“When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens,
I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.”
Therese, also known as The Little Flower of Carmel, felt an early call to religious life, and overcoming various obstacles, in 1888 at the early age of 15, she became a nun and joined two of her elder sisters in the cloistered Carmelite community of Lisieux, Normandy. After nine years as a Carmelite religious, having fulfilled various offices such as sacristan and assistant to the novice mistress, and having spent her last eighteen months in Carmel in a night of faith, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 24.
Therese was faithful to the Gospel of Jesus and the core of his message. She invites us to join in her “spiritual childhood” or “little way”. The power, appeal and simplicity of her message is why our Church declared her a Doctor of the Church in 1997.
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