Thérèse Martin was born January 2, 1873 to devout Catholic parents in France. She was the youngest of nine children, five of whom survived childhood. After her mother died of breast cancer when Thérèse was four years old, she moved with her father and four older sisters to Lisieux. In the deeply religious atmosphere of her home, her piety developed early and intensively. All four of her sisters followed their vocations as nuns and, at the age of fifteen, Thérèse entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux to begin her vocation as a cloistered Carmelite nun.

 

Although as a child she had suffered from a severe mental breakdown, scruples and then at the end of her life a dark trial of faith, Thérèse kept the Carmelite rule to perfection, always maintaining a smiling, unselfish attitude. Before her death from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-four, she admitted that not one day had ever passed without a struggle. 

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The story of Thérèse’s spiritual development was related in a collection of her essays, written out of obedience at the requests of her Carmelite prioresses. These were published after her death in 1898 under the title, “Story of a Soul." Her popularity is largely a result of this work, which tells her loving pursuit of holiness in day-to-day ordinary life. She called this her "little way." Saint Thérèse defined her doctrine of the "little way" as, “the way of spiritual childhood, the way of trust and absolute surrender to Jesus."

 

Thérèse was canonized in 1925 and, among her many titles, is the youngest person to be designated a Doctor of the Church. Because of the astounding number of miracles and graces obtained from God through her intercession, many have called "the Little Flower of Jesus" the greatest Saint of modern times.