St. Thérèse of Lisieux

A Biography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

St. Thérèse was the ninth and last child of Azelie (Zelie) Guerin, a lacemaker, and Louis Martin, a jeweler and watchmaker. Both her parents were devout Catholics. Louis desired to become a monk in the Augustinian Monastery of the Great St. Bernard, but was refused because he knew no Latin and couldn't seem to learn it. Zélie, possessed of a strong and active temperament, wished to serve the sick, and considered entering the religious life as a Visitation Sister, but the superior discouraged her inquiry. Disappointed, Zélie learned the trade of lacemaking. She excelled in it and set up her own business on Rue Saint-Blaise at the age of twenty-two.

       Thérèse felt an early call to religious life, and in 1888 at the age of 15, overcame various obstacles to become a nun, joining two of her older sisters in the cloistered Carmelite community of Lisieux, France. After nine years as a Carmelite religious, having fulfilled different offices including sacristan and assistant to the novice mistress, and spending the last eighteen months in Carmel in a dark night of faith, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 24. The impact of The Story of a Soul, a collection of her autobiographical manuscripts, printed and distributed a year after her death was widely read. As a result of the enthusiastic reception of her story, she rapidly became one of the most popular saints of the twentieth century. Pope Pius X declared her the greatest Saint of modern times and Pope Pius XI declared her the “star of his pontificate.” She was beatified in 1923, and canonized in 1925. Thérèse was declared co-patron of the missions with Francis Xavier in 1927, and named co-patron of France with Joan of Arc in 1944. On October 19, 1997, Pope John Paul II declared her the thirty-third Doctor of the Church, the youngest person, and only the third woman, to be so honored. Devotion to Thérèse has developed around the world.

       Thérèse lived a hidden life and “wanted to be unknown,” yet became popular after her death through her spiritual autobiography. She also left letters, poems, religious plays, and prayers—even her last conversations were recorded by her sisters. Photographs and paintings—mostly the work of her sister Céline—further led to her being recognized by millions of men and women.

       The depth of her spirituality, of which she said, “my way is all confidence and love,” has inspired many believers. In the face of her littleness and nothingness, she trusted in God to be her sanctity. She wanted to go to Heaven by an entirely new little way. “I wanted to find an elevator that would raise me to Jesus.” The elevator, she wrote, would be “the arms of Jesus lifting me in all my littleness.”

Thérèse's childhood and Vocation

Soon after her birth, the outlook for the survival of Thérèse Martin was very grim. Enteritis, which had already claimed the lives of three of the four of her siblings who died young, threatened Thérèse, and she had to be entrusted to a wet nurse, Rose Taillé, who had already nursed two of the Martin children. Rose had her own children and could not live with the Martins, so Thérèse was sent to live with her in the forest of the Bodage at Semalle. On Holy Thursday, April 2, 1874, when she was 15 months old, she returned to Alençon where her family surrounded her with affection. She was educated in a Catholic environment, including daily Mass attendance at 5:30 a.m., strict observance of fasts, and prayer to the rhythm of the liturgical year. The Martins also practiced charity, visiting the sick and elderly, and welcoming the poor to their table.

       Therese like to play at being a nun. One day she went as far as to wish her mother would die; when scolded, she explained that she wanted the happiness of Paradise for her dear mother. Described as generally a happy child, the mother's humorous letters from this time provide a vivid picture of the little Thérèse. In a letter to Pauline when Thérèse was three she wrote: “She is intelligent enough, but not nearly so docile as her sister Céline. When she says NO, nothing can make her change her mind, and she can be terribly obstinate. You could keep her down in the cellar all day without getting a YES out of her; she would rather sleep there.” Mischievous and impish, she gave joy to her family but she was emotional, too, and often cried. “I hear the baby calling, ‘Mama!’ as she climbs up the stairs. On every step, she calls out ‘Mama!’ and if I don't respond every time, she remains there without going either forward or back.

       In 1865, Zelie began complaining of breast pain and was found to have a tumor. in December 1876 a doctor told her of the seriousness of the tumor. Feeling the approach of death, Zelie wrote to Pauline in the Spring of 1877, “You and Marie will have no difficulties with Thérèse's upbringing. Her disposition is so good. She is a chosen soul.” On August 28, 1877, Zélie Martin died of breast cancer at age 45, when Thérèse was barely 4 1/2 years old. Her mother's death dealt Thérèse a severe blow and later she would consider that the first part of her life stopped that day. She wrote: “Every detail of my mother's illness is still with me, especially her last weeks on earth.” Three months after Zélie died, Louis Martin left Alençon, and moved to Lisieux, where Zelie's pharmacist brother, Isidore Guérin, lived with his wife and two daughters. 

