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St. Teresa of the Child Jesus, also known as St. Teresa or Therese of Lisieux was born January 2, 1873, at Alencon, France, to Louis Martin, watchmaker and his wife, Azelle-Marie Guerin. She was baptized Marie Francoise Therese, one of five children who lived to maturity. She had a happy childhood surrounded by good influences. Mrs. Matrin died in 1877, and the family moved to Lisieux, so that the children's aunt might have them under her wing. Elder sister Mary ran the house and eldest sister, Pauline, undertook the religious education of the family. When Teresa was nine years of age, Pauline entered the Carmelite Convent at Lisieux and Teresa began to be drawn in the same direction, even though attending the Benedictine school. When Teresa was fourteen, sister Mary became a Carmelite at Lisieux. On Christmas Eve of that year Teresa had a religious experience or apparition in which the Infant Jesus, scarcely an hour old, filled her soul with floods of light. By becoming weak for her, He made her strong. During the next year she told her father of her desire to enter the Carmelites, and he agreed, but the Bishop of Bayeux refused her entrance because she was underage. Later that same year she was in Rome with her father at the sacerdotal jubilee of Pope Plus IX. In audience she asked the Pope for permission to enter Carmel before she was sixteen, but he upheld the decision of the religious superiors. Teresa was admitted to the Carmelites on April 9, 1888. One of her assigned devotions was prayer for priests. Mr. Martin suffered a paralytic stroke in 1889 and was sent to a private asylum for care. Teresa felt deeply for he father and offered her suffering up to the Infant Jesus. She had started on the road to sanctity by doing small things and discharging her daily duties with perfection, as he autobiography, written at the command of her superiors, shows. In 1894 Mr. Martin died and Celine, another daughter, who had been caring for him, also entered the Carmelites at Lisieux. Eighteen months later, Teresa, who was contemplating answering an appeal to go to Hanoi, Indo-China, had a bad Hemorrhage from the mouth. The disease worsened for the next year and a half and she died Sept. 30, 1897. In this last illness she uttered three statements widely known:-"I have never given God anything but love and it is with love that He shall repay. After my death, I will let fall a shower of roses." "I will spend my Heaven doing good on earth." "My little was is the way of spiritual childhood, the way of trust and absolute self-surrender." Quickly a cult rose to the sanctity of Teresa of Lisieux, with attests of miracles due to her intercession. She was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1923 and canonized by the same Pope in 1925. St. Teresa set out to be a saint. She said to herself: "The good God would not inspire unattainable desires." Her dedication and the grace of God attained sanctity for her. |
| (From Vatican Notes Volume XXII, Number 1, July - August 1973, Page 2) |
