Customer Reviews

Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux

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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.

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.

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.

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."

Don't let the chick-lit cover fool you. This book will stretch, pull, tug, and push your daily living into greater awareness and deeper holiness. Shirt of Flame and the bibliography at the end of the book will be the basis of the 2012 spiritual exercise at my church. We will be gathering to share our experiences each month following the book and reading additional related material as participants feel called.

In her book, author Heather King takes the reader on a 12-month journey of reflections on St. Thérèse's "Little Way."

This is a delightful book that can be read over the course of a year or as quickly as you'd like. Each month's chapter has a particular theme and begins with a quote by or about St. Thérèse, reflections and personal experiences shared by the author and ends with a prayer.

I thoroughly enjoyed every chapter. If I were to pick one favorite chapter, however, it would be Chapter 12, December, which is entitled "The Divine Elevator" (On Facing Death With Joy) and I really liked this quote from St. Thérèse (which is also from Story of a Soul): "We're in an age of inventions. Now there's no more need to climb the steps of a staircase. In rich homes, there are elevators that replace stairs to great advantage. I would also like to find an elevator to lift me up to Jesus, because I am too little to climb the rough staircase of perfection...the elevator that must lift me up to heaven is your arms, Jesus! For that I don't need to become big. On the contrary, I have to stay little - may I become little, more and more."

Shirt of Flame is a great read and I enjoyed it very much. I highly recommend this book to those who are searching for the modern relevance of St. Thérèse's Little Way.

Thanks to Paraclete Press for the review copy.

Ellen Gable
award-winning author
In Name Only

I have read Heather's memoir Parched. Her descent into the madness of alcoholism is horrifying. I also read Redeemed and enjoyed it.

St. Therese of Lisieux could be an exasperating person. The author, Heather King even found her too much at times.
That is when the reader has to step back. Accept and realize- St.Therese was chosen by God.
We do the best we can, and as I have heard and seen: "FAIL BETTER."

As a long time recovering alcoholic, Heather effortlessly weaves her recovery; the long and on-going journey towards her Christianity. Her wish to worship Christ, as He would like. Thank GOD- He had the infinite wisdom to know how fallible we all are. We do random acts of kindness and feel better.

Heather speaks to others struggling with addictions and imparts her experience, strength and hope. None of us can be St.Therese and good Lord, I certainly do not want to be! Heather King spent a year with this remarkable saint: from religious retreats, long walks, a trip home, solitude, and alone-ness. Solitude is one thing. Being lonely is quite different. Being lonely often takes one on the path to self-pity and why can't I have. I have frequent flyer miles to those destinations.

It is amazing this saint was able to bear all the perfectly good character defects of even her fellow sisters and to obey, especially as she was failing in health to write her memoirs because the Superior Mother asked her to write them.

I particularly enjoyed the prayers the author wrote at the end of each chapter.( NOTE to self- read them a lot!)
Don't worry-nothing too deep. One-step, one little moving forward.

This is a wonderful book for anyone who wants to get to know this remarkable saint, to learn from her and to again accept-life is not always fair- for anyone seeking spirituality. It also a chance, if you have not already to read the amazing author Heather King.

For some, it is a formal religion. For many it is the joy and wonder of seeing, perhaps with new eyes a new flower, a familiar plant, a bird in flight, the kindness to a stranger. Spirituality doesn't need perfection or sainthood: it needs the true human condition.

I savored this book like a fine wine. Tremendous spiritual insight provided by the author. I now get why St. Therese of Lisieux is a Doctor of the Church thanks to the author's unvarnished contemplation of St. Therese's spirituality in light of her own life.

Therese of Lisieux is a beloved saint. She managed to become one while retaining her core likeability. Many saints are off-putting in their rigidity and apparent perfection. Therese invites us to embrace our own imperfections and offer them back to God who, after all, as our maker, is in no position to complain. This lovely little book takes Therese at her word and traces the author's own struggles with alcoholism, loneliness and frustrated yearnings alongside Therese's own difficulties. The little way, it seems, is never easy but is is sure.