Saint Therese the Demon Slayer

Have you seen the Baritus image of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux dropping rose petals on a tormented demon, causing them to burst into flames? 

This is by far the best and perhaps only artistic presentation of Saint Therese engaging in spiritual warfare against demons. We usually fail to see her child-like purity as powerful in our fight against evil because she is little and daInty and well, French. 

“I was used to seeing her holding flowers and looking sweet and a little bit saccharine. That vintage stuff resonates with me, but if I tried it, it wouldn’t look authentic. I have a version where she’s dropping rose petals on a demon, and he’s bursting into flame. It’s basically a retelling of her killing with kindness,”  said the artist, Chris Lewis. The listing for the print describes it as "Original art of Thérèse of Lisieux, displaying acts of kindness and defeating the capital sin of envy".

In the Baritus image, the Saint who promised to "let fall a shower of roses" while spending her heaven doing good on earth often in little unseen ways, stands over a demon who is below her writhing in pain on all fours while next to her is simply one word, "Kindness".  She stretches out her right hand and drops one by one petals from the bouquet of red roses cradled in her left arm.  

Traditionally red roses from Saint Therese signify married life and white roses the religious life. Perhaps the meaning of red roses in this image represents the attack on marriage and family life that the devil has waged. Ironically it is red roses that are dropping on him like soft, fragrant bombs full of divine love. In counting the petals, six have already ignited on the winged, skeletal demon’s skin while six are falling from her hand above. There are a total of 12 petals to represent the apostles and by extension full people of God, the Church. 

The humility of Therese stands in contrast to the pride of the demons. Her littleness crushes and consumes the largeness of the demon’s ego one rose petal at a time.

She shows us that The Little Way and humility can have immense spiritual power in our battle against our own fallen nature and in our warfare against the angelic powers of darkness. The demon recoils and is repelled by genuine holiness portrayed by the purgative flames. 

In her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, St. Thérèse described a vivid and disturbing dream she had around the age of three or four. She wrote,

I was walking alone in the garden when suddenly I saw two horrible little devils near the arbor, dancing on a barrel of lime with amazing agility, in spite of having heavy irons on their feet. They looked at me with flaming eyes, then, as if overcome by fear, threw themselves in the twinkling of an eye to the bottom of the barrel. They escaped in some mysterious way and ran off to hide in the linen room, which opens onto the garden. When I saw how cowardly they were, I put my fears aside and went over to the window to see what they were up to. There the little wretches were, running round and round the table, and not knowing how to escape my gaze. From time to time they came nearer, still very agitated, to peep through the window; then, when they saw I was still there, they began racing about again in abject misery.

I do not suppose this dream was very extraordinary, but I do think God made use of it to show me that a soul in the state of grace need never be afraid of the devil, who is such a coward that even the gaze of a child will frighten him away.

Here is a link to the Baritus' Etsy website and the image of Saint Therese… For more about Saint Therese and spiritual warfare see Spirit Daily.