“Little things done out of love are those that delight the heart of Christ.”

Thérèse Martin was born on 2 January, 1873, the last of nine children born to Louis and Zelie Martin in Alencon, France. However, only five of these children lived to reach adulthood.

She was baptised two days later on 4 January and due to Therese’s weak and frail condition at birth, a nurse took care of for her for the first 18 months of her life. Because of this care, she became a lively, mischievous and self-confident child, who often threw tantrums to get her own way.

Her mother, Zelie said in a note to her daughter Pauline that “She (Therese) flies into frightful tantrums; when things don’t go just right and according to her way of thinking, …. She’s a nervous child, but she is very good, very intelligent, and remembers everything.”

Her dad was Louis Martin worked as a jeweller and watchmaker and her mum, Zelie, was a renowned lacemaker.  They were both very proud of their daughters and showed them great love, but sadly Zelie, her mother, died when Thérèse was only four years old. As a result, her father and sisters babied young Therese. She had a spirit that wanted everything.

In October, 1881, Louis enrolled Therese as a day boarder at Lisieux’s Benedictine Abbey school of Notre-Dame du Pre.

Therese thought of her sister Pauline as her second mother. In 1882, nine-year-old Therese was stunned when Pauline told her she was leaving to enter the convent at the Carmelite Monastery in Lisieux.

Therese wanted to join her sister at Lisieux’s Carmelite Convent and approached the prioress of the monastery who advised her to return when she grew up.

During the winter following Pauline leaving, Therese fell seriously ill. She suffered intensely during this time from constant headaches and insomnia. As the illness took its course, it racked poor little Therese’s body with fever and trembling and she suffered cruel hallucinations. None of the treatments helped.

Then, on May 13, 1883, Therese turned her head to a statue of the Virgin near her bed, and prayed for a cure. “Suddenly” Therese writes, “…Mary’s face radiated kindness and love.” Therese was cured. The statue has since been called “Our Lady of the Smile.”

At the age of 14, on Christmas Eve in 1886 after Midnight Mass, Therese had a conversion that transformed her life. From then on, her powerful energy and sensitive spirit were turned toward love, instead of keeping herself happy.

In 1886, Therese sought permission from her father to join her sisters Marie and Pauline at the Lisieux Convent. Characteristically generous, he not only granted Therese’s request, but worked zealously to help her realize it.

She had to ask special permission from the Pope to become a nun so young! This happened In November 1887 when Louis took his daughters, Therese and Celine, to Rome with a group of French pilgrims to celebrate Pope Leo XIII’s Golden Jubilee. During an audience with the Pope, Therese asked permission from him to enter the Carmelite convent, which he gave after her persistent petitions.

At 15, she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux to give her whole life to God. She took the religious name Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Living a hidden, simple life of prayer, she was gifted with great closeness with God. Through sickness and dark nights of doubt and fear, she remained faithful to God and His merciful love.

A great peace came over her when she made her profession on September 8, 1890.

Therese spent the last nine years of her life at the Lisieux Carmel. Her fellow Sisters recognised her as a good nun, nothing more. She was conscientious and capable. Sister Therese worked in the sacristy, cleaned the dining room, painted pictures, composed short pious plays for the Sisters, wrote poems, and lived the intense community prayer life of the cloister. Externally, there was nothing remarkable about this Carmelite nun.

The Lord, it seems, did not demand great things of her. But Therese felt incapable of the tiniest charity, the smallest expression of concern and patience and understanding. So she surrendered her life to Christ with the hope that he would act through her.

St Thérèse said: “I will seek out a means of getting to heaven by a little way—very short and very straight, a little way that is wholly new.”

St Thérèse saw herself as a child of God. She liked to keep things simple and focused as a child does. Trust, especially trust in God, is a childlike virtue. Thérèse’s love for God was very simple and she called it her ‘little way.’ She teaches us that God is everywhere—in every situation and person—and in the ordinary, simple details of life.

The world came to know Therese through her autobiography, “Story of a Soul” in which she described her life as a “little way of spiritual childhood.

After a long struggle with tuberculosis, she died on September 30, 1897, at the age of 24. Her last words were the story of her life: “My God, I love You!”

Her inspiration and powerful presence from heaven touched many people very quickly. Thérèse was canonised by Pope Pius XI on 17 May 1925 just 28 years after her death. Had she lived, she would have been only 52 years old. All four of her sisters were still alive when their little sister Thérèse was canonised.

“My mission – to make God loved – will begin after my death,” she said. “I will spend my heaven doing good on earth. I will let fall a shower of roses.

Since then, roses have been described and experienced as her signature and she has touched the lives of millions through her intercession.

In 1997, Pope John Paul II declared St Therese a Doctor of the Church – the only Doctor of his pontificate – in tribute to the powerful way her spirituality has influenced people all over the world.

St Thérèse of Lisieux is the patron saint of aviators, florists, illnesses and mission. Her feast day is October 1st. She is one of the most popular saints in the history of the Catholic Church.

Therese as a novice at age 16

Pictured above standing: Therese’ sisters Celine and Pauline; seated are Mother Marie de Gonzague, Marie, and Therese. Photograph taken in the Courtyard at Carmel Lisieux, early 1895.