Saint Therese of Lisieux, born Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin on 2 January 1873, also known as Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face was a French Catholic Discalced Carmelite nun. She is popularly known as the Little Flower of Jesus, or simply the Little Flower.
She was the pampered daughter of a mother who wanted to be a saint and a father who wanted to be monk. The two had gotten married but determined they would be celibate until a priest told them that was not how God wanted a marriage to work! They must have followed his advice very well because they had nine children.
Her parents became the first (and to date only) married couple canonized together by the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Francis in 2015.
Little Therese lost her mother when she was four and a half years old. Her sixteen-year-old sister Pauline became her second mother. Pauline entered the Carmelite convent five years later and after a few months, Therese became so ill with a fever that people thought she was dying. When Therese saw her sisters praying to statue of Mary in her room, Therese also prayed. She saw Mary smile at her and suddenly she was cured.
By the time she was eleven years old, Therese had developed the habit of mental prayer. She would find a place between her bed and the wall and in that solitude think about God, life, and eternity.
When her other sisters, Marie and Leonie, left to join religious orders, Therese was left alone with her last sister Celine and her father.
Christmas Eve of 1886 was a turning point in the life of Therese; she called it her "complete conversion." Years later she stated that on that night she overcame the pressures she had faced since the death of her mother and said that "God worked a little miracle to make me grow up in an instant […] On that blessed night… Jesus, who saw fit to make Himself a child out of love for me, saw fit to have me come forth from the swaddling clothes and imperfections of childhood".
Therese be known as the Little Flower, but she had a will of steel. She wished to join the Carmelite order and when the superior of the convent refused to take Therese because she was so young, the formerly shy little girl went to the bishop. When the bishop also said no, she decided to go over his head, as well.
Her father and sister took her on a pilgrimage to Rome to try to get her mind off this crazy idea. While in Rome, they went for an audience with the Pope.
They had been forbidden to speak to him but that didn't stop Therese. As soon as she got near him, she begged that he let her enter the Carmelite convent. The Pope said: "Well, my child, do what the superiors decide… You will enter if it is God's Will" and he blessed Therese. She refused to leave his feet, and the Noble Guard had to carry her out of the room.
The Vicar General who had seen her courage was impressed and soon Therese was admitted to the Carmelite convent that her sisters Pauline and Marie had already joined. Her romantic ideas of convent life and suffering soon met up with reality in a way she had never expected.
Therese knew that as a Carmelite nun she would never be able to perform great deeds. " Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden for me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."
She took every chance to sacrifice, no matter how small it would seem. She smiled at the sisters she didn't like. She ate everything she was given without complaining -- so that she was often given the worst leftovers. One time she was accused of breaking a vase when she was not at fault. Instead of arguing she sank to her knees and begged forgiveness.
When Pauline was elected prioress, she asked Therese for the ultimate sacrifice. Pauline asked Therese to remain a novice, in order to allay the fears of the others that the three sisters would push everyone else around. This meant she would never be a fully professed nun, that she would always have to ask permission for everything she did. This sacrifice was made a little sweeter when Celine entered the convent after her father's death. Four of the sisters were now together again.
Therese continued to worry about how she could achieve holiness in the life she led. She didn't want to just be good, she wanted to be a saint. She wrote, “We live in an age of inventions. We need no longer climb laboriously up flights of stairs; in well-to-do houses there are lifts. And I was determined to find a lift to carry me to Jesus, for I was far too small to climb the steep stairs of perfection. So, I sought in holy Scripture some idea of what this life I wanted would be, and I read these words: "Whosoever is a little one, come to me." It is your arms, Jesus, that are the lift to carry me to heaven. And so, there is no need for me to grow up: I must stay little and become less and less."
She composed the Holy Face Prayer for Sinners: "Eternal Father, since Thou hast given me for my inheritance the adorable Face of Thy Divine Son, I offer that face to Thee and I beg Thee, in exchange for this coin of infinite value, to forget the ingratitude of souls dedicated to Thee and to pardon all poor sinners." Over the decades, her poems and prayers helped to spread the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.
Therese's final years were marked by a steady decline that she bore resolutely and without complaint. Tuberculosis was the key element of Therese's final suffering. However, she kept working without telling anyone until she became so sick a year later everyone knew it. Her pain was so great that she said that if she had not had faith, she would have taken her own life without hesitation. But she tried to remain smiling and cheerful.
Her one dream as the work she would do after her death, helping those on earth. "Upon my death I will let fall a shower of roses; I wish to spend my heaven in doing good upon the earth."
On August 19, 1897, she received her last communion. Therese died on September 30, at the age of 24 years old.
After she died, Pauline put together Therese's writings and sent 2000 copies to other convents. Therese's "little way" of trusting in Jesus to make her holy and relying on small daily sacrifices instead of great deeds appealed to the thousands of Catholics and others who were trying to find holiness in ordinary lives.
Therese was canonized on 17 May 1925 by Pope Pius XI, only 28 years after her death.
Generations of Catholics have admired this young saint, fondly called her the "Little Flower", and found in her short life more inspiration for their own lives than in volumes by theologians. She never went on missions, never founded a religious order, never performed great works. The only book of hers, published after her death, was a brief edited version of her journal called "Story of a Soul."
Saint Therese of Lisieux has been a highly influential model of sanctity for Catholics because of the simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life. Together with 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".
Therese of Lisieux is one of the patron saints of the missions, not because she ever went anywhere, but because of her special love of the missions, and the prayers and letters she gave in support of missionaries.
Other Saints of the Day
1. Saint Bavo
2. Saint Dodo
3. Saint Nicetus
4. Saint Piaton
5. Saint Remigius