Thérèse Martin was born in Alençon, France, on January 2, 1873 into a family that regularly donated their contribution to the Propagation of the Faith.

At the age of seven, Thérèse was enrolled in the Work of the Holy Childhood which will leave her heart with a keen interest in the baptism of Chinese children, of which she wanted to become the spiritual godmother.

On 9 April 1888 he entered the Carmel of Lisieux taking the habit on 10 January of the following year and making his religious profession on 8 September 1890, on the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.

Death took her after a serious illness on the afternoon of September 30, 1897.

Author of “Story of a Soul”, published for the first time in 1898, she was canonized by Pius XI on May 17, 1925 and proclaimed Universal Patroness of the Missions , at the same time as St. Francis Xavier , by the Pope himself, on December 14, 1927.

Saint John Paul II said of her: “The road you have taken to reach this ideal of life is not that of large enterprises reserved for a few, but is instead a way within everyone’s reach, the” little way “, the road of confidence and total trust in the grace of the Lord. It is not way to trivialize, as if it were less demanding. It is actually demanding, as the Gospel always is. But it is a way permeated with that sense of trusting abandonment to divine mercy, which makes light even the most arduous commitment of the spirit “, ( Homily for the proclamation as” doctor of the church “of St. Pietro – Sunday 19 October 1997).