François-Marie LETHEL, O.C.D.
Translated from Italian
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and the poet Charles Péguy are exact contemporaries, both born in January 1873—Thérèse on the 2nd in Alençon, and Péguy on the 7th in Orléans. Thérèse’s life was the shorter, as we all know; she died in 1897 at the age of 24 in the Carmel of Lisieux. Péguy’s life ended tragically in 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, when the poet was 41 years old.
They are two great witnesses of faith in the modern world and, even more so, witnesses to Christian hope.
We will now seek to embrace their shared testimony on hope, first by listening to Thérèse of Lisieux and then to Charles Péguy. From the outset, however, we must acknowledge that, through very different journeys, both came to discover the broadest dimensions of Christian hope—a hope that consists of desiring salvation for all people. Hoping for everyone.This discovery was the most beautiful response to Jansenism, whose ideas had so greatly narrowed the horizons of hope, not only in France but elsewhere as well.
FIRST PART: SAINT THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX
In her first Autobiographical Manuscript (Mss.A), Thérèse of Lisieux recounts her foundational experience of hope—hope for another person—involving an apparently desperate case: that of the criminal Pranzini, condemned to death and guillotined on 31 August 1887. Thérèse was 14 years old at the time, the year before her entrance into Carmel.
This account appears at the heart of Mss.A, immediately following the “Christmas grace.” It is one of the most beautiful and moving pages written by Thérèse. It must be read while following the dynamics of her narration. The starting point of Thérèse’s experience is something very simple: an image of Jesus Crucified that she notices in her missal during Sunday Mass. Like the “Christmas grace,” it is a small, simple, seemingly insignificant event that becomes the occasion for an immense grace. This pattern is very characteristic of Thérèse’s spiritual experience.
Let us listen to her account:
“One Sunday, looking at an image of Our Lord on the cross, I was struck by the blood flowing from His divine hand. I felt a great pain thinking that this blood was falling to the ground without anyone caring to gather it up. I resolved to remain in spirit at the foot of the cross to receive the divine dew, understanding that I would later have to pour it out upon souls… The cry of Jesus on the cross continuously echoed in my heart: ‘I thirst!’ These words kindled within me a fervour that was utterly new and intensely vivid… I wanted to give my Beloved something to drink, and I felt myself consumed with thirst for souls. It was not yet the souls of priests that attracted me, but those of great sinners; I burned with the desire to snatch them from the eternal flames.”
Through a simple image of Jesus Crucified, lacking great artistic value, Thérèse experiences the deepest meaning of the icon: she contemplates the mystery it represents with the eyes of faith. This new gaze transforms her life.
She perceives Jesus’ blood with the eyes of faith and hears His cry with the hearing of the same faith. This encounter shapes her new outlook. Her resolution is to remain at the foot of the cross, receiving the blood of Jesus and pouring it out upon her brothers most at risk of being lost—namely, great sinners who stand on the very brink of hell.
Thérèse’s reasoning is both clear and profound: the blood of Jesus must not be lost, falling uselessly to the ground, but must reach even the greatest sinner, for whom it was especially shed. If such a sinner ends up in the eternal flames of hell, then Jesus’ blood will have been wasted, ineffective for him, and His thirst for that sinner’s salvation will remain unsatisfied.
We can observe that Thérèse’s account closely parallels some of the most beautiful passages of St. Catherine of Siena (notably Letter 273 to Blessed Raymond). It reflects the same attitude as the holy women of the Gospel who, together with the Mother of Jesus, hold the foremost place at the foot of His cross. These women mysteriously share in the new motherhood of Mary, which the Crucified Jesus extends to humanity redeemed by His blood.
The spiritual motherhood of the woman who stands at the foot of the cross consists essentially in gathering Jesus’ blood and spreading it upon humanity so that they may be saved by it. This is what St. Catherine did, and it is what St. Thérèse does, who, at the end of her narrative, calls the criminal Pranzini “my first child.” This marks the beginning of her immense spiritual motherhood.
It is Jesus Himself—Crucified and Risen, the Redeemer—who inspires this feminine, maternal collaboration in His work of salvation. He instills in the hearts of saints, through His Holy Spirit, a profound love for Him and for their brothers and sisters. It is charity that compels these saints to offer Jesus’ blood to others, so as to give those brothers and sisters back to Him, fulfilling His thirst for their salvation.
