St. Therese of Lisieux was a French Discalced Carmelite, Doctor of the Church, and patroness of the missions. Her "little way" teaches souls to trust completely in God’s merciful love and to offer the smallest duties with great love. As Catholics, we pray the novena to St. Therese for childlike confidence in God, holiness in ordinary life, missionary zeal, and her intercession in our needs.
Begin PrayingMore about St. Therese of Lisieux
St. Therese Martin was born in Alençon, France, on January 2, 1873, the youngest surviving daughter of Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin. After her mother’s death, the family moved to Lisieux. St. Therese desired to give herself entirely to Christ and sought permission to enter the Discalced Carmelite monastery at an unusually young age. She entered Carmel in 1888 at fifteen and received the religious name Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Her hidden life was formed by prayer, community duties, sacrifice, and a deepening trust in God. At the request of her superiors, she wrote the autobiographical manuscripts later published as "Story of a Soul".
St. Therese’s little way is not spiritual childishness or an excuse for doing less. It is the Gospel path of humility, confidence, and loving surrender followed by a soul that knows its poverty and relies on the Father’s mercy. She sought to make every ordinary act an offering of love and discovered her vocation within the Church as love itself. Although she never left Carmel, her prayer and desire for the salvation of souls made her a patroness of the missions. She died of tuberculosis on September 30, 1897, at the age of twenty-four. Pope Pius XI canonized her in 1925, and St. John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church in 1997. Roses became a popular sign of her promised work from heaven, but devotion to her rests on confidence in God rather than on receiving a particular sign. The novena is prayed from September 22 through September 30 in preparation for her feast on October 1.
