At the time of the death of Sœur Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus (Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin, 2 January 1873 – 30 September 1897) the Carmelite convent of Lisieux was a hidden and poor community, destined to remain as obscure and forgotten as Thérèse herself had been during her nine-year career as a nun. Just twenty-eight years later, Thérèse had been made a saint and the Carmel of Lisieux had become the focus of the attention of the whole Catholic world. There was little remarkable about Thérèse’s short and sheltered life, but she has enjoyed an incredible ‘posthumous life’ through her second career as a saint…

Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon (eds), Studies in Church History 47: Sainthood and Sanctity (Woodbridge, 2011), pp. 376-89.

Buy the book