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An advertisement for The Hidden Face in America Magazine on February 14, 1959.
The Hidden Face is a biography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux by the Catholic author Ida Friederike Görres (1901 Bohemia – 1971 Germany). Görres first published this book in German in 1944.[1] An English version, translated by Richard and Clara Winston, was published in 1959.[2] It is still in print today.[3]The Hidden Face is considered to be Görres' most important work.[4]
The central question that prompted Görres to write The Hidden Face was, “Who was Thérèse of the Child Jesus in reality?”[5] The book contains seven chapters.
"...so different from the honeyed insipidity of the usual representations of her" - "Who was Thérèse of the Child Jesus in reality?" (The Hidden Face p. 21)
Chapters:
I The Question
II The Nest
III The Desert
IV The Way
V The Breakthrough
VI Perfection
VII The Riddle of Glory
Synopsis
I. The Story and the Problem
“The cult of Little Thérèse has from the first been a mass movement."[6] In the first chapter, Görres explores the widespread fascination with St. Thérèse following her death in 1897. Görres presents the paradox that St. Thérèse never “did anything that struck her contemporaries as extraordinary” yet was the subject of an “incredible storm of veneration." [7]
II. The Nest
In the second chapter, Görres identifies and examines three stages in Thérèse's childhood. Regarding the first stage of early childhood, Görres notes that the saint's later doctrine of the "way of spiritual childhood" was based on the experience of an "unmerited, unmeritable, anticipatory, unconditional and immutable" love as a toddler.[8] Görres refers to the second part of Thérèse’s childhood as the “saddest time of her life” lasting from age five to fourteen.[9] The author asserts that the death of Thérèse’s mother unlocked a “dangerous, abnormal sensitivity” in the child that plagued her during this period.[10] The third and final stage of Thérèse's childhood was a time in which the young teenager “regained her self" and received "the grace of complete conversion."[11][12]
III. The Desert
"It was the desert itself, not storms or dangerous beasts, that met her in the Carmel. She did not 'suffer from life', as do melancholics and those who are oversensitive; but she suffered life as simple and childlike folk must...suffered the permanence and inescapability of its demands, its irreconcilable contradictions, its stubborn disharmonies, its bleak destitution..."[13]
Görres summarizes Thérèse's life in Carmel in this chapter, noting the trials faced by Thérèse in confronting strict treatment from the prioress and continued coddling from her family.[14] The author also dedicates a section of the chapter to studying the puzzling personality of Mother Marie de Gonzague, who was prioress for many of Therese's years in the convent.
Reception
In 1990, psychologist Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R., praised the book not only as an account of St. Thérèse but even beyond that, observing “One of the most outstanding biographies of a saint ever written is The Hidden Face, the life of Thérése of Lisieux, by Ida F. Goerres."[15]
And at the time the English translation of The Hidden Face was released in 1959, there were many positive reviews in the UK and the USA. For example:
In the assessment of reviewer Paul R. Rust, The Hidden Face is “unquestionably the finest contribution yet to the voluminous writings on the Little Flower.”[16]
In the Catholic magazine The Lamp, a reviewer identified The Hidden Face as among the “books which help toward increasing our knowledge of Christ.”[17]
The prominent English Roman Catholic priest Cyril Charlie Martindale noted that the writing of the book “added, most valuably, to the mountain of books piled above St. Thérèse of Lisieux.”[18]
According to a review by S.M. Albert, the book “is original, profound, stimulating, and one can scarcely imagine its being bettered as a serious biographical study.”[19]
In the Catholic publication Dominicana, a reviewer referred to The Hidden Face as “a powerfully convincing book” and “an untouched portrait of a great saint, removed from all the savors of poor hagiography and pious sentimentality."[20]
Regarding The Hidden Face, reviewer Luke Rigby, O.S.B., “felt more sure than nobody has expressed more honestly, clearly and lovingly the essential significance and attraction of this saint.”[21]
In the Jesuit periodical Woodstock Letters, Gerard Giblin called the book “one of the most comprehensive to appear to date,” adding that it would “be many years before it is replaced.”[22]
Reviewer Sister Mary William called the book “a very satisfying experience” and that in the book “Therese’s life and character are examined objectively” more than any other book she had read.[23]
American theologian Donald Bloesch asserted that Görres “gives an acute psychological and profound theological appraisal of the life and message of St. Therese in her book The Hidden Face.”[24]
Sources
Cover of the 2nd edition in German, 1946.Ida Friederike Görres, The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Thérèse of Lisieux Ignatius Press 2003 ISBN0-89870-927-X
^Görres, Ida Friederike. Das Verborgene Antlitz. 1st ed. Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany: Verlag Herder, 1944.
^Görres, Ida Friederike. The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Therese of Lisieux. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. First, Great Britain. London: Burns & Oates, 1959.
^Görres, Ida Friederike. The Hidden Face: A Study of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2003.
^Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R. and Terrence L. Weber, Thy Will Be Done: A Spiritual Portrait of Terence Cardinal Cooke (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 1990), 219.
^Paul R. Rust, O. M. I., “Review of The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Ida Friederike Görres,” Catholic World 189, no. 1131 (June 1959): 254–55.
^Cyril Charlie Martindale and Fr. Martindale (AKA), S.J., “St. Thérèse of Lisieux: Review of The Hidden Face by Ida Friederike Görres,” The Times Literary Supplement, no. 2977 (20 March 1959): 168, The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive.
^S.M. Albert, O.P., “Review of The Hidden Face by Ida Görres,” Life of the Spirit (1946-1964), vol. 14, no. 160 (October 1959): 182-183), Wiley.
^D.M.F., “Review of the Hidden Face: A Study of St. Therese of Lisieux by Ida F. Goerres,” Dominicana 44, no. 3, (Fall 1959): 307–308.
^Luke Rigby, “Review of The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Ida Friederike Görres,” The Critic 17, no. 5 (April-May 1959): 52, Archive.org.
^Gerard F. Giblin, “Modern Sanctity: Review of The Hidden Face by Ida F. Goerres,” Woodstock Letters (July 1959): 326-327.
^Sister Mary William, “St. Therese’s Life Examined in Objective German Study,” The Catholic Standard and Times, vol. 64, no. 25 (13 March 1959): 16, Thecatholicnewsarchive.org.
^Donald Bloesch, “Defender of Free Grace: Review of Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux and The Hidden Face, by Ida F. Goerres”, The Christian Century 77, no.11 (16 March 1960): 318.
