St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Born: January 2, 1873
Died: September 30, 1897
Feast Day: October 1
Canonization Date: May 17, 1925
Patron of: Foreign Missions and Missionaries
Quote: "Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do all that you do with love."
Bio: Thérèse was born into a devoutly Catholic family with both of her parents being saints and all of her sister's becoming nuns. When Thérèse was born, there was a very small chance she would survive infancy, she was entrusted to a wet nurse who lived about 5 miles away. When she was about 15 months old, she moved back with her parents in Alençon and Thérèse described herself "far from a perfect little girl." Sadly, when Thérèse was 4 years old, her mother, Zélie, died and Thérèse moved away with her father to Lisieux. At age 9, Thérèse started to become sick very often and she would often get tremors so bad she couldn't even speak. The diagnosis of these tremors were attributed to severe emotional distress most likely from losing her mother at a young age. On Christmas Eve at the age
of 13, Thérèse described herself as having a "complete conversion" and was able to overcome all the pressure she had been facing since the moment her mother passed. When Thérèse was 14, she told her father that she wanted to join the Carmel of Lisieux and both of them broke down in tears of joy and her father, Louis, gave her a white flower. In April of 1888, 11 months after telling her father what she wanted to do, the nuns at Carmel welcomed her after she received special permission from Pope Leo XIII to enter at such a young age. Thérèse was a nun for 8 years before she received tuberculosis and became to weak to do basic things for herself. A doctor exclaimed to the nuns around, "If only you knew what this young nun was suffering." Thérèse died after over a year of suffering and her last words were, "My God, I love you!" Thérèse was soon canonized after her death and became a Doctor of the Church in 1997 and she did this by doing the little things.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Pray for Us!