From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   October 1st - Teresa of the Child (Infant) Jesus V (RM) +   
   (also known as Thérèse of Lisieux, Marie Francoise Martin)   
      
   Born in Alençon, France, January 2, 1873; died in Lisieux, Normandy, France,   
   on   
   September 30, 1897; canonized in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, who in 1927 declared   
   patron of foreign missions (together with Saint Francis Xavier); in 1997,   
   she   
   was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II.   
      
   "I had offered myself . . . to the Child Jesus as His little plaything. I   
   told   
   Him not to   
   use me as a valuable toy . . . but like a little ball of no value. . . . He   
   let   
   His little ball   
   fall to the ground and He went to sleep. What did He do during His gentle   
   sleep   
   and   
   what became of the abandoned ball? Jesus dreamed He was still playing with   
   His   
   toy, leaving it and taking it up in turns, and then, having seen it roll   
   quite   
   far, He   
   pressed it to His heart, no longer allowing it to ever go far from His   
   little   
   hand."   
   -St. Thérèse of Lisieux   
      
   Thérèse was the ninth child of Louis Martin, a watchmaker, and Azélie-Marie   
   Geurin, a maker of point d'Alençon lace. She was baptized   
   Marie-Fransoise-Thérèse. Her mother died in 1877 when Thérèse was five, and   
   the   
   father moved the family to Lisieux, where the children could be overseen by   
   their aunt.   
      
   Thérèse's two older sisters became Carmelite nuns at Lisieux. When she was   
   15,   
   Thérèse told her father that she was so much devoted to Jesus that she   
   wished to   
   do the same but the Carmelites and her bishop thought that she was too   
   young. A   
   few months later during a pilgrimage to Rome for the jubilee of Pope Leo   
   XIII,   
   she met the pope. As she knelt before him, she broke the rule of silence and   
   asked him, "In honor of your jubilee, allow me to enter Carmel at fifteen. .   
   .   
   ." The pope was impressed by her fervor, but upheld the decision to make her   
   wait.   
      
   At the end of the year, she was received in the Carmel and took the name   
   Thérèse   
   of the Child Jesus. Her father suffered a nervous breakdown and was   
   institutionalized for three years. Despite her fragile health, she lived the   
   austere life faithfully. At 22, she was appointed assistant novice mistress,   
   although in fact she fulfilled the duties of the novice mistress. After her   
   father died in 1894, the fourth sister joined the convent.   
      
   Her prioress Mother Agnes (her blood-sister Pauline) requested the she write   
   her   
   autobiography, L'histoire d'une âme (The story of a soul). She began in 1894   
   to   
   write the story of her childhood, and in 1897, after finishing it the   
   previous   
   year, she was ordered by the new prioress, Mother Marie de Gonzague, to tell   
   of   
   her life in the convent. Both were combined in the final book, which was   
   revised   
   and circulated to all the Carmelite houses.   
      
   Thérèse of Lisieux's autobiography was three sections written specifically   
   to   
   her sister Pauline, her sister Marie, and her prioress. It was edited by   
   Pauline   
   (Sister Agnes) and made to appear as though written to her prioress. Highly   
   edited book sold without notation until 1956. In 1952 the unedited   
   manuscripts   
   were published in their original form. The first English version, translated   
   by   
   Ronald Knox, appeared in 1958 under the title Autobiography of a saint.   
   Thérèse   
   was childlike, not polished, and she was sentimental. Surprisingly, Thérèse   
   found it hard to say the rosary, which should be a comfort to those   
   saints-in-the-making who find it difficult, too.   
      
   The appeal of the book was immediate and astonishing: It had an instant   
   appeal   
   in every language into which it was translated. Her "little way" of   
   searching   
   for simplicity and perfection in everyday tasks became a model for ordinary   
   people. The saint's nine years in the convent were uneventful and   
   'ordinary,'   
   such as could be paralleled in the lives of numberless other young nuns: the   
   daily life of prayer and work, faults of pride and obstinacy to be overcome,   
   a   
   certain moodiness to be fought, inward and outward trials to be faced.   
   Sister   
   Thérèse stuck bravely to her 'little way' of simple trust in and love for   
   God.   
      
   Afflicted with tuberculosis, Thérèse hemorrhaged but endured her illness   
   with   
   patience and fortitude. She wished to join the Carmelites at Hanoi in   
   Indochina   
   at their invitation, but her illness became worse. She moved into the   
   infirmary   
   in 1897 and died at the age of 24. Her last words were, "I love him. My God   
   I   
   love you." Since her death she has worked innumerable miracles, and her   
   cultus   
   has spread throughout the world. She had become the most popular saint of   
   modern   
   times: Thérèse had shown innumerable people that sainthood is attainable by   
   anybody, however, obscure, lowly, untalented, by doing the small things and   
   discharging daily duties in a perfected spirit of love for God. Her   
   popularity   
   was so great that a large church was built in Lisieux to accommodate the   
   crowds   
   of pilgrims to her shrine.   
      
   In contemplating her death, Thérèse said, "I will let fall a shower of   
   roses,"   
   meaning favors through her intercession. From this we get the novena of St.   
   Thérèse which requires the praying of 24 Our Fathers each day for nine days   
   in   
   honor of the 24 years of life that God granted the saint. It is said that   
   when   
   the prayer has been heard and answered, the petitioner will receive a rose   
   from   
   the heavenly garden as a sign. For this reason, she is called "the Little   
   Flower   
   of Jesus."   
      
   Thérèse's attraction is her utter simplicity. She was no scholar; no great   
   student of the Bible or the Fathers. She simply longed to be a saint, as she   
   believed her person could. "In my little way," she wrote, "are only very   
   ordinary things. Little souls can do everything that I do."   
      
   She was full of fun. She drew a coat of arms for herself and Jesus,   
   surmounted   
   with her initials M.F.T., and the divine ones I.H.S. She made superbly   
   innocent   
   and happy jokes. She recorded that she would pretend she was at Nazareth in   
   the   
   Holy Family's home. "If I am offered salad, cold fish, wine or anything with   
   a   
   strong flavor, I give that to good Saint Joseph. I give the warm dishes and   
   the   
   ripest fruits to the Holy Virgin. I give the infant Jesus soup, rice, and   
   jam.   
   But if I am offered a bad meal, I say gaily to myself, 'My little girl,   
   today it   
   is all yours'."   
      
   Thérèse was a happy saint. Even as she suffered pain-physical and emotional   
   (being scolded for pulling up flowers rather than weeds in the garden)-she   
   always thanked God for everything (Attwater, von Balthasar, Benedictines,   
   Bentley, Day, Delaney, Gorres, Robo, Sackville-West, Sheppard, White).   
      
   In art, St. Thérèse is a Discalced Carmelite holding a bouquet of roses or   
   with   
   roses at her feet. She is the patron saint of foreign missions (due to her   
      
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