Alençon, Normandy, France·1873 – 1897
Sainte Thérèse
St. Thérèse of Lisieux
The Little Flower
She made smallness the doorway to the infinite.
“My vocation is love! In the heart of the Church, I will be love.”
Life
Born Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin on 2 January 1873 in Alençon, France, Thérèse lost her mother at four and grew into an intensely sensitive child. At fifteen, after personally petitioning Pope Leo XIII, she was granted permission to enter the Carmelite convent in Lisieux — where two of her sisters had already taken the veil.
Within the convent’s hidden walls, she developed what she called her “Little Way”: rather than heroic penances or extraordinary mystical states, she offered God the smallest acts of love — a smile to a difficult sister, patience with her own weakness, trust when all felt dry and dark.
She contracted tuberculosis and died on 30 September 1897, at twenty-four. Her autobiography, Story of a Soul, published posthumously, became one of the most influential spiritual texts of the twentieth century. She was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997.
One Heart
“My vocation is love. In the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be love.”
Teachings
The Little Way
Holiness does not require grand gestures or extraordinary abilities. It is found in doing the smallest things with great love. The soul offers itself to God as a child to a parent — with complete trust and without pretension.
Spiritual Childhood
Remain small before God. The awareness of one’s own weakness and littleness is not an obstacle but the very condition for receiving grace. God delights in filling what is empty.
Trust in Darkness
In the last eighteen months of her life, Thérèse experienced a dark night of faith — a complete absence of consolation. She chose to trust anyway, making her darkness itself an act of love.
Works & Publications
Story of a Soul (Autobiography)
Her spiritual autobiography, written under obedience, revealing the Little Way in her own words.
Letters
Correspondence revealing her spiritual counsel, humor, and depth.
Last Conversations
Recorded by her sisters during her final illness — unflinching words from the threshold of death.
An Inspiration
Thérèse’s Little Way of surrender and trust mirrors the bhakti path: offering everything to God, especially one’s smallness. Her teaching that weakness itself is the doorway echoes Poddar Ji’s insistence on devotion over effort.