Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Life and historical context

Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin was born on 2 January 1873 in Alençon, France, the youngest of nine children of Louis Martin, a watchmaker, and Zélie Guérin, a lacemaker. Five daughters survived to adulthood; four of them, including Thérèse, entered religious life, and all four eventually became Discalced Carmelites at Lisieux. The Martin household was unusually devout even by the standards of the late-nineteenth-century French Catholic milieu, with daily Mass, frequent reception of the sacraments, and a strict observance of the liturgical year. Both parents were canonized as a married couple by Pope Francis on 18 October 2015, the first married couple to be canonized together in the modern era.¹

Zélie Martin died of breast cancer in August 1877, when Thérèse was four years old. The loss marked the beginning of a five-year period of intense melancholy in Thérèse's childhood, what she would later describe in her autobiography as her "winter of trials." The Martin family moved to Lisieux later that year to be near Zélie's brother Isidore Guérin, and there Thérèse and her sisters were raised by their father and the older Martin daughters. In May 1883 Thérèse fell into a serious illness whose precise medical character has been variously interpreted, and she recovered, by her own account, after gazing at a statue of the Virgin Mary that she perceived to smile at her. She referred to the moment thereafter as the "Smile of the Virgin."²

The decisive interior turn in Thérèse's life occurred on Christmas Eve 1886, in what she later called her "complete conversion." At thirteen years of age she experienced a sudden release from her childhood scrupulosity and emotional fragility, and from that point forward set her will steadily toward Carmel. In November 1887, on the diocesan pilgrimage to Rome led by Bishop Hugonin of Bayeux, Thérèse personally petitioned Pope Leo XIII at a public audience for permission to enter the Carmelite convent of Lisieux at the age of fifteen, below the canonical minimum age. The Pope's reply, "You will enter if it is God's will," was followed by the local bishop's permission, and Thérèse entered the Carmel of Lisieux on 9 April 1888.³

She received the religious name Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and added "of the Holy Face" at her religious profession in 1890, marking her devotion to the suffering humanity of Christ. Her nine and a half years in Carmel were outwardly unremarkable: ordinary monastic observance, ordinary household duties, ordinary obedience to her superiors. The interior life of those years, however, became the subject of the spiritual writings that would later make her one of the most read Catholic authors of the twentieth century. She was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis in early 1896 and died on 30 September 1897 at the age of twenty-four. Her last recorded words were "Mon Dieu, je vous aime" ("My God, I love you").

Theological and spiritual significance

Thérèse's spiritual writing centers on what she called the petite voie, the Little Way of spiritual childhood. The Little Way teaches that holiness is not reserved for great deeds, mystical raptures, or extreme penances, but is offered to every Christian through the patient and confident performance of ordinary acts done in love. The doctrine is grounded in the words of Christ at Matthew 18:3, "unless you turn and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven," and develops a complete theology of trust in divine mercy, abandonment to providence, and acceptance of human smallness as the condition for receiving divine love.⁴

The principal source for Thérèse's doctrine is her spiritual autobiography, written at the request of her superiors in three distinct manuscripts. Manuscript A was written for her sister Pauline (Mother Agnes of Jesus) in 1895; Manuscript B was a brief composition written for her sister Marie (Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart) in 1896; Manuscript C was written for the prioress Mother Marie de Gonzague in the months before Thérèse's death in 1897. The three manuscripts were edited and published together as Histoire d'une Âme (Story of a Soul) in 1898, less than a year after the saint's death. The book sold widely from its first appearance and has remained in print continuously since, in dozens of languages.⁵

The pace of Thérèse's posthumous recognition by the Catholic Church was extraordinary. Pope Pius XI beatified her on 29 April 1923 and canonized her on 17 May 1925, less than thirty years after her death. In 1927, less than two years after her canonization, the same Pope declared Thérèse co-patron of the missions with Saint Francis Xavier, an unprecedented honor for a contemplative nun who had never left her cloister. The reasoning rested on Thérèse's own writings and on the interior offering of her sufferings for the work of the missions, which she had described in her letters and manuscripts as a vocation parallel to that of the active missionary.⁶

On 19 October 1997, the centenary year of her death, Pope John Paul II declared Thérèse a Doctor of the Church in the apostolic letter Divini Amoris Scientia (The Science of Divine Love). She became the third woman so declared, after Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint Catherine of Siena, and the youngest Doctor of the Church in the history of the title. The declaration recognized that Thérèse's writings, despite their apparent simplicity, articulate a complete and theologically rigorous doctrine of Christian holiness through trust in divine mercy.⁷

Devotion and liturgical observance

The feast of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus is celebrated on 1 October in the universal Roman Calendar with the rank of memorial. In France, where Thérèse is a co-patron of the nation alongside Saint Joan of Arc (declared by Pope Pius XI in 1944), the feast is observed with greater solemnity. The basilica of Saint Thérèse at Lisieux, constructed between 1929 and 1937 and consecrated in 1954, is among the largest pilgrimage churches built in the twentieth century and receives several million pilgrims annually.⁸

