Therese of Lisieux OCD (French: Thérèse de Lisieux [teʁɛz də lizjø]; born Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin; 2 January 1873 – 30 September 1897), religious name Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus et de la Sainte Face), was a French Discalced Carmelite who is widely venerated in modern times. She is popularly known in English as the Little Flower of Jesus, or simply the Little Flower, and in French as la petite Thérèse (“little Therese”).

Therese has been a highly influential model of sanctity for Catholics and for others because of the simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life. She is one of the most popular saints in the history of the church,^[4][5] although she was obscure during her lifetime.^[6]Pope Pius X called her “the greatest saint of modern times”

Therese felt an early call to religious life and, after overcoming various obstacles, in 1888, at the early age of 15,^[9] she became a nun and joined two of her elder sisters in the cloistered Carmelite community of Lisieux, Normandy (another sister, Céline, also later joined the order). After nine years as a Carmelite nun, having fulfilled various offices such as sacristan and assistant to the novice mistress, in her last eighteen months in Carmel she fell into a night of faith, in which she is said to have felt Jesus was absent and been tormented by doubts that God existed. Therese died at the age of 24 from tuberculosis.

Her feast day in the General Roman Calendar was 3 October from 1927 until it was moved in 1969 to 1 October.^[10] She is well known throughout the world, with the Basilica of Lisieux being the second most popular place of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes.

Life

Family background

Zélie Martin, mother of Therese

Therese was born on Rue Saint-Blaise, in Alençon, France on 2 January 1873, and was the daughter of Marie-Azélie Guérin (usually called Zélie), and Louis Martin who was a jeweler and watchmaker.^[11] Both her parents were devout Catholics who would eventually become the first (and to date only) married couple canonized together by the Roman Catholic Church (by Pope Francis in 2015).

Louis had tried to become a canon regular, wanting to enter the Great St Bernard Hospice, but had been refused because he did not know Latin. Zélie, possessed of a strong, active temperament, wished to serve the sick, and had also considered entering consecrated life, but the prioress of the canonesses regular of the Hôtel-Dieu in Alençon had discouraged her outright.^[12] Disappointed, Zélie learned lacemaking instead. She excelled in it and set up her own business on Rue Saint-Blaise at age 22.

Louis and Zélie met in early 1858 and married on July 13 of that same year at the Basilica of Notre-Dame d’Alençon. At first they decided to live as brother and sister in a perpetual continence, but when a confessor discouraged them in this, they changed their lifestyle and had nine children. From 1867 to 1870, they lost 3 infants and five-year-old Hélène. All five of their surviving daughters became nuns. In addition to Therese, they were:

• Marie (February 22, 1860, a Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, d. January 19, 1940),

• Pauline (September 7, 1861, a Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion Mother Agnes of Jesus, d. July 28, 1951),

• Léonie (June 3, 1863, a Visitandine at Caen, in religion Sister Françoise-Thérèse, d. June 16, 1941), and

• Céline (April 28, 1869, a Carmelite in Lisieux, in religion Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face, d. February 25, 1959).

“A dreamer and brooder, an idealist and romantic, [the father] gave touching and naïve pet names [to his daughters]: Marie was his ‘diamond’, Pauline his ‘noble pearl’, Céline ‘the bold one’. But Therese was his ‘little queen’, to whom all treasures belonged.