in in her life, her neighborhood, her circle of friends.

Pivotal is how the urbane, sophistocated, "been twice around the block" King is able to identify with a 19th century 24 year old French virgin who entered a cloister at age 15 without ever knowing life as King has known it.

The book is consumately readable. It's thought provoking, amusing, and deeply spiritual.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and beautiful memoir October 11, 2011

By Ginny Kubitz Moyer, Author of "Random MOMents of Grace: Experiencing God in the Adventures of Motherhood"

Format:Paperback

This is a beautiful book. I read Heather King's memoir Redeemed and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to diving into Shirt of Flame(I also have a personal interest in the life and writings of St. Therese of Lisieux, so this book appealed on that level as well). Even if you've never heard of St. Therese, though, you can get a great deal from this memoir. King weaves insightful explanations of Therese's spirituality with her own frank reflections on what it's like to try to live the saint's spirituality in today's world. King doesn't hold back, either; she is very open about her personal struggles (a failed romance, a writing career that is not progressing as she'd hoped, the challenges of being a single woman of a certain age and wondering what her legacy will be). I love how she shows the ways that Therese's writings and insights correspond to her own hungers, her own struggles, her own joys.

It is not easy to write a book that is part explanation of someone else's spirituality and part memoir, but King pulls it off deftly. Some of her passages are achingly beautiful; I've dog-eared many pages to go back and re-read. This is great food for the mind, and the soul.

Required full disclosure: I was sent a review copy by the publisher. I'll be buying this book to give as gifts, though, because it's too beautiful not to share.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this book! October 12, 2011

By Jewels

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

How I wish I could conjure words as eloquent as Heather King's to describe this "little" masterpiece. Inspirational, painfully authentic, and riveting: I read it too fast and will have to read it again. After I pick up her other books and read them, first.

One of my favorite quotes:
All around me, people were saying, "I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. Oh no, I'm definitely not religious." I wanted to reply, "Does blood not beat in your veins? Have you never ached with sorrow at the suffering of the world? Have you never cried at the flight of a bird? Have you never fallen in love?"

Like another reviewer, "I dog-eared many pages to go back and re-read" and I highlighted and used tag flag post-it notes, too.

I fully intend to take this walk with Ms. King and Saint Therese of Lisieux again. Soon.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Superlative November 27, 2011

By Thomas E. Defreitas

Format:Paperback

Heather King is known to this reviewer from her memoirs, Parched (2005) and Redeemed: Stumbling Toward God, Sanity, and the Peace That Passes All Understanding (2008). In these two books, King has established herself as a writer of formidable prowess and of irrepressible grace. Her third book, "Shirt of Flame: A Year with St Thérèse of Lisieux," does not disappoint -- except insofar as under King's contagiously sagacious guidance, we find ourselves wishing that the book were twice as long!

Heather King presents the Carmelite saint to us in twelve chapters -- one for each month of the year. She gives us generous excerpts of Thérèse's autobiography, The Story of a Soul. King proceeds to link the life of the saint to her own life in a wonderfully seamless fashion, and goes on to suggest how those of us who are thirsting for God "as in a dry and weary land, where no water is" (Psalm 63) might benefit from the saint's example, from her wisdom, and yes, from her prayers.

In summarizing the life, the death, and the writing of The Little Flower for readers in 2011, Heather King permits no dilution of the young saint's uncompromising message. Thérèse is someone for whom God is all: someone who offered herself to God completely and without reservation as a "holocaust victim of love." The language startles, as well it might. To the Little Flower -- a name that belies the strength of this saint!... -- the works of mercy and the embrace of the innumerable daily crosses that came her way were not "options"; they were necessities -- necessities made sweet by the overwhelming love that Thérèse had for her God and for her sisters in the Carmel. (Love does not mean, as we learn, that Thérèse was blind to annoyances, but rather that she accepted them without complaint or rebellion. How many of us, King asks, are capable of the same "love in action"? Can we suppress the four-letter-word if someone cuts us off in traffic?)

The book speaks of love, which King defines as "the incandescent drive to subvert all power systems [...] the unpredictable x that throws off all bets." (Thérèse's love for God drove her to breach protocol during a papal visit, and beg the Roman pontiff to allow her to enter the Carmel at age 15.) All too often, King postulates, we suffer from "reduction of desire," settling for spurious and fleeting consolations. Or worse, we find ourselves in league with those "power systems" that have nothing to do with love (major political parties, perhaps, being a prime example). Thérèse's advice, and King's advice, is profoundly Christian -- in fact, it is timeless! To make the world better, make yourself better! "We don't say a novena or two for the victims of abortion and rape, human trafficking, child prostitution, and sex addiction, then wring our hands. We change our whole lives."

King's vignettes from her own life are as compelling as they are relevant to her theme. To cite two examples, the unexpected and most welcome kindness paid to her by a street person named Gene; and the serenity she managed to find in rush-hour gridlock, listening to Glenn Gould perform the Goldberg Variations. "I looked out the window at the billboards for strip joints, the Citadel Mall with its fake Assyrian castle façade, the red neon cross on top of a church in the distance, and thought: Only God could have imagined L.A."

While both the 19th-century Carmelite Thérèse Martin and the 21st-century ex-barfly Heather King speak often of the vital necessity of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, we must never lose sight of the Source of all our love and of all our energy: without God, we are, as King writes, "lost sheep, trying to get good spiritual marks by denying [our] humanity." We are counselled: "Stop struggling, and the kingdom of God will be accomplished through you. Sit down on the floor like a baby, and Christ will bend down and lift you up."

Each chapter of "Shirt of Flame" ends with a prayer of Heather King's composition. These are prayers written by one who has walked "the thin line between passion and pathology," as King calls it; they are among the most beautiful facets of this very beautiful book.

"Shirt of Flame" instills in us the desire to get to know God more, through one of his saints, Thérèse of Lisieux; it will likely impel the reader to delve into the saint's own writing in "Story of a Soul." But if we have not yet read Thérèse's autobiography, we can be grateful for the stellar introduction that Heather King has given us to the Carmelite nun who pledged that she would "spend her heaven doing good on earth." Read more ›