IN HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Thérèse of Lisieux writes: “Ah! how many lights have I not drawn from the works of our holy Father, St. John of the Cross! . . . At the ages of 17 and 18, I had no other spiritual nourishment.” In this book, Bishop Gaucher, a well-known French author and eminent authority on St. Thérèse, meticulously traces John’s influence on the young Carmelite nun and finds that he was a presence that guided and inspired her throughout her short life, right up to the day she died. “God’s poet” was for her a teacher of Faith, Hope and especially Love. No other book about Thérèse’s spirituality unfolds so completely what this young Saint and Doctor of the Church really meant by “the flames of love,” which consumed her as surely as the flames of any holocaust. To live and “to die of love” was her sole passion; “to love Jesus and to make him loved” was the essence of her singular vocation and mission in life. Through the pages of this book, we are able, at least a little, to gain entrance into the heart of all her poetry and, at the same time, are given a new — or perhaps very first — understanding of some of the more difficult passages from the writings of her spiritual father and mentor, St. John of the Cross.