       Louis leased a charming, spacious country house, named Les Buissonnets, situated near a large garden on the slope of a hill overlooking the town. Looking back, Thérèse would see the move to Les Buissonnets as the beginning of the “second period of my life, the most painful of the three: it extends from the age of four-and-a-half to fourteen, the time when I rediscovered my childhood character, and entered into the serious side of life.” In Lisieux, Pauline took on the role of Thérèse's Mama. She took this role seriously, and Thérèse grew especially close to her and to Céline, the sister closest to her in youth.

Thérèse's home, Les Buissonnets

Thérese Martin was taught at home until she was eight and a half, at which time she entered the school kept by the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of Notre Dame du Pre in Lisieux. Thérèse, having been taught well and carefully by Marie and Pauline, found herself at the top of her class, except for writing and arithmetic. However, because of her young age and high grades, she was bullied. The one who bullied her the most was a girl of fourteen who did poorly at school.

       Thérèse suffered very much as a result of her sensitivity, and often cried. Furthermore, the boisterous games at recreation were not to her taste. She preferred to tell stories or look after the little ones in the infants’ class. “The five years I spent at school were the saddest of my life, and if my dear Céline had not been with me I could not have stayed there for a single month without falling ill.” On her free days she became closely attached to Marie Guérin, the younger of her two cousins in Lisieux. The two girls would play at being anchorites, as the great Teresa had once played with her brother. Every evening after her difficult school day she delighted to be within the family circle. “Fortunately, I could go home every evening and then I cheered up. I used to jump on Father's knee and tell him what marks I had, and when he kissed me all my troubles were forgotten . . . I needed this sort of encouragement.” Yet the tension of the double life and the daily self-conquest placed a strain on Thérèse. Going to school became too difficult to bear.

       In October 1862, when she was nine years old, her sister Pauline who had been her “second mother,” entered the Carmelite monastery at Lisieux. Thérèse was devastated. She understood that Pauline was cloistered and that she would never come back. “I said in the depths of my heart: Pauline is lost to me!” The shock reawakened in her the trauma caused by her mother’s death. She also wanted to join the Carmelites, but was told she was too young. However, Thérèse so impressed Mother Marie Gonzague, prioress at the time of Pauline's entry into the community, that she wrote to comfort her, calling Thérèse “my future little daughter.”

       With the loss of Pauline from the family circle, Thérèse began to suffer from nervous tremors. The tremors started one night when visiting her aunt and uncle. Uncle Guérin began to talk about her mother Zélie. When he noticed she began trembling he assumed she was cold, and covered Thérèse with blankets, but the tremors continued. In the following days once home she would clenched her teeth and be unable to eat. The family called Dr. Notta, who did not understand her illness and couldn’t make a definite diagnosis. An alarmed, but cloistered, Pauline began to write letters to Thérèse and attempted various strategies to intervene. Eventually, Thérèse recovered after she had turned to gaze at the statue of the Virgin Mary in Marie's bedroom, where Thérèse had been moved. She reported on May 13, 1883, that she had seen the Virgin smile at her. She wrote: “Our Blessed Lady has come to me, she has smiled upon me. How happy I am.” However, when Thérèse told the Carmelite nuns about this vision at the request of her eldest sister Marie, God allowed her to find suffering through the remembrance of this favor. “The memory of this great grace caused me real spiritual anguish.”

       In October 1886, her sister, Marie, entered the Lisieux Carmelite monastery, adding to Thérèse’s grief. The warm atmosphere at Les Buissonnets, so necessary to her, was disappearing. Now only she and Céline remained with their father. Her frequent tears made some friends think she had a weak character and the Guérins shared this opinion. Thérèse also suffered from scruples. She wrote: “One would have to pass through this martyrdom to understand it well, and for me to express what I experienced for a year and a half would be impossible.” 

