Saint Therese of Lisieux

Patronage: Foreign missions

Feast: 1st October

Saint Therese of Lisieux, commonly referred to as ‘The Little Flower’, was born in France. She was the youngest of nine children and was so called spoilt and ‘babied’ by her family as her mother died when she was four years of age and four of her siblings also passed away. She grew up with a spirit of wanting everything (1).

Christmas Eve, 1886 Therese had a fierce conversion to love. St Therese was fourteen years at the time and she renounced everything that was not of Christ, a year later joined the Carmelite order.

She took on the name “Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face” and lived a simple life of constant prayer and intimacy with God. She wrote an autobiography and described her own life as “little ways of spiritual childhood”.

Her spirituality and relationship with God was a beautiful thing. She mentions in her autobiography “what matters in life is not great deeds but great love”. (1). Doing these simple deeds with extraordinary love was how Therese lived her life. Child-like. She reminds us all to become like little children; completely faithful, full of charity, innocent with unfailing trust.

St Therese loved flowers and reflected upon herself as a little flower of Jesus. She thought of the seasons as being God’s love affair with us humans (1).

“My mission -to make God loved- will begin after my death… I will spend my heaven doing good on earth…I will let fall a shower of roses”…. (1)

It was in her death which brought about an immediate realisation of the gifts God had given her throughout her life (3). She helped people to live out daily tasks to reveal God’s perfection and beauty. She aided people in realising how small tasks can please God and make one closer to Christ.

“The good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul; one ray from His Heart can, in an instant, make His flower bloom for eternity… “(VI letter to her sister Celine) (2)

She died on the 30th Sept from a lengthy battle with tuberculosis. Yet this battle only strengthened her love for God, keeping her close and faithful to him throughout her struggles and doubting moments. She was 24 years of age when she passed and went home to God.

Her last words were “My God, I love you”..

St Therese of Lisieux, Pray for us.