Today in the Catholic Church is the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux, a saint whose childlike faith and burning love have made her one of the most popular modern saints, even though she lived and died in relative obscurity.
Therese of the Child Jesus or the “Little Flower” was born in 1873 to St. Louis Martin and St. Marie-Azelie Guerin Martin. Therese’s mother died when she was four, and the family moved to Lisieux. She was miraculously healed of a dangerous illness after a statue of Mother Mary smiled at her. Therese received a vision of the Child Jesus just before turning 14, and became zealous to join a religious order (which all of her four sisters did as well). While in Italy, she even begged the pope to give her dispensation to join the Carmelites at the young age of 15.
After joining the Carmelites, where she took the name Therese of the Child Jesus, she was known for her holiness and patience, though she developed tuberculosis which killed her in her early 20s. Her correspondence with and prayers for missionaries led to her being named a patroness of the missions. Therese was ordered to put down her memories and ideas, and she also wrote poetry; she is a Doctor of the Church. Her autobiography has been published as “Story of a Soul.” She famously developed “The Little Way” of attaining holiness, not by spectacular acts of heroism but by doing every little ordinary task well.
Therese said before her death, “I want to spend my Heaven doing good on earth.” She referred to the favors she would help people obtain from God as a “shower of roses.” It is said that those who are to have a prayer answered by St. Therese receive roses.
St. Therese believed that love was the essence of the Christian life; and certainly, St. John wrote in the Bible (1 Jn. 4:16), “God is love.” St. Paul also said (1 Cor. 13:13), “And now there remain faith, hope, and charity [love], these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Below are a few beautiful quotes from St. Therese, focused around the importance of the virtue of love in the Christian life:
“Do not imagine that love can be found without suffering, for we carry with us our human nature; and yet, what a source of merit it is!”
“Jesus points out to me the only way which leads to Love’s furnace – that way is self-surrender – it is the confidence of the little child who sleeps without fear in its father’s arms.”
“The Divine Heart’s Goodness and Merciful Love are little known! It is true that to enjoy these treasures we must humble ourselves, must confess our nothingness – and here is where many a soul draws back.”
“You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”
“Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that the Church being a body composed of different members, the most essential, the most noble of all the organs would not be wanting to her; I understood that the Church has a heart and that this heart is burning with love; that it is love alone which makes the members work, that if love were to die away apostles would no longer preach the Gospel, martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. I understood that love comprises all vocations, that love is everything, that it embraces all times and all places because it is eternal!”
St. Therese, pray for us!1
This article is an edited version of one originally published last year.
Bring Me Rose St. Thérèse, like the one you brought St Faustina in her Dream (Diary 150).
“ This was a dream. And as the proverb goes, dreams are phantoms; God is faith. Nevertheless, three days later the difficulty was solved very easily, just as she had said. And everything in this affair turned out exactly as she said it would. It was a dream, but it had its significance.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh8r1BAZfQU