Carmelite nun of Lisieux in France who taught the “little way” of love in small things. Patron of missions and Doctor of the Church.
Life
Thérèse was born in Alençon, France, in 1873. Her parents, Louis and Zélie Martin, were canonized together in 2015. She lost her mother as a child and entered the Carmel of Lisieux at fifteen.
In the convent she lived an ordinary life with no great deeds, yet she discovered the “little way” of offering each small act with love. She died of tuberculosis in 1897 at the age of twenty-four.
Her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, spread around the world, and in 1997 John Paul II named her a Doctor of the Church. Though she never left her convent, she is patron of the missions.
Spirituality
Thérèse’s little way is childlike trust before God. Her teaching that anyone who cannot do great things can do small things with great love opens the way of holiness to everyone.
Reflection
Choose one task today that feels tedious or small, and offer it as a gift of love for someone.