Thérèse of Lisieux

Thérèse Martin was born in 1873 in Alençon, Normandy, France, the youngest of five surviving daughters of Louis Martin, a watchmaker, and Zélie Martin, a lacemaker. Her mother died when she was four, and the family moved to Lisieux. As a girl she wanted to join two of her older sisters in the town's enclosed Carmelite convent. Because she was so young, on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1887 she asked Pope Leo XIII himself for permission. She entered the Lisieux Carmel at fifteen in 1888, taking the name Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. She described her 'little way', which taught that holiness could be found in ordinary everyday acts done with love. At the request of her superiors she wrote memoirs of her life. She died of tuberculosis in 1897, aged 24. Her writings were published the next year as Story of a Soul, which became widely read around the world. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1925, and in 1997 Pope John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church.

Thérèse of Lisieux is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: French Carmelite nun of Lisieux, known as the Little Flower of Jesus; a Catholic saint. Source: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)