However, this spiritual motherhood, like Mary’s, always holds both a personal and a universal character. It concerns one person—this man—while simultaneously embracing all humanity. Just as Jesus gave Mary her “first son” in the person of the Apostle John, so He gives Thérèse her “first son” in the person of the criminal Pranzini.
Let us now listen to the continuation of Thérèse’s account:
“To spur my zeal, the Good God showed me that my desires were pleasing to Him. I heard talk of a great criminal who had been condemned to death for heinous crimes, and everything suggested that he would die unrepentant. I wanted, at all costs, to prevent him from falling into hell.”
Pranzini’s crimes were indeed horrific—he had murdered two women and a child—and he refused to repent. Thérèse’s response demonstrates her charity united with her faith. Through faith, she clearly perceives the extreme danger this man is in: the danger of falling into hell. At the same time, through charity, Thérèse cannot accept the eternal death of this man, this brother for whom Christ died. It is precisely this charity that finds expression in Thérèse’s determination: “I wanted, at all costs, to prevent him from falling into hell.” This resolute “I want” is strikingly similar to that of St. Catherine of Siena. It is here, between charity and faith, that Thérèse’s hope becomes manifest.
Thérèse commits herself entirely to this man’s salvation, relying on the “infinite merits of Jesus.” She arranges for a Mass to be celebrated and shares her deep intention of prayer for Pranzini’s seemingly hopeless salvation with her sister Céline. This moment reveals the full splendour and strength of Thérèse’s hope. Here are her words:
“Deep within my heart, I felt the certainty that our desires would be granted. I told the Good God that I was sure of His forgiveness for the wretched Pranzini and that I would believe it even if he did not confess or show any sign of repentance, so great was my trust in Jesus’ infinite mercy.”
In her text, Thérèse emphasises the words: “certainty,” “did not confess,” and “no sign of repentance.” This is one of the most powerful declarations of the certainty of hope: the certainty of eternal salvation, based solely on Jesus’ infinite mercy.
This is theological hope—the hope that will never be disappointed (Romans 5:5)—because it will receive what it hopes for: eternal life, “absolutely infallibly,” as St. Thomas Aquinas puts it.
At this level, “I hope” means “I am absolutely certain.” It is precisely this infallible certainty of hope that Thérèse extends to the most despairing individual.
St. Thomas, in his reflections on the relationship between hope and charity, affirmed the possibility of hoping for another. Yet Thérèse goes beyond St. Thomas. Of her, one could echo what Paul writes of Abraham in the Letter to the Romans: Thérèse “hoped against all hope” (Romans 4:18). For all appearances, there was every reason to despair: the death of a criminal who neither confessed nor showed any sign of repentance would seem to imply certainty of damnation, that he had ended up in hell. Not so for Thérèse. Her pure and intense hope gave her the certainty that Pranzini would be saved—even without confession or signs of repentance.
Personally, I have never found in any other saint such a radical expression of hope for another, especially one seemingly beyond all hope. For me, this is Thérèse’s most profound and fundamental teaching: to hope with certainty for the salvation of a sinful brother, even one who has died without confession or any visible sign of repentance. I believe many of us may have encountered similar cases.
However, in Pranzini’s case, there would be a small sign of repentance, though for Thérèse, it wasn’t even necessary. She had asked the Lord for it only to be encouraged in her prayers for sinners.
Let us listen again to Thérèse’s account of Pranzini’s death by guillotine:
“The day after his execution, I held a copy of La Croix in my hands. I opened it anxiously, and what did I see? Ah, my tears betrayed my emotion, and I had to hide. Pranzini had not confessed; he ascended the scaffold and was about to place his head in the sombre opening when suddenly, seized by a sudden inspiration, he turned, seized a crucifix the priest was presenting to him, and kissed the sacred wounds three times! Then his soul went to receive the merciful sentence of Him who declares: ‘There will be more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance.’