Christmas Eve 1886

It was a French custom on Christmas Eve for children to leave their shoes on the fireplace hearth in anticipation to have them filled with gifts. After Mass Therese was looking forward to a joyful moment with her father carrying out this tradition. As she was going upstairs to get changed, she heard her father say to Celine, “Well, fortunately, this will be the last year for this!” Thérèse upon hearing these harsh words began to cry. Céline advised her not to go down stairs in tears. Suddenly, Thérèse pulled herself together and wiped her tears. She ran down the stairs, knelt by the fireplace, and unwrapped her presents as jubilantly as ever to the amazement of Celine and the happiness of her Father. In her account, nine years later, in 1895, she wrote: “In an instant Jesus, content with my good will, accomplished the work I had not been able to do in ten years.” After nine sad years she had recovered the strength of soul she had lost when her mother died and, she said, she was to retain it forever. She discovered the joy in self-forgetfulness and added, “I felt charity enter my heart and the need to forget myself to make others happy. Since that blessed night, I have not been defeated in any battle, but instead I went from victory to victory and began, so to speak, to “run a giant's course” (Psalms 19:5). Thérèse; she called it her “complete conversion.” She said “God worked a little miracle to make me grow up in an instant. On that blessed night Jesus, who saw fit to make Himself a child out of love for me, saw fit to have me come forth from the swaddling clothes and imperfections of childhood.”

Decision to enter Carmel 

In May 1887, Thérèse approached her 63-year old father Louis while he sat in the garden one Sunday afternoon and told him that she wanted to celebrate the anniversary of “her conversion” by entering Carmel at the age of fifteen. Louis and Thérèse both broke down and cried, but Louis got up, gently picked a little white flower, root intact, and gave it to her, explaining the care with which God brought it into being and preserved it until that day. Thérèse later wrote: “while I listened I believed I was hearing my own story.” To Therese, the flower seemed a symbol of herself. Thérèse then renewed her attempts to join the Carmel, but the priest-superior of the monastery would not allow it on account of her youth.

Pranzini

During the summer, French newspapers were filled with the story of Henri Pranzini, convicted of the brutal murder of two women and a child. To the outraged public, Pranzini represented all that threatened the decent way of life in France. In July and August 1887, Thérèse prayed hard for the conversion of Pranzini, so his soul could be saved, yet Pranzini showed no remorse. At the end of August, the newspapers reported that just as Pranzini's neck was placed on the guillotine, he had grabbed a crucifix and kissed it three times. Thérèse was ecstatic and believed that her prayers had saved him. She continued to pray for Pranzini after his death.

       In November 1887, Louis took Céline and Thérèse on a diocesan pilgrimage to Rome for the priestly jubilee of Pope Leo XIII. During a general audience with the Pope, an old man of seventy-seven, Thérèse, in her turn, approached him, and said, “Most Holy Father, I have a great favor to ask of you” and then asked his permission to enter the Cloister at age 15. The Pope replied, “Well, my child, do what the superiors decide. You will enter if it is God's Will,” and he blessed her. She refused to leave his feet, and the Swiss Guard had to carry her out of the room sobbing.

       Soon after that, the Bishop of Bayeux authorized the prioress to receive Thérèse, and on April 9, 1888, she became a Carmelite postulant. In 1889, her father suffered a stroke and was taken to a private sanatorium, the Bon Sauveur at Caen, where he remained for three years before returning to Lisieux in 1892. He died on July 29, 1894. Upon his death, Céline, who had been caring for him, entered the same Carmel as her three sisters on September 14, 1894; their cousin, Marie Guérin, entered on August 15, 1895

The monastery of Lisieux

The monastery Thérèse entered was not an old-established house with a great tradition. In 1838, two nuns from the Poitiers Carmel had been sent out to found a house in Lisieux. One of the foundresses, Mother Geneviève of St. Teresa, was still living when Thérèse entered. In fact, the second wing of the convent, containing the cells and sickrooms in which Therese was to live and die, had been standing only ten years.

        What Thérèse found when she entered was a community of very aged nuns, some odd and cranky, some sick and troubled, some lukewarm and complacent. Almost all of the sisters came from the petty bourgeois and artisan class. The Prioress and Novice Mistress were of old Norman nobility. Probably the Martin sisters alone represented the new class of the rising bourgeoisie.

       The Carmelite order had been reformed in the sixteenth century by Teresa of Avila. The times of silence and of solitude were many, but the foundress had also planned time for work and relaxation in common, believing that the austerity of the life should not hinder sisterly and joyful relations. The Carmel of Lisieux in 1888 had 26 nuns from very different classes and backgrounds. For the majority of the life of Thérèse, the prioress would be Mother Marie de Gonzague, born Marie-Adéle-Rosalie Davy de Virville. When Thérèse entered the convent, Mother Marie was 54, a woman of changeable humor who sometimes used her authority in a capricious manner; this had for effect a certain laxity in the observance of established rules.

