Known as Teresa of Lisieux or simply as the Little Flower, St. Teresa is one of the most renowned saints of the 19th Century. She was born on 2nd January, 1873 to Louis and Zelie Martin, saintly parents both of whom wanted to be Religious but could not accomplish that will. But God willed that 5 of their children should be Religious because of their saintly upbringing. One Religious of the Order of Visitation and four others in the Carmelite Order.
Teresa Martin their 9th child was very special. She wanted to offer herself in totality to God following her others sisters, in the order of the Cloistered Carmelites. She wanted to join when she was just 14 but the rules did not permit her – she would not give up she appealed to the Bishop and later even to the Pope. She met Pope Leo XIII who recommended the case to the Superior of the Convent and left it to her discretion. And Teresa was admitted as an exception when she was just 15 years and the saintly girl excelled in her simple but profound love for the Lord. She experienced enormous suffering and difficulties, all with a sweetness in her heart.
In 1895 she offered herself as the sacrificial victim to the merciful love of God and the following year she was diagnosed with tuberculosis which brought an incredible amount of suffering to her which she took on herself as a sign of her love for the Lord. The sickness took her to her deathbed on 30th September, 1897. She was just 24. The little ways in which she remained so united in love of the Lord and the neighbour gained her the name ‘Little Saint of Simplicity’ and her life came to be known as ‘the Little Way’. When her body was exhumed in the year 1910, it seemed to have given out an extraordinary sweet fragrance, reminding us of the sweetness with which she accepted her sufferings.
Dear Young Friends,
– thinking of vocation and discernment today, how willing are you to offer yourself to the Lord?
– in your daily life, can you be simple, sweet and loving, after the Little Way taught by the Little Flower?
Published in Don Bosco Bullettin and www.indiancatholicmatters.org
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