“I had obtained the ‘sign’ I had requested, and that sign was a faithful reproduction of the graces Jesus had given me to inspire me to pray for sinners. Was it not in front of Jesus’ wounds, as I saw His divine Blood flow, that the thirst for souls had entered my heart? I wanted to give them to drink of that immaculate Blood which would cleanse their sins, and the lips of ‘my first child’ came to rest upon the holy wounds! What a sweet response! Ah, after that unique grace, my desire to save souls grew daily. It seemed I could hear Jesus say to me, as He did to the Samaritan woman: ‘Give me a drink.’ It was a true exchange of love; I gave souls the Blood of Jesus, and I offered those same souls, refreshed by the divine dew, to Jesus. It seemed to me that in this way, I was quenching His thirst, and the more I gave Him to drink, the greater the thirst of my poor soul became. And this burning thirst, which He gave me, was the most delightful drink of His love.”
This account is truly splendid. Thérèse returns to her starting point, which was the loving contemplation of Jesus Crucified, of the blood flowing from His wounds. However, her resolution to remain at the foot of the cross to gather Jesus’ blood and spread it over sinners has already borne its first fruit. Through the strength of her hope, Thérèse obtained from Jesus the salvation of Pranzini and received from her Savior and Spouse her “first son.” Many more would follow. Indeed, Thérèse would define her vocation as: “to be Your spouse, O Jesus, to be, through my union with You, the mother of souls.”
Thérèse’s hope is entirely anchored in Charity, which St. Thomas would describe as “informed” by her Charity. Thérèse’s Charity reveals itself as her spousal love for Jesus and maternal love for sinners. As a spouse, she desires to give drink to her Beloved; as a mother, she wants to give life to her children. It is a “true exchange of Love,” as she often described it. This, then, is a fundamental, foundational grace: from that moment, Thérèse remains at the same place, at the foot of the cross, and her maternal hope for the salvation of sinners only expands and widens to include all.
Significant in this regard is the prayer she composed on the day of her Profession, 8 September 1890. After invoking Jesus her Spouse and asking for infinite Love—complete Holiness—Thérèse concludes the same prayer by imploring the salvation of all humanity. Here are her words:
“Jesus, let me save many souls; let not one be damned today… Jesus, forgive me if I say things I should not say, I only want to please and console You.”
Indeed, Thérèse knew well that in her environment, which was somewhat Jansenist, these words were “things that should not be said.” The common belief was that each day, among those who die, many —perhaps the majority— fall into hell, are damned. It was sad but seen as an inevitable reality to be accepted and resigned to, with the hope of securing the salvation of a few.
Thérèse’s attitude is entirely different: “let not one soul be damned today.” And Thérèse, living in the present moment “just for today,” renewed this same prayer each day for the salvation of all (and, as seen in Manuscript B, even extended it to the past, from the origins of creation, and to the end of time).
Her hope “for another” has become hope for all others. But it is crucial to emphasize that this is not an easy hope—far from it—because it would otherwise be a false hope, as happens when some claim that hell does not exist or that there is no danger of damnation. Thérèse’s hope, on the contrary, is an engaged hope, one committed to preventing at all costs humanity from falling into hell, for the danger is real. And her entire hope is founded on the blood of Jesus, on His redemptive suffering.
And finally, it must be said that in the last period of Thérèse’s life, hope takes on a tragic character. Indeed, the great spiritual trial of Thérèse, which began at Easter 1896 and lasted until her death on 30 September 1897, is known as the trial of faith. This trial was simultaneously a trial of hope, as it involved a continuous temptation regarding the reality of eternal life after death. It was no longer the thought of hell that tormented Thérèse, but the thought of nothingness. The idea that everything might end with death, “in the night of nothingness”—a terrifying expression of hers—became her deepest anguish.
While many Saints of past centuries, such as Saint Catherine of Siena, experienced the temptation against hope in the form of an impression of damnation, Thérèse, the greatest Saint of modern times, faced a temptation against hope in a new form: the impression that everything would end with death, that love itself would cease. Whether through the despair of hell or the void of nonexistence, the tragedy for the Saints was the same: the fear that they could no longer love after death. In this extreme trial of despair, hope shines even more radiantly.
Through this ordeal, Thérèse grew even further in faith, hope, and charity. She lived in a continuous act of faith concerning the painful point: the reality of Heaven and eternal life. She even made the symbolic act of writing the Creed with her own blood. More than ever, she hoped for eternal life—not just for herself, but inseparably for others, especially for those who had lost faith and hope. Thérèse interpreted her trial in relation to them: she saw herself seated at their painful table, interceding for them and obtaining their eternal salvation, just as she had done for Pranzini. Now, Thérèse believed for those who did not believe and hoped for those who did not hope. She begged Jesus that they might regain faith and, above all, that all might be welcomed into Heaven without exception.