St. Thérèse as Novice

Right at the start Marie de Gonzague, the prioress, had turned the postulant Thérèse over to her eldest sister Marie, who was to teach her to follow the Divine Office. Later she appointed Thérèse assistant to Pauline in the refectory. Thérèse adhered strictly to the rule which forbade all superfluous talk during work. She saw her sisters together only in the hours of common recreation after meals. At such times she would sit down beside whomever she happened to be near, or beside a nun whom she had observed to be downcast, disregarding the tacit and sometimes expressed sensitivity and even jealousy of her biological sisters. "We must apologize to the others for our being four under one roof," she was in the habit of remarking. "When I am dead, you must be very careful not to lead a family life with one another...I did not come to Carmel to be with my sisters; on the contrary, I saw clearly that their presence would cost me dear, for I was determined not to give way to nature."

       Though the novice mistress, Sr. Marie of the Angels, (Jeanne de Charmontel), found Thérèse slow, the young postulant adapted well to her new environment. She wrote, "Illusions, the Good Lord gave me the grace to have none on entering Carmel. I found religious life as I had imagined, no sacrifice astonished me." She sought above all to conform to the rules and customs of the Carmelites that she learned each day. Later, when Thérèse had become assistant to the novice mistress, she repeated how important respect for the Rule was: "When any break the rule, this is not a reason to justify ourselves. Each must act as if the perfection of the Order depended on her personal conduct." She also affirmed the essential role of obedience in religious life: "When you stop watching the infallible compass [of obedience], as quickly the mind wanders in arid lands where the water of grace is soon lacking." She chose a spiritual director, a Jesuit, Father Pichon. At their first meeting, she made a general confession going back over all her past sins. She came away from it profoundly relieved. The priest who had himself suffered from scruples, understood her and reassured her. A few months later, he left for Canada, and Thérèse would only be able to ask his advice by letter and his replies were rare. During her time as postulant, Thérèse had to endure some bullying from other sisters because of her lack of aptitude for handicrafts and manual work. Sr. St. Vincent de Paul, the finest embroideress in the community, made her feel awkward and even called her "the big nanny goat." Thérèse was in fact the tallest in her family {approx. 5'3}. Like all religious, she discovered the ups and downs related to differences in temperament, character, problems of sensitivities, or infirmities. After nine years she wrote plainly, "the lack of judgment, education, the touchiness of some characters, all these things do not make life very pleasant. I know very well that these moral weaknesses are chronic, that there is no hope of cure." But the greatest suffering came from outside Carmel. On June 23, 1888, Louis Martin disappeared from his home and was found days later, in the post office in Le Havre. The incident marked the onset of her father's steep physical and mental decline.

       The end of Thérèse's time as a postulant arrived on January 10, 1889, with her taking of the habit. From that time she wore the rough homespun and brown scapular, white wimple and veil, leather belt with rosary, woolen stockings, rope sandals. In her letters from this period of her novitiate, Thérèse returned over and over to the theme of littleness, referring to herself as a grain of sand, an image she borrowed from Pauline. The remainder of her life would be defined by retreat and subtraction. She absorbed the work of John of the Cross, spiritual reading uncommon at the time, especially for such a young nun. "Oh! what insights I have gained from the works of our holy father, St John of the Cross! When I was seventeen and eighteen, I had no other spiritual nourishment." She felt a kinship with this classic writer of the Carmelite Order, and with enthusiasm she read his works. Passages from these writings are woven into everything she herself said and wrote. 

St. Thérèse of the holy face

With the new name a Carmelite receives when she enters the Order, there is always an epithet, e.g., Teresa of Jesus, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Anne of the Angels. The epithet singles out the Mystery which she is supposed to contemplate with special devotion. Thérèse's names in religion must be taken together to define her religious significance. The first name was promised to her at nine by Mother Marie de Gonzague (Thérèse of the Child Jesus), and was given to her at her entry into the convent Yet, later on after she received the veil, Thérèse herself asked Mother Marie de Gonzague to confer upon her the second name (Thérèse of the Holy Face). During the course of her novitiate, contemplation of the Holy Face had nourished her inner life. The Holy Face is an image representing the disfigured face of Jesus during His Passion. Thérèse meditated on certain passages from the prophet Isaiah which prefigured Christ. Six weeks before her death she remarked to Pauline, "The words in Isaiah: 'no stateliness here, no majesty, no beauty, one despised, left out of all human reckoning, how should we take any account of him, a man so despised (Is 53:2–3),’ these words were the basis of my whole worship of the Holy Face. I, too, wanted to be without comeliness and beauty, unknown to all creatures." On the eve of her profession she wrote to Sister Marie, “Tomorrow I shall be the bride of Jesus 'whose face was hidden—what a union and what a future!”

