We have become a dangerously self-conscious people, painfully aware of the need to be fulfilled, yet knowing we are not. The Little Theresa has much to teach our age of the image, the appearance, the “sell”. In art she is represented in a Carmelite habit holding a bunch of roses in memory of her promise to “let fall a shower of roses” of miracles and other favours. She devised a coat of arms for herself and Jesus with the initials MFT and IHS and enjoyed making up jokes and funny stories. Her influence helped to lead many to a rediscovery of first principles, and the primacy of ordinary duties of the religious life over personal initiatives, which so often cloak self-will. “In my little way are only very ordinary things. No scholar, or great student of the Bible, she simply longed to be a saint as she thought any ordinary person could.

Therese’s attraction lies in her simplicity. The book was translated into many languages and became an instant best-seller. They published it after she died (with some of their own sentimental additions) and the appeal of the book was astonishing. But her superiors asked her to write her autobiography, called the Story of a Soul. Her last words were: “My God I love you.” She had contracted a very virulent form of TB and suffered a very painful illness, without complaining, before she died at the age of just 24, in 1897. She had many dreams and wanted to go to the Far East as a missionary. The Carmelites and her bishop thought she was too young, but she persisted and eventually got her way. When she was 15 she told her father she was so devoted to God she wanted to become a nun. St Therese was born in 1873 in Alencon in France.

Story of a Soul by Thérèse of Lisieux