We can say with certainty that Thérèse’s prayer was especially answered for a young man who was her contemporary—a man who had lost both faith and hope, but who later rediscovered them and reinvented the marvellous theology of Thérèse’s hope.
That man is our own Charles Péguy.
SECOND PART: THE POET CHARLES PÉGUY
While Thérèse entered the Carmel at the age of 15 in 1888, the young Péguy lost his faith at the same time, at the same age. The main reason for this departure from faith lies in the doctrine of hell and eternal damnation as it was then presented.
Péguy radically rejected this doctrine, which excluded some people permanently from salvation, and for this reason, he distanced himself from the Christian faith for almost 20 years. It was a radical rejection of a God who did not save all men. Thus, Péguy declared himself an atheist and became a militant socialist. But in reality, his socialism had a mystical character: it was driven by the desire for the salvation of all men. This is revealed in his first major poetic work: Joan of Arc, written between 1895 and 1897 (exactly the last years of Thérèse’s life).
Like Thérèse, at the same time, Péguy was fascinated by the personality of Joan of Arc. This is one of the paradoxes of Péguy: the atheist who radically rejects the Christian faith, yet lives in deep communion with a Saint (even though she had not yet been canonized). The final point of this first poetic work is, in fact, Joan’s last prayer:
“Pourtant, Mon Dieu, tâchez donc de nous sauver tous, mon Dieu.
Jésus, sauvez-nous tous à la vie éternelle.”
Here is the translation:
“My God, strive to save us all, my God.
Jesus, save us all to eternal life.”
This is the deepest desire of Péguy, a desire that is secretly and implicitly an expression of charity, as love for all brothers. But this desire is not yet accompanied by either faith or hope, as we especially see in the first part of this work. Indeed, the poet imagines a dialogue between Joan and a nun, Madame Gervaise. It should be noted that this dialogue is pure invention, having no basis in the historical sources regarding the Maid of Orléans. In essence, it is a dialogue between faith, personified by Madame Gervaise, and charity, personified by Joan. This dialogue concerns precisely the problem—or rather the “scandal”—of hell. In Joan, charity absolutely rejects the existence of hell: Joan would be willing to suffer damnation to save the damned. But faith, through Madame Gervaise, rejects this discussion as blasphemy. This leads to a dramatic dialogue between charity, which denies hell, and faith, which affirms it.
In relation to the assertion about hell, Madame Gervaise interprets Jesus’ cry of abandonment on the cross as a cry of despair—the despair of being unable to save Judas and all the damned. Thus, Madame Gervaise attributes to Jesus himself the despair, the désespérance (“dis-hope”), concerning their salvation.
Fourteen years later, in 1910, Péguy revisits this dialogue between Joan and Madame Gervaise in The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc. He revisits and also completes it in light of his rediscovered faith. Yet, it is evident that Péguy has not yet discovered hope, and the contrast between charity, which rejects hell, and faith, which affirms it, becomes even more dramatic, as does the theology of Jesus’ despair. In this work, the long meditation on Jesus’ Passion also highlights Mary’s suffering in this climate of despair.
Péguy still needed to convert to hope.
The luminous testimony of this final conversion is found in The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, a work published at the end of 1911. It focuses on the second theological virtue, hope, and is perhaps Péguy’s most beautiful poetic work, one of the richest and most profound on Christian hope.
The central part of this work is an autobiographical account: the anguished prayer of a father entrusting his three gravely ill children to the Virgin Mary. The names of the children are precisely those of the poet’s own children.
Péguy had endured terrible moments, including the most harrowing temptation—despair, and even suicide. On the brink of the abyss of despair, the father turns to Mary. Gradually, this painful, anguished, almost despairing prayer transforms into a luminous, radiant contemplation of Mary, “all hope,” “pure and young like hope.”
It is simultaneously the discovery of Mary and hope: Mary as the perfect mirror of “young hope,” the “little hope” hidden like a small sister between the two elder sisters, faith and charity. Péguy discovers that only hope allows faith and charity to “walk.”
From that moment, everything changes. The discovery of hope dissolves the earlier problem, opening the way to mystery: the journey shifts from the problem to the mystery of the second virtue. The old desire for the salvation of all is reborn, now as the hope of the salvation of all.
