Mystic · Modern
St. Thérèse of Lisieux
1873–1897 · Carmelite; the Little Way
Canonized 1925; patroness of the missions (1927); declared Doctor of the Church by St. John Paul II in 1997.
The youngest daughter of Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, Thérèse entered the Carmel of Lisieux at fifteen and died of tuberculosis at twenty-four, leaving three autobiographical manuscripts published as Story of a Soul. Her “little way” is confidence and love in small things rather than great penances; in 1895 she offered herself not to God's justice, as some victim souls did, but to His merciful love, to appear before Him “with empty hands” and be clothed in His justice. In her last eighteen months she lost all felt certainty of heaven and offered that darkness for unbelievers, while saying she wanted “to spend my heaven doing good on earth.”
Why he matters: The most widely read saint of the modern Church and the Doctor of “the science of love”; her little way made the call to holiness of ordinary people concrete long before the Second Vatican Council taught it.
Reading
-
Story of a SoulSt. Thérèse of Lisieux (trans. John Clarke, OCD), 1898 · Read the three manuscripts in the critical translation, not the older edited version.
-
St. Thérèse of Lisieux: Her Last ConversationsSt. Thérèse of Lisieux (trans. John Clarke, OCD), 1977 · Her sayings in the last months, recorded by her sisters.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each question the test asks.