St. Thérèse of Lisieux

The Carmelite nun whose \"Little Way\" of spiritual childhood made her one of the most beloved modern saints and a Doctor of the Church.

St. Thérèse Martin, known as Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, was a French Carmelite nun whose hidden life of ordinary faithfulness became, after her early death, one of the most influential spiritual witnesses of the modern age.

Her life

Born in Alençon in 1873 and raised in Lisieux, Thérèse entered the Carmelite monastery there at the age of fifteen. She lived an outwardly unremarkable cloistered life and died of tuberculosis in 1897, at only twenty-four. At the request of her superiors she wrote a memoir of her childhood and religious life, published after her death as Story of a Soul.

The Little Way

Thérèse is best known for her "Little Way": a path to holiness founded not on great deeds but on doing small, ordinary things with great love and complete trust in God's mercy, like a child in the arms of a father. This spirituality of confidence and littleness spread rapidly after her death.

Why she matters

Canonized in 1925 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997, Thérèse is a patron of the missions — though she never left her cloister — because of her conviction that love offered from any corner of the world sustains the whole Body of Christ. Her Little Way continues to shape Catholic spirituality today.