There are more than 30 Doctors of The Church, and St. Therese is the youngest. Her parents, Louis and Zellie are Saints, and she had five sisters who became nuns. 

Born in France in 1873 her father had a special nickname for all the girls and for Therese, it was Little Queen. 

Like all of her siblings, Therese began each day with mass at 5:30 am and spent the rest of the day working her faith and prayer into everything she did. 

She suffered from poor health from the time she was a baby and that would be an issue all her life but it was her mother’s health that failed first. When Therese was just four years old, Zellie died of breast cancer. 

She would write about her mother’s death years later saying, ”When Mommy died my disposition changed and I was only happy when no one took notice of me,” 

Therese did find comfort through her sister, Pauline, who was like a second mother, however, when Pauline entered the Carmelite monastery, Therese was 

devastated. Soon she became very sick, recovering only after she had a vision of The Blessed Mother who looked at her and smiled. 

But it was the Christmas of 1886 that changed Therese, when The Child, Jesus, restored her inner peace. Two years later she entered the Carmelite Monastery. 

It was not an easy journey but Therese came to see herself truly as a child, as Jesus’ Little Flower. 

“It is Your arms, Jesus, that is the lift to carry me to heaven so that there is no need for me to grow up. I must stay little and become less and less.” 

She became quite ill, telling no one, and, even when her illness was discovered, many did not believe her. At the age of 24, she died of tuberculosis. 

One year after her death a collection of her writings, gathered together by her sister Pauline, was published and immediately they spread around the world. 

Her “Little Way” of small, daily sacrifices, doing everything, no matter how small, out of her love for Jesus, and her desire to spend her life in heaven showering earth with roses, resonated with millions then, as it does now, as she teaches and guides all of us, from heaven. 

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, please pray for us.