It is tempting to think that Thérèse’s status as a saint was preordained given the fact that both her parents lived blameless lives and have recently been canonized as well. Would your personal letters prove to the pope that you were a saint? Pope Pius XI must have been convinced because he approved Thérèse’s canonization after a mere twenty-eight years (not the standard fifty years) following her death. Her letters to family members show her loving concern for them, as well as her humility, cheerfulness, intelligence, and, yes, her holiness. Her poems, plays, prayers, and letters, as well as records of the final conversations she had with other nuns before her death, were all studied and are now available in print. One of the best-kept secrets about Thérèse is that her autobiography is not the only document that was examined during her canonization process. What more is there to say about a woman whose autobiography has been a bestseller since a few years after her death in 1897? Her autobiography was published posthumously, and innumerable Catholics have called upon her to fulfill her deathbed promise, that is, that she would “send down a shower of roses from the heavens” to those who asked for her intercession. She became a Carmelite nun and spent the rest of her short life in that monastery until her death from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-four. Thérèse recognized God’s call to religious life when she was still a teenager, and she entered the Carmelite monastery of Lisieux when she was only fifteen years old. Her mother died of breast cancer when she was only four years old, but she was raised by her loving father and four older sisters. Thérèse was born in 1873 in Alençon, France, into a middle class, devout family. If a given Catholic church has any statues of saints at all, Saint Thérèse is probably depicted by one of those statues.īecause of Thérèse’s popularity, most Catholics know the basic outlines of her life story.

Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin, the Little Flower, Doctor of the Church-whatever you call her, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux is one of the most popular Catholic saints in the world.

St therese little flower autobiography