St. Theresa of the Child of Jesus
Doctor of the Church
Patroness of the Missions
Born at Alencon in Normandy, France in 1873, Marie Frances Theresa Martin entered the
Carmel of Lisieux in 1889, at the age of fifteen years, and on September 31, 1897, she
winged her flight to heaven.
Fortunately the story of those nine years is faithfully told in the Autobiography which
she wrote under obedience. Every line is marked by the artless simplicity of a literary
genius, so that even when translated from its musical euphonious French into mechanical,
clanking English, it still reads with the rhythm of a prose poem.
She took for her motto the well-known words of the great Carmelite mystic St. John of the
Cross: "Love is repaid by love alone." With these thoughts ever present in her
mind, her heart found courage to endure hours and days of bitterness that few saints have
been privileged to undergo. She understood deeply the meaning of those mysterious words of
St. Paul: "Far be it from me to glory to save in the Cross of my Lord Jesus Christ,
by which I am crucified to the world and thw world is crucified to me. I fill up those
things that are wanting in the sufferings of Christ for His members."
Love of God as a Father, expressed in childlike simplicity and trust, anda deep
understanding of the mystery of the Cross were the basic principles of her "little
way."
There is just one other doctrine that needs to be mentioned to complete the picture of her
soul's surrender - her vivid realization of the spiritual Motherhood of Mary, the Mother
of God, and heaven's Queen, and our own loving Mother. She had learned the meaning of the
strong phrase of St. Augustine, written fifteen hundred years ago, that we were all
begotten with Jesus in the womb of Mary as our Mother.
The Little Flower is a faithful inheritor of all the loving tradition of the greatest
Saings and Doctors of the Church in honoring Mary Immaculate. It is doubtful if that
harpist of Mary, the mellifluous St. Bernard himself, could compose anything more
beautiful, tender, and theological than the very last poem St. Theresa wrote, entitled,
Why I Love You, Mary and written almost when the agony of death was upon her. In it she
sings:
O you who came to smile on me
At the dawn of life's beginning,
Come once again to smile on me.....
Mother!
The night is nigh.
I fear no more of your majesty,
So far removed from me,
For I have suffered much with you;
Now hear me, Mother mild!
O let me tell you, face to face,
Dear Mary, how I love you;
And say to you forevermore:
I am your little child.
Prayer God our Father, You destined Your Kingdom for Your children who are humble. Help us
to imitate the way of St. Theresa, so that, by her intercession, we may attain the eternal
glory which You promised. Amen.
St. Therese, Pray for us!