And Mary does not limit herself to drawing closer to the man who prays to her, who contemplates her, but always leads him to Jesus. She is like the living mirror of Jesus, the “echo,” as Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort described her. Thus, in Péguy’s prayer, Mary leads the poet back to the source of light, the source of hope, which is Jesus, the Heart of Jesus.
At the centre of the prayer, Mary is hailed as:
- “the mother of the Good Shepherd,”
- “the mother of the man who hoped and who was right to hope, because he succeeded in bringing back the sheep.”
Thus, in the prayer to Mary, the contemplation of Jesus arises, as though through a mirror, as the man who hoped. This contemplation then expands in the following pages with a commentary on the Gospel parable of the “lost sheep,” along with the other two parables contained in Luke 15: the “lost coin” and the “prodigal son.” Péguy rightly calls them the parables of hope, emphasising the hope of the father who anticipated the return of his lost son and the hope of the Good Shepherd who never despaired of finding his sheep. And hope was never disappointed: the father found the son, the shepherd found the sheep.
The discovery of the hope of Jesus completely and forever eliminates the previous idea of Jesus’ despair. It is like a ray of light dissolving the darkness. Jesus, true God and true man, is truly the man who hoped and therefore never despaired of anyone, in any way. His suffering was never the sterile suffering of despair but the fruitful suffering of hope, which trembles, suffers, but never despairs, even when aware of the extreme peril of perdition.
Here, I open a brief parenthesis to add that, on a theological level, this argument about the hope of Jesus is very interesting. It would be worth studying in relation to the Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas and contemporary Christology. There is widespread agreement in affirming the fullness of Jesus’ charity, but not regarding Jesus’ faith. St. Thomas excludes it because of the vision of God that Jesus always had in the depths of His soul. However, it is interesting to note that he highlights the hope of Jesus concerning His full glorification in Himself and His members.
In Péguy’s contemplation, hope thus finds its foundation in the human heart of Jesus the Saviour, “the Man who hoped.” And this hope of the Son is fully reflected in the heart and on the face of Mary, His Mother, “all hope,” “pure and young like hope.” Starting from this discovery, from this conversion to hope, all of the poet’s subsequent work unfolds between the Son and the Mother in an absolutely new spiritual atmosphere. This is particularly evident in the last great poetic works: The Tapestry of Our Lady and Eve, both written in 1913.
In The Tapestry of Our Lady, we find the poetic account of Péguy’s pilgrimage to the cathedral of Chartres, the most famous Marian shrine in France. Péguy walked there on foot from Paris, covering about 100 kilometres, to entrust to the Madonna a young man who had taken his own life through drug abuse.
The Poet’s prayer is profoundly beautiful, especially as it conveys the same certainty of hope that Thérèse expressed in her prayers for Pranzini—the trusting certainty of the eternal salvation of that poor, despairing soul. In this prayer, Péguy humbly prays to Mary for his own salvation, asking only for the last place in purgatory, which is nonetheless a secure salvation. Thus, in his prayer to the Mother “all hope,” Péguy reveals his hope as a poor, sinful child, a hope that is inseparably for himself and “for another.”
But this mystery of hope that shines between the Son and the Mother is fully revealed in Péguy’s final poetic work, Eva, his masterpiece—an immense poem of over 8,000 verses.
Following the Mysteries of the Charity of Joan of Arc and The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, Eva could be called the mystery of the charity and hope of Jesus, the Saviour of all humanity. According to the author, this work is “a long invocation of Jesus to Eve.” It is the new Adam addressing the ancient Eve, as the Son speaks to the Mother of all the living, of all humanity.
Péguy spontaneously rediscovered the great Patristic framework that presents all humanity, both male and female, in relation to Adam and Eve and the new Adam, Jesus, and the new Eve, Mary. Yet within this traditional framework, Péguy introduces something new: he traces a diagonal connection between Jesus and Eve, between the new Adam and the ancient Eve. This intuition is profoundly beautiful and inexhaustible on a theological and spiritual level.
As in the theology of St. Irenaeus, Eve is recapitulated in Mary. Thus, the filial love of Jesus for Mary, His Mother, ascends to Eve, who is also His mother and, at the same time, the mother of all humanity. Since Jesus, from the cross, extended Mary’s motherhood to encompass all of humanity, one could say that Mary and Eve are together and inseparably the Mother of Jesus and of all people.
