Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux served others through quiet acts of love, and worked to avoid focusing on herself. She lived the gospel paradox of gaining our lives by losing them. Her life was the seed planted in the ground to die, and it bore great fruit.

Thérèse Martin entered the Carmelite convent at the age of 15 and died in 1897 at the age of 24, but her short life converted many souls, and her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, continues to be read and loved throughout the world. 

Life in a Carmelite convent consists mainly of prayer and hard domestic work, but Thérèse possessed holy insight, and she saw in quiet suffering a redemptive suffering that was, indeed, her apostolate. Saint Thérèse said she came to the Carmel convent “to save souls and pray for priests.” Shortly before she died, Thérèse wrote: “I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth.”

Saint Thérèse is a doctor of the Church, the third woman to be so recognized in light of her holiness and the influence of her teaching on spirituality.