       On September 24, the public ceremony followed, filled with “sadness and bitterness.” Thérèse to wept over the absence of her own father, still confined in the asylum." Mother Marie de Gonzague wrote to the prioress of Tours: "The angelic child is seventeen and a half, with the sense of a thirty year old, the religious perfection of an old and accomplished novice, and possession of herself; she is a perfect nun.”

       The years which followed were those of a maturation of her vocation. Thérèse prayed and multiplied small acts of charity and care for others, doing small services, without making a show of them. She accepted criticism in silence, even unjust criticisms, and smiled at the sisters who were unpleasant to her. She prayed for priests, and in particular for Father Hyacinthe Loyson, a famous preacher who had been a Sulpician and a Dominican novice before becoming a Carmelite and provincial of his order, but who had left the Catholic Church in 1869. Three years later he married a young widow, a Protestant, with whom he had a son. After excommunication had been pronounced against him, he continued to travel round France giving lectures. While clerical papers called Loyson a renegade monk, Thérèse continued to pray for him. She offered her last communion on August 19, 1897, for Father Hyacinthe.

       On February 20, 1893, Pauline was elected prioress of Carmel and became Mother Agnes. Mother Marie de Gonzague was unofficially the novice mistress and Thérèse was her assistant. The work of guiding the novices would fall primarily to Thérèse A cherished image was that of the newly invented elevator, a vehicle Thérèse used to describe God's grace, a force that lifts us to heights we can't reach on our own. Her sister Céline's memoir is filled with numerous examples of the teacher Thérèse. Céline exclaimed: "Oh! When I think how much I have to acquire!" Thérèse would reply: "Rather, how much you have to lose! Jesus Himself will fill your soul with treasures in the same measure that you move your imperfections out of the way." And Céline recalled a story Thérèse told about egotism. The 28-month-old Thérèse visited Le Mans and was given a basket filled with candies, at the top of which were two sugar rings. “Oh! How wonderful! There is a sugar ring for Céline, too!” On her way to the station, however, the basket overturned, and one of the sugar rings disappeared. “Ah, I no longer have any sugar ring for poor Céline!” Reminding Celine of the incident, Thérèse observed, “See how deeply rooted in us is this self-love! Why was it your (Céline's) sugar ring, and not mine, that was lost? "Thérèse deliberately sought out the company of those nuns whose temperaments she found hardest to bear." What merit was there in acting charitably toward people whom one loved naturally? Thérèse went out of her way to spend time with, and therefore to love, the people she found repellent. It was an effective means of achieving interior poverty, a way to remove a place to rest her head.

       The year 1894 brought a national celebration of Joan of Arc. On January 27, 1894, Leo XIII authorized the introduction of her cause of beatification, declaring Joan, the shepherdess from Lorraine “venerable.” Thérèse used Henri Wallon's history of Joan of Arc to help her write two plays. Thérèse wrote these plays in honor of her childhood heroine, the first about Joan's response to the heavenly voices calling her to battle, the second about her resulting martyrdom. The first, called "The Mission of Joan of Arc," was performed at the Carmel on January 21, 1894; and the second, called "Joan of Arc Accomplishes her Mission," was performed on January 21, 1895 As a side note, at the end of the second play that Thérèse had written on Joan of Arc, the paper fluer de lis attached to her costume caught fire. Mother Marie de Gonague told her not to move as the nuns proceeded to put out the flames. Thérèse did not flinch until the fire was quenched.

       On July 29, 1894, Louis Martin died. During his illness Céline took care of him. Following his Celine entered the Lisieux convent on September 14, 1894. With Mother Agnes' permission, she brought her camera and developing materials to Carmel. Céline took many photographs of Thérèse and the community. 

