St. Thérèse: The Call to Carmel
The windows decorating the Basilica’s Tomb Chapel of St. Thérèse were installed in the late 1930s. All five Gothic-style windows present intricately detailed stories of the life and death of St. Thérèse.
The second window presents the time of the young saint’s vocation to Carmel. The first of four panels portray Thérèse with her sister Celine kneeling in prayer in the Roman Coliseum. The second panel pictures Thérèse at the feet of Pope Leo XIII asking permission to enter Carmel. In the third, we see Thérèse’s father accompanying his daughter to the Carmelite convent of Lisieux. In the fourth, Thérèse is received by the Bishop at the solemn ceremony of her reception into Carmel. In an upper circle of the window, passion flowers symbolize the trials that Thérèse endured to attain her desired goal: to enter Carmel at the premature age of fifteen. The foot of the windows bears the inscription "Pia Union de Santa Teresita” (Pious Union of Little St. Teresa).
"Pia Union de St. Thérèse" and “The Apostolate of the Little Flower" were two organizations canonically established at the National Shrine of the Little Flower to spread devotion to St. Thérèse. The inscription of the names in the windows is a memorial to these organizations, which collected $500 for each window.
The cost of these windows was born by benefactors from nearly every state in the US with offerings of $10 each. The names of these donors are engraved on marble slabs in the tomb chapel.
The Discalced Carmelite friars purchased the windows from Emil Frei. Inc., of St. Louis, and were made at the Frei studio in Munich, Germany. All the drawings are the original work of a Mr. Te Poel, renowned for his masterpieces in art glass.
Information for this article came from "Installation of Art-Glass Windows," an article in the November 1938 issue of “The Apostolate of the Little Flower.”