Diptych saint Louis Martin and the quotation "j'aimais papa"

Description Diptych saint Louis Martin and the quotation "j'aimais papa"

The image in the left panel of this diptych is a drawing made in charcoal by sister Geneviève which represents Saint Louis Martin, the father of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, canonized in 2015.

On the right panel is inscribed a sentence of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus from the manuscript A.
In order to fully understand the passage, we must remember what she wrote a few lines above. In the preceding lines Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus recounted the prophetic vision which she had had at the age of six or seven years. She lives in the garden "a man dressed absolutely like Papa, having the same size and the same gait, only he was much more bent ... His head was covered with a kind of apron of indecisive color so that I could not see his face. … It was really him, carrying on his venerable face, on his whitened head, the sign of his glorious ordeal ... "This prophetic vision, Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus obviously did not understand it instantly. But when it came true, then the eyes of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus opened. The bitter pains, of which she speaks in the text quoted below, are all the sufferings caused to her by her father's illness.
"I can't say what I loved Papa" is not a very correct language. She probably wanted to say "I can't say how much I loved Papa".
Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus had the grace of having a father who did not give her a distorted image of fatherhood, on the contrary. For her, seeing God as a good Father found a natural echo in her.

Here is the passage from which is drawn the sentence of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus chosen for this diptych:
"Never, as I just said, I could not bear even the thought of the bitter sorrows that the future held for me ... I could not even think without trembling that Papa could die ... Once he was climbed on the top of a ladder and as I stayed just below he shouted at me: "Get away poor little one, if I fall I will crush you. "When I heard this, I felt an inner revolt, instead of walking away I stuck myself against the ladder thinking:" At least if Dad falls, I'm not going to have the pain of seeing him die, since I'm going to die with him! " I can't say what I loved Dad, while he made me admire ; when he explained his thoughts to me (as if I had been a big girl) I naively told him that, of course, if he said all this to the great men of the government, they would take him to make him King and then France would be happy as it had never been ... "

Quotation :

Je ne puis dire ce que j'aimais papa,
tout en lui me causait de l'admiration.

Sr Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus,
et de la Sainte Face