Thérèse of Lisieux
French Discalced Carmelite nun, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897) · France · Academics · Died at 24
Thérèse of Lisieux is read about 4,569 times a day, in 72 languages.
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Something wrong?She died at 24, obscure and cloistered, then a posthumous memoir made her what a pope called "the greatest saint of modern times" - not for miracles or martyrdom, but for teaching that holiness could be small, daily, within anyone's reach.
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Even if I had all the crimes possible on my conscience, I am sure I should lose none of my confidence.
I thank Our Lord that He let me find nothing but bitterness in human affections.
I do not have the courage to force myself to search out beautiful prayers in books. There are so many of them it really gives me a headache!
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Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin felt the call early and pushed past obstacles to enter the Carmelite convent at Lisieux at 15, joining two older sisters behind cloister walls. For nine years she lived the hidden routines - sacristan, assistant to the novice mistress - until tuberculosis and a crisis of faith arrived together in her final eighteen months, a darkness in which she felt Jesus absent and God's existence in doubt. She died in 1897, but The Story of a Soul, her spiritual memoir explaining the "Little Way" - sanctity through simple, faithful acts rather than grand gestures - spread across continents and made her a global phenomenon. Pope Pius XI canonized her just 28 years after her death; in 1997 John Paul II named her a Doctor of the Church. The Basilica of Lisieux now draws more pilgrims than anywhere in France except Lourdes.
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