St. Thérèse of Lisieux
She wanted to do something enormous. She did something tiny instead.
Thérèse decided at fourteen that she was going to be a nun, and every adult in the chain said no. The priest said no. The bishop said nothing at all. On a family trip to Rome she knelt down in front of the Pope and asked him directly, after everyone had been told not to speak to him, and guards picked her up by the arms and carried her out.
They let her in the next year. And here is the part nobody expects: it still was not enormous. She was a small person in a small building, and she was never going to go anywhere or do anything that anyone would hear about.
So she worked with what was in the building. A sister who made an infuriating clicking noise during evening prayer, and Thérèse decided to listen to it like a concert. An old sister nobody wanted to help walk to supper, and Thérèse asked for the job. A sister she genuinely could not stand, and Thérèse treated her like a favorite until the woman asked what it was about her that Thérèse liked so much.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux facts for kids
- She's a Doctor of the Church, one of only four women
- She called it the Little Way: small things done with great love
- She's the patron saint of missionaries, and she never left her convent
- Her book, Story of a Soul, was written because her prioress told her to
Feast day: October 1 · Patron of missionaries and florists
The General Roman Calendar lists her as Thérèse of the Child Jesus.
St. Thérèse, help me do one small thing today that nobody notices.
The longer story
We wrote a whole post about St. Thérèse, with more of the story than fits on one page.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux: The Little Flower Who Did Big Things with Small Acts