Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Virgin

Saint Thérèse was born at Alençon, in France, in 1873, the youngest daughter of a devout family, and was given the name Thérèse Martin. She lost her mother while still a small child and was tenderly raised by her father and her elder sisters. From her earliest years she was drawn to God with an ardent love, and felt within her heart the desire to give herself wholly to him. While still very young she obtained, after much striving, permission to enter the Carmelite monastery of Lisieux, where several of her sisters had gone before her, taking the name Thérèse of the Child Jesus.

The little way of spiritual childhood

Within the cloister Saint Thérèse lived a hidden life of prayer, obedience, and the faithful performance of small duties, hidden from the eyes of the world but full before God. She is best known for the path of holiness she has come to be called the “little way” — the way of spiritual childhood, in which the soul, knowing its own littleness, abandons itself with complete trust into the hands of God as a little child rests in the arms of its father, and seeks to do even the smallest things with great love. She taught that holiness lies not in great deeds but in great love, and that the way to God is open to the lowliest soul who will trust him utterly.

She bore patiently the trials of the religious life and, toward the end, a painful illness and a severe darkness of soul, offering all in love for God and for the salvation of souls. Though she never left her cloister and longed to be a missionary, she has been declared a heavenly patroness of the missions, for she understood that prayer and hidden love can win grace for the whole world. At the bidding of her superiors she wrote the story of her soul, a record of her childhood and her interior life that, published after her death, carried her “little way” to countless readers.

The shower of roses

Saint Thérèse died at Lisieux on the thirtieth of September, 1897, at the age of twenty-four, having promised that she would spend her heaven in doing good upon earth, and that she would let fall from heaven a shower of roses — that is, of graces and favours for those who sought her help. After her death her fame spread with extraordinary swiftness throughout the Church, and innumerable graces were attributed to her intercession; she was canonised within a generation and is honoured as one of the best-loved saints of modern times.

Her feast is kept on the third of October. The collect of her feast recalls the word of our Lord, that unless we become as little children we shall not enter the kingdom of heaven, and asks that, following the way of the holy virgin Thérèse in humility and simplicity of heart, we may attain to everlasting reward. In Saint Thérèse the Church sets before the faithful the holiness of the hidden life and the power of confident, childlike love.

Patronage

She is venerated as a patroness of the missions, alongside Saint Francis Xavier, and as a patron of France and of florists; she is invoked by the faithful under the title of the Little Flower.