The devotional symbol most commonly associated with Thérèse is the rose. The association arises from a passage in her last conversations, in which she said that after her death she would "spend my heaven doing good on earth" and would "let fall a shower of roses." The promise has shaped the popular Catholic devotion to her: petitioners commonly ask for a rose (literal or symbolic) as a sign that their intentions are heard, and Catholics across the world report receiving roses, real or unexpected, in answer to prayer addressed to Thérèse. The tradition has no canonical sanction beyond the saint's own writing, but it remains one of the most widespread devotional patterns in modern Catholic popular piety.

Thérèse's relics have been the subject of a pilgrimage tradition unusual in modern Catholic practice. From 1994 onward, a portion of her relics has traveled in a reliquary across more than fifty countries, drawing very large numbers of pilgrims at each stop. The international relic tour has reached Australia, the Philippines, the Caribbean, Russia, Iraq, and the United States, and is generally credited with the renewed popularity of Thérèse's writings in the early twenty-first century.

The traditional iconography of Thérèse shows her in the brown Carmelite habit with white veil, holding a crucifix and a bouquet of roses. She is sometimes depicted in the act of reading or writing, recalling her authorship of Story of a Soul and her extensive correspondence. Her liturgical color is white.

Prayers and novenas associated with Saint Thérèse

The principal devotion to Saint Thérèse is the Saint Thérèse Novena, a nine-day prayer recited for specific intentions, often accompanied by the request for a rose as a sign of intercession. The novena is most commonly prayed in the nine days leading up to her feast on 1 October, but it is also prayed throughout the year and in conjunction with the international relic tour where the relics are present.

A traditional prayer associated with the saint is the brief invocation drawn from her autobiography:

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, please pick a rose from the heavenly garden and send it to me with a message of love. Ask God to grant me the favor I thee implore, and tell him I will love him each day more and more.

Catholics commonly pair Thérèse devotions with the Ave Maria, the Lord's Prayer, and the Memorare of Saint Bernard. The Magnificat, prayed by Mary at the Visitation, was a favorite text of Thérèse and is fitting as a companion prayer. The Holy Rosary, particularly the Joyful Mysteries that meditate on the childhood of Christ, accords closely with Thérèse's spirituality of spiritual childhood.

For broader theological context, see the Communion of Saints for the doctrinal grounding of intercessory prayer through the canonized, Doctor of the Church for the theological status that places Thérèse among the Church's universal teachers, and the broader Carmelite tradition that includes Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint John of the Cross, the great mystical Doctors of the Discalced Carmel that Thérèse entered.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Story of a Soul (Histoire d'une Âme), Manuscript A, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux's autobiographical account of her early life. The 1898 first edition is in the public domain; the standard modern critical edition is the Institut de Carmel de Lisieux's Œuvres complètes. Pope Francis canonized Louis and Zélie Martin on 18 October 2015; the canonization homily is available at vatican.va. ↩

2. Story of a Soul, Manuscript A, on the death of Zélie Martin and the "Smile of the Virgin." The childhood illness and recovery are also treated in the witness depositions of Thérèse's sisters during the canonization process. ↩

3. Story of a Soul, Manuscript A, on the Christmas conversion of 1886 and the audience with Pope Leo XIII in November 1887. The papal audience records of the diocesan pilgrimage are preserved in the Bayeux diocesan archives. ↩

4. Story of a Soul, Manuscript B (the "Letter to Marie of the Sacred Heart"), the most concentrated exposition of the Little Way. Mt 18:3 is cited directly. The Catechism of the Catholic Church treats spiritual childhood in paragraphs 2779 and following, in its commentary on the Lord's Prayer. Available at vatican.va. ↩

5. The textual and editorial history of Story of a Soul is documented in the introduction to the Œuvres complètes (Carmel de Lisieux, 1992). The first edition (1898) was edited and softened by Mother Agnes; the modern critical edition restores the original manuscripts in their integrity. ↩

6. Pope Pius XI, Vehementer Exultamus Hodie (canonization bull, 17 May 1925) and Salutaris Ille (apostolic letter, 14 December 1927) declaring Thérèse co-patron of the missions. Available in summary at vatican.va. ↩

7. Pope John Paul II, Divini Amoris Scientia (apostolic letter, 19 October 1997), declaring Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus a Doctor of the Church. Available at vatican.va. ↩

8. General Roman Calendar, current edition, on the rank of the feast of Saint Thérèse on 1 October. The history of the basilica at Lisieux is documented at the Sanctuary's official archives. The 1944 declaration of Saint Joan of Arc and Saint Thérèse as co-patrons of France was made by Pius XII rather than Pius XI. ↩