All of humanity is therefore contemplated between the Son and the Mother, in a profoundly moving heart-to-heart. Yet, as on Calvary, only the Son speaks. The Mother remains silent, receiving the words of the Son into the depths of her heart: “Woman, behold your son” (Jn 19:26).
These words, addressed by Jesus to Mary, the new Eve, reach back to the heart of the ancient Eve. In the poem, it is Jesus who repeats to Eve: “Mère, voici vos fils” (“Mother, behold your children”). All humans are indeed children of Eve, exules filii Evae, as the Salve Regina anthem so beautifully expresses—a prayer Péguy deeply loved, where Mary is also called Spes nostra, our hope.
The figure of Eve in the poem is profoundly beautiful and moving. She is the woman who loves all humanity, her children, with all the depth of a mother’s heart. She suffers from their suffering and death, caused by her disobedience in the earthly Paradise. Yet, she is also the woman who first received the promise of Salvation, the bearer of hope—the promise of a Son who would be both her Redeemer and the Saviour of all her other children. This promise is fulfilled in Mary, the new Eve, the Mother of the Saviour, who is also her Redeemer, as Mary herself proclaims in the Magnificat.
Thus, the hope of Jesus, the Saviour of all, finds its deepest echo in the heart of His Mother, who is also the Mother of all. The saving hope of the Son, “the Man who hoped,” is reciprocated by the maternal hope of Mary, as well as of Eve and all the holy women standing at the foot of the cross. And it is there that we find St. Thérèse of Lisieux with Pranzini, whom Jesus entrusts to her, just as He entrusted St. John to Mary: “Behold your son.”
To conclude, I wish to add that this extreme hope of Thérèse and Péguy—hope for everyone—is neither exaggerated nor doctrinally erroneous, even though it goes far beyond what we usually think, perhaps because traces of Jansenism still linger within us. Recently, the doctrine of hope has been revisited by the great theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar in a beautiful book titled Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”?. While Balthasar was harshly criticised by some, Pope John Paul II nevertheless chose to name him a Cardinal, which seems to be a clear sign that this theology and spirituality of boundless hope is at least acceptable and should not be rejected outright.
Thus, following in the footsteps of Thérèse and Péguy, we too can resolve to draw close to Jesus the Redeemer and Mary, His Mother, and to trustingly hope for the salvation of all our brothers and sisters.
NOTES
- Cf. my book: Connaître l’Amour du Christ qui surpasse toute connaissance. La Théologie des Saints. (Venasque, 1989, Éd. du Carmel). The last three chapters concern Joan of Arc, Charles Péguy, and Thérèse of Lisieux.
- We follow the Italian translation in the following edition: Santa Teresa di Gesù Bambino: Gli Scritti (Rome, 1979, Ed. Postulazione Generale dei Carmelitani Scalzi), pp. 139–140.
- Ibid., p. 140.
- Ibid., pp. 140–141.
- Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 1, art. 3, ad 1.
- Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 17, art. 3.
- Ibid., pp. 141–142.
- Manuscript B, pp. 235–236.
- Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 62, art. 4.
- Gli Scritti, p. 787.
- Manuscript C, p. 258.
- Ch. Péguy: Œuvres Poétiques Complètes (Paris, 1975, Éd. Gallimard, “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade”), p. 326.
- These sources are primarily the two Trials of Joan of Arc: the Trial of Condemnation (1431) and the Trial of Nullification (1450–1456), also inaccurately called the “Rehabilitation Trial.” Péguy had studied these inexhaustible sources extensively. Recently, the two Trials were published by the Société de l’Histoire de France in a major scholarly edition (Paris, 1960–1988, Éd. Klincksieck, 8 vols.). For a theological and spiritual reading of these sources, cf. my study: Santa Giovanna d’Arco (1412–1431): Preghiera, Liberazione, Pace (in Sul Monte la Pace, Rome, 1990, Éd. del Teresianum).
- The original text is found in Œuvres Poétiques Complètes. A recent Italian translation was published: Ch. Péguy: I Misteri. Giovanna d’Arco. La Seconda virtù. I santi Innocenti (Milan, 1978, Éd. Jaca Book).
- Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 225.
- Summa Theologiae, III, q. 7, arts. 3 and 4: Christ did not have faith, but He had hope.