Every Christian dreams of one day entering heaven, of becoming a saint. But when we look at the saints who have come before us, the task seems daunting. Christian martyrs literally gave their lives for Christ – and many early Christian saints were even crucified like Christ. Other saints like St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas developed deep theologies that helped form the teaching of the church for centuries – right up to the current day.
So as we strive to become a saint, how can we possibly measure up to saints like these? The task can feel impossible.
That’s why every Catholic (and every Christian, really) should get to know St. Therese of Lisieux. Instead of allowing her “smallness” to make her feel hopeless, she embraced it – and discovered an entirely new way to Christ: The “Little Way”.
A Path to Holiness
Therese was born in 1873 in Alençon, France to a faith-filled, Catholic family. In her early life, she was small, sickly, anxious, and sensitive, and found herself frequently bullied at school. She called her time at school “the saddest days of her life”. She turned toward Christ and the Blessed Mother to ease her suffering, which brought her peace and calm. This experience brought about a deepening of her faith and a desire to draw even closer to Christ.
Four of Therese’s older sisters became nuns. Therese was determined to follow in their footsteps, but she was too young. She took a pilgrimage to Rome to visit Pope Leo XIII and ask him to help her enter the same Carmelite Monastery as her sisters. She finally entered in 1888 at the age of 15.
In the monastery, the sisters studied the saints and were taught to fear God and fear hell. The fear made Therese shrink even smaller, and studying the saints made her feel even more insignificant. So Therese again turned to Christ, asking for a copy of the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul (Galatians, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Ephesians, and Collossians). The scriptures helped her feel closer to Christ, like a small child wrapped in the arms of her father.
The Little Way
Therese’s time in the Monastery helped deepen her faith, but she still felt small and insignificant. She continued to go deeper into the scriptures, and was struck by this passage from Proverbs 9:4: “Whoever is a little one, let him come to me.”
Another passage stood out to her: “You shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you. As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you”. (Isaiah 66:12-13).
Instead of envisioning herself achieving great things and becoming a saint, Therese pictured herself small, in Jesus’ arms, getting carried up to heaven. She called this her “little way” to Christ.
In her autobiography, Story of a Soul, she wrote: “I will seek out a means of getting to Heaven by a little way – a way that is very straight, very short and totally new.”
A Path of Great Love
Therese redoubled her focus on Jesus’ love, now adapted for her “little way”. Therese wrote, “Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.”
So in the Monastery, she would do her chores as labors of love – doing tasks out of love for her fellow sisters to lighten their loads. She would love others not in grand acts, but in countless small ways done all throughout her day.
Therese’s sick disposition continued, and she became very ill with tuberculosis and died at only 24 years of age.
Not only did her “little way” lead to her becoming a saint (Canonized in 1924 by Pope Pius XI), she was named a Doctor of the Church in 1997 by Pope John Paul II. Her “little way” has inspired millions to find Christ and strive for holiness through the small things in life.
Saint Mother Teresa, who is named for St. Therese, adopted the “little way” in her ministry, famously saying, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”