St. Thérèse in convent

Thérèse entered the Carmel of Lisieux with the determination to become a saint. But, by the end of 1894, six full years as a Carmelite made her realize how small and insignificant she was. She saw the limitations of all her efforts. She remained small and very far off from the unfailing love that she would wish to practice. She understood then that it was on this very littleness that she must lean to ask God's help. Along with her camera, Céline had brought notebooks with her, passages from the Old Testament, which Thérèse did not have in Carmel. In the notebooks Thérèse found a passage from Proverbs that struck her with particular force. If anyone is a very little one, let him come to me (Proverbs 9:4). And, from the book of Isaiah (66:12–13), she was profoundly struck by another passage: As a mother caresses her child, so I shall console you, I shall carry you at my breast and I shall swing you on my knees." She concluded that Jesus would carry her to the summit of sanctity. The smallness of Thérèse, her limits, became in this way grounds for joy, more than discouragement. It is only in Manuscript C of her autobiography that she gave to this discovery the name of little way (petite voie). Echoes of this way, however, are heard throughout her work. From February 1895, she would regularly sign her letters by adding the words, “very little,” (toute petite) in front of her name. 

       On June 9, 1895, during a Mass celebrating the feast of the Holy Trinity, Thérèse had a sudden inspiration that she must offer herself as a sacrificial victim to merciful love. In her cell she drew up an “Act of Oblation” for herself and for Céline, and on June 11, with the permission of Pauline who was superior at the time, the two of them knelt before the miraculous Virgin and Thérèse read the document she had written and signed. “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works.” According to biographer Ida Gorres, the document echoed the happiness she had felt when Father Alexis Prou, the Franciscan preacher, had assured her that her faults did not cause God sorrow. In the Oblation she wrote : "If through weakness I should chance to fall, may a glance from Your Eyes straightway cleanse my soul, and consume all my imperfections as fire transforms all things into itself."

       Thérèse's final years were marked by a steady decline that she bore resolutely and without complaint. Tuberculosis was the key element of Thérèse's final suffering, but she saw that as part of her spiritual journey. After observing a rigorous Lenten fast in 1896, she went to bed on the eve of Good Friday and felt a joyous sensation. She wrote: "Oh! how sweet this memory really is! I had scarcely laid my head upon the pillow when I felt something like a bubbling stream mounting to my lips. I didn't know what it was." The next morning she found blood on her handkerchief and understood her fate. Coughing up of blood meant tuberculosis, and tuberculosis meant death. She wrote: "I thought immediately of the joyful thing that I had to learn, so I went over to the window. I was able to see that I was not mistaken. Ah! my soul was filled with a great consolation; I was interiorly persuaded that Jesus, on the anniversary of His own death, wanted to have me hear His first call!"

       As a result of tuberculosis, Thérèse suffered terribly. When she was near death, her physical suffering kept increasing so that even the doctor himself was driven to exclaim, “If you only knew what this young nun was suffering!” During the last hours of Thérèse’s life, she said, "I would never have believed it was possible to suffer so much—never, never!” 

St. Thérèse in death

In July 1897, she made a final move to the monastery infirmary. On August 19, 1897, Thérèse received her last Communion. She died on September 30, 1897, at the young age of 24. On her death bed, she is reported to have said: "I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me." Her last words were, "My God, I love you!"

       Thérèse was buried on October 4, 1897, in the Carmelite plot in the municipal cemetery at Lisieux, where Louis and Zelie had been buried. In March 1923, however, before she was beatified, her body was returned to the Carmel of Lisieux, where it remains.

       St. Thérèse is known today because of her spiritual autobiography, L'histoire d'une âme (The Story of a Soul ) and because of the many miracles worked at her intercession. She began to write her autobiography in 1895 as a memoir of her childhood, under instructions from her sister Pauline, known in religion as Mother Agnes of Jesus (Manuscript A). Mother Agnes gave the order after being prompted by their eldest sister, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart. While Thérèse was on retreat in September 1896, she wrote a letter to Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, which also forms part of her story (Manuscript B). The final manuscript, manuscript C was written at the request of Mother Marie de Gonazgue.

       Pope Pius X signed the decree for the opening of her process of canonization on June 10, 1914. Pope Benedict XV, in order to hasten the process, dispensed with the usual fifty-year delay required between death and beatification. On August 14, 1921, he promulgated the decree on the heroic virtues of Thérèse and gave an address on Thérèse's way of confidence and love, recommending it to the whole Church.

       Thérèse was beatified on April 19, 1923, and canonized on May 17, 1925, by Pope Pius XI, only 28 years after her death. Her feast day was added to the Roman Catholic calendar of saints in 1927 for celebration on October 3rd. In 1969, 42 years later, Pope Paul VI moved it to October 1st, the day after her birthday into heaven.