Heaven’s Little Flower

Mention saint to a Catholic, and he will probably think of holy men and women dead for centuries, seen only in iconography in churches and homes and read about through third-person accounts of their saintly lives.

SaintTherese of the Child Jesus or Saint Therese of Lisieux is one saint that Catholics have a clear idea of what she looked like in life, thanks to the 41 or so photographs taken of her from childhood until her death, and what she did because of her autobiography, The Story of a Soul.

On January 2, 1873, a daughter was born to Louis Martin and Zelie Guerin of Alencon, France.  They named their child, the youngest in a brood of nine, Therese Martin before renaming her Marie Frances Therese at her baptism two days later.  On April 9, 1888, she joined the Carmelites in Lisieux, France, at the age of 15, and professed her vows on September 8, 1890.

Saint Therese probably led an unremarkable life that a Carmelite sister wondered what their Mother Superior would report about Therese’s death from tuberculosis on September 30, 1897.  Exactly a year later, the world learned of her saintly life and how she considered herself as “Jesus’ little flower” through the publication of Story of a Soul.  Pope Benedict XV beatified her on April 29, 1923, Pope Pius XI canonized her on May 17, 1925, and Pope John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church on October 19, 1997.

Many people, including French combat pilots in World War I, have sought Saint Therese’s intercession through prayers and novenas.  For each miracle and favor granted such as healing from serious illnesses, she gained new devotees that she is now one of the Church’s most popular saints.

Saint Therese of the Child Jesus promised on her deathbed that she would “let fall a shower of roses.”  Figurative or literal roses or the fragrance of roses have been the trademarks of her miracles, most apt symbols for “Jesus’ little flower who glorified God by just being her beautiful little self among all the other flowers in God’s garden.”

-Prospero Pulma Jr.-