Thérèse’s writings and counsels on trust and self-surrender tell how she overcame her weaknesses and learned to offer every part of life to Jesus, embracing his cross in the little things of daily life. In 1897, hardly twenty-four years old, Thérèse Martin died of tuberculosis in her Normandy convent. Born to a devout middle-class family, Thérèse lost her mother when only four and later followed her sisters into religious life at a young age. These writings show how it is that this young French Carmelite, despite such a short and in many ways unassuming life, has inspired millions: how she overcame her own weaknesses and learned to offer every part of her life to Jesus, embracing the Cross in the small things of daily life. In 1995, the Church proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church, largely on account of this very spirituality of the Little Way.
