Our age of excavations, which seeks to encounter things as they are, has now lifted the features of Therese of the Child Jesus from a true grave of makeup. As the distorting layers fell away, the grace-filled wonder of Lisieux emerged, as was to be expected, with all the brilliance and simple clarity of the original. It is primarily a matter of atmosphere: like stepping out of a carefully sealed space into the forest and suddenly knowing what fresh air means and what it is to breathe. One feels so grateful that the question of why this simplicity was withheld for so long is set aside. What confronts us, freed from incomprehensible layers of embellishment, is something youthful, spontaneous, and startlingly unadorned, which can present itself so carefree only because it knows itself to be securely sheltered in the veils of grace.