At the age of 14, on Christmas Eve in 1886, Therese had a conversion that transformed her life. From then on, her powerful energy and sensitive spirit were turned toward love, instead of keeping herself happy. At 15, she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux to give her whole life to God. She took the religious name Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Living a hidden, simple life of prayer, she was gifted with great intimacy with God. Through sickness and dark nights of doubt and fear, she remained faithful to God, rooted in his merciful love. After a long struggle with tuberculosis, she died on September 30, 1897, at the age of 24. Her last words were the story of her life: "My God, I love You!"

The world came to know Therese through her autobiography, Story of a Soul. She described her life as a "little way of spiritual childhood." She lived each day with an unshakeable confidence in God's love. "What matters in life," she wrote, "is not great deeds, but great love." She lived and taught a spirituality of attending to everyone and everything well and with love. She believed that just as a child becomes enamored with what is before her, we should also have a childlike focus and totally attentive love. Therese's spirituality is of doing the ordinary, with extraordinary love.

Therese saw the seasons as reflecting the seasons of God's love affair with us. She loved flowers and saw herself as the "little flower of Jesus," who gave glory to God by just being her beautiful little self among all the other flowers in God's garden. Because of this beautiful analogy, the title "little flower" remained with St. Therese.

Her inspiration and powerful presence from heaven touched many people very quickly. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI on May 17, 1925. Had she lived, she would have been only 52 years old when she was declared a Saint.

"My mission - to make God loved - will begin after my death," she said. "I will spend my heaven doing good on earth. I will let fall a shower of roses." Roses have been described and experienced as Saint Therese's signature. Countless millions have been touched by her intercession and imitate her "little way." She has been acclaimed "the greatest saint of modern times." In 1997, Pope John Paul II declared St. Therese a Doctor of the Church - the only Doctor of his pontificate - in tribute to the powerful way her spirituality has influenced people all over the world.

The message of St. Therese is beautiful, inspiring and simple.

My own story of love through Saint Therese of the Little Flower, beloved among Catholic Saints, is small in camparison to many, I am sure, but I share it anyway in the hope that whoever reads this by God's chance in a similar situation may find a bit of comfort.

When my mother, with whom I had a mixed quality of relationship, passed away in March of 2003, I did not know how to grieve for her. She was unpleasant and self-absorbed, and an alcoholic, albeit functional. I did not enjoy being with her, and I felt very guilty about this at her passing. She had a difficult dying, suffering from COPD, in which one literally slowly suffocates. She spent her last days at home with end-of-life care, and I spent much time there with her. I tried to share what little I could about Jesus, and His Mercy, and about how Catholics can join their suffering to that of Christ on the Cross, but I did it poorly, and she was not receptive. So, when she died my worst fear was that her soul was unrepentant, and that she was not "saved."

About 3 days after she passed away, I received a card from a long-time acquaintance. It was a Memorial Enrollment card, from the Society of the Little Flower, telling me that for 5 years my mother would be remembered at Mass. Inside was a lovely picture of Saint Therese, looking out with her direct and confidently innocent gaze. At first I was touched, but almost immediately I became cynically angry, and I actually yelled at Saint Therese. I told her that there were no two people ever on earth that were less alike than she and my mother, and that if I were ever to believe that someone as kind as Saint Therese would pray for someone as unpleasantly mean as my mother, then she would have to pull one of those "Rose Tricks" out of her habit and get a flower to grow on just one of those stupid stinking rose bushes that I had planted in my yard 3 years ago and had never once had a single bloom on them. I then apologised to her and felt rather foolish.

Two or three days later, when I took the dog out back by the reclacitrant rose bushes (I had given up speaking or singing to them, and had taken to threatening them and letting the pup have her urinary way on them), what I had said to Therese occurred to me, and I furtively took a peek at the bushes. Indeed, on just one of those bushes, were huge clusters of the tiniest just-green buds, a week at least away from blooming. There were none on any of the other bushes. I got down on my knees, shooing the pit bull away this time, and counted many rosebuds.

My gift from Saint Therese bloomed, rose after rose, until they were finally all gone. The bush has not bloomed again. I was able to save a few petals, and I sent them to a friend whose mother passed away soon after mine. I now know that the Communion of Saints, that we say every week in the Nicene Creed that we believe in, is a reality. The Saints do care about us, and pray for us, and pray even for those of us that are difficult or apparently unrepentant. And if they care about us, then we can only try to imagine the love that Mary, the most perfect Saint, and Jesus Christ Himself has for each of us. This gift gave me great hope and consolation, and I thank Saint Therese, the Society of the Little Flower, and my friend who enrolled my mother's name in their Memorial. I also thank all the Catholic Saints who pray for us, even those whom we know nothing about. And of course, I thank God the Father Almighty for giving us such a Son, and such a mother as the Blessed Virgin Mary.