Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus or St. Thérèse of Lisieux was born on 2 January 1873, in Alençon, France to pious parents. She lost her mother when she was four and her father and elder sisters raised her. On Christmas Day 1886, St. Thérèse had a profound experience of intimate union with God, which she described as a “complete conversion.” Almost a year later, in a papal audience during a pilgrimage to Rome, in 1887, she asked for and obtained permission from Pope Leo XIII to enter the Carmelite Monastery at the young age of 15.
She devoted herself to living a life of holiness. She did all things with love and childlike trust in God. In her sufferings, she gave importance to charity. She performed little acts of charity always, and little sacrifices not caring how unimportant they seemed. These acts helped her come to a deeper understanding of her vocation.
She wrote in her autobiography that she had always dreamed of being a missionary, an Apostle, a martyr – yet she was a nun in a quiet cloister in France.
Thérèse offered herself as a sacrificial victim to the merciful Love of God on 9 June 1895, the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, and the following year, on the night between Holy Thursday and Good Friday, she noticed the first symptoms of Tuberculosis, the illness which would lead to her death.
She also underwent a terrible trial of faith which lasted until her death a year and a half later. “Her last words, ‘My God, I love you,’ are the seal of her life,” said Pope John Paul II.
Since her death, millions have been inspired by her ‘little way’ of loving God and neighbor. Many miracles have been attributed to her intercession. She had predicted during her earthly life that “My Heaven will be spent doing good on Earth.”
She is only the third woman to be so proclaimed, after Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa of Avila Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997 – 100 years after her death at the age of 24.