Therese of Lisieux

Description

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (French: sainte Thérèse de Lisieux), born Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin (2 January 1873 – 30 September 1897), also known as Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, O.C.D., was a French Catholic Discalced Carmelite nun who is widely venerated in modern times. She is popularly known as “The Little Flower of Jesus”, or simply “The Little Flower”.

Thérèse has been a highly influential model of sanctity for Catholics and for others because of the simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life. Together with Saint Francis of Assisi, she is one of the most popular saints in the history of the church. Pope Pius X called her “the greatest saint of modern times”.

Thérèse felt an early call to religious life, and overcoming various obstacles, in 1888 at the early age of 15, she became a nun and joined two of her older sisters in the cloistered Carmelite community of Lisieux, Normandy (yet another sister, Céline, also later joined the order). After nine years as a Carmelite religious, having fulfilled various offices such as sacristan and assistant to the novice mistress, and having spent her last eighteen months in Carmel in a night of faith (a time when she is said to have felt Jesus was absent and when she even felt tormented by doubts about the existence of God), Thérèse died at the age of 24, following a slow and painful fight against tuberculosis.

Her feast day is 1 October in the General Roman Calendar, and 3 October in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite. Thérèse is well-known throughout the world, with the Basilica of Lisieux being the second most popular place of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes.