Padre Pio on St Thérèse of Lisieux: "a soul completely stripped of self and filled with God!"

A few years back, I posted that Pio said of St Thérèse of Lisieux "she is a Saint, a very great Saint." Pio bilocated to be at her canonization, he was seen in the congregation at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome by a bishop. 

His devotion to her went further than glowing praise and he greatly esteemed her disposition of soul so highly that he strove to imitate her and even encouraged others to do the same. To his cherished spiritual daughter Raffaelina, Pio put forth Thérèse of Lisieux as the paragon of one who entrusted herself totally to the will of God: "The Venerable Sister St Thérèse of the Child Jesus says: "I am a little soul. I choose neither to live nor to die, but may Jesus do as he pleases with me." Here, daughter, is the example of a soul completely stripped of self and filled with God! This is precisely what you also must strive to become with the divine assistance."

When the Little Flower was 22 she offered herself as a victim soul, then at age 24 she died from the white plague. 

* * *

The portrait of St Thérèse of Lisieux was executed by her biological sister, Celine, and the photograph is of St Thérèse on her deathbed. 

"She is a Saint..." is found in Winowska's The True Face of Padre Pio, The Catholic Book Club, 1961, page 111

That Pio was seen at her canonization is recorded in Fr. Mortimer Carty's Padre Pio The Stigmatist, TAN, 2010, page 66 

The quote from Padre Pio is from Letters, Volume II: Correspondence with Raffaelina Cerase, Noblewoman (1914 - 1915), San Giovanni Rotondo, 2019, page 542