Important Events in the Life of St Therese
Childhood in Alencon (1873-1877)
Of farming and army stock, the Martin family had solid roots in Normandy and Mayenne. Brought up in a series of military camps, Louis Martin (1823-1894) thought seriously of entering a monastery. But this was not to be and he turned to clock and watchmaking instead. Zélie Guérin (1831-1877) was also unsuccessful in her attempt to enter the religious order of the Sisters of the Hótel-Dieu. She learned the Alencon lacemaking technique and soon mastered this painstaking craft. They married in 1858 and had nine children. Four, including two boys died in infancy.
Thérèse the youngest, was born on January 2, 1873. The Martin household was a lively place. Thérèse’s father, Louis, had a nickname for each of his daughters. Her mother, Zelie, wrote her relatives constantly about the joys each child gave her. Thérèse was the baby and everyone’s favorite, especially her mother’s. Due to Thérèse’s weak and frail condition at birth, she was taken care of by a nurse for her first year and a half. Because of this care, she became a lively, mischievous and self-confident child. But Zélie was not blind to her baby’s faults. Thérèse was, she wrote, “incredibly stubborn. When she has said ‘no’ nothing will make her change her mind. One could put her in the cellar for the whole day.” Thérèse’s candor appeared early and was unusual. The little one would run to her mother and confess “Mama, I hit Celine (her sister) once, but I won’t do it again.”
Little Therese was blond, 
blue-eyed, affectionate, stubborn, and alarmingly precocious. She could throw a giant-sized tantrum. Her bubbling laughter could make a gargoyle smile. In a note, Zélie advised her daughter Pauline: “She (Thérèse) flies into frightful tantrums when things don’t go just right and according to her way of thinking; she rolls on the floor in desperation like one without any hope. There are times when it gets too much for her and she literally chokes. She’s a nervous child, but she is very good, very intelligent, and remembers everything.” Disaster struck suddenly, when her other died of breast cancer in the summer of 1877.
Through it all, however, Thérèse thrived on the love which surrounded her in this Christian home. It was there, that prayer, the liturgy, and practical good works formed the basis of her own ardent love of Jesus, her desire to please Him and the Virgin Mary.
Thérèse’s father was left to raise the five girls, ranging from four to seventeen. His brother-in-law, Isidore Guérin, a chemist in Lisieux, invited them to live with him in this small town with its population of just 18,600 people. They moved on November 15, 1877.
Thérèse spent eleven years at Les Buissonnets with its fine house and a quiet garden, some distance from the center of the town. Her sisters, 
Marie and Pauline took care of her education. Louis Martin was both father and mother to his children. He called Thérèse his “little queen” and often took her walking or fishing in the surrounding countryside.
Thérèse was taught at home until she was eight and a half, and then entered the school kept by the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of Notre Dame du Pre in Lisieux. Thérèse, taught well and carefully by Marie and Pauline, found herself at the top of the class, except for writing and arithmetic. However, because of her young age and high grades she was bullied. The one who bullied her the most was a girl of fourteen who did poorly at school. Thérèse suffered very much as a result of her sensitivity and she cried in silence. Furthermore, the boisterous games at recreation were not to her taste. She preferred to tell stories or look after the little ones in the infants class. “The five years I spent at school were the saddest of my life, and if my dear Céline had not been with me I could not have stayed there for a single month without falling ill.” Céline informs us, “She now developed a fondness for hiding, she did not want to be observed, for she sincerely considered herself inferior”.
Thérèse age 8, 1881
On her free days she became more and more attached to Marie Guérin, the younger of her two cousins in Lisieux. The two girls would play at being anchorites, as the great Teresa of Avila had once played with her brother. Every evening she plunged into the family circle. “Fortunately I could go home every evening and then I cheered up. I used to jump on father’s knee and tell him what marks I had, and when he kissed me all my troubles were forgotten… I needed this sort of encouragement so much.” Yet the tension of the double life and the daily self-conquest placed a strain on Thérèse. Going to school became more and more difficult.
Pauline Enters Carmel - October 2, 1882
At the age of ten, Thérèse was deeply distressed when Pauline, her favorite sister whom she had chosen as a substitute mother, left to become a Carmelite (October 2, 1882). This new emotional shock went so deep that she fell seriously ill. For a whole month, her family were at their wits end, even doctors could find no explanation for the hallucinations, the tossing and turning and anorexia which afflicted her. Family and Carmelites alike prayed to Our Lady of Victories. On May 13, 1883, when it seemed that she would either die or lose her sanity, the family’s statue of the Virgin Mary smiled at her, and she was cured. But “spiritual torment” was to be her lot for years to come, slackening only when she started preparing for her long awaited First Communion.
Our Lady's Smile - May 13, 1883
During the winter following Pauline’s entrance into the Carmelite monastery, Thérèse fell seriously ill. Experts have diagnosed her sickness as everything from a nervous breakdown to a kidney infection. She blamed it on the devil. At this time, Thérèse was often sick. She began to suffer from nervous tremors. The tremors started one night after her uncle took her for a walk and began to talk about Zélie. Assuming that she was cold, the family covered Therese with blankets, but the tremors continued. She clenched her teeth and could not speak. The family called Dr. Notta, who could make no diagnosis. In 1882, Dr. Gayral diagnosed that Thérèse “reacts to an emotional frustration with a neurotic attack”. Whatever it was, doctors of her time were unable to either diagnose or treat it. She suffered intensely during this time from constant headaches and insomnia. As the illness pursued its vile course, it racked poor little Thérèse’s body. She took fits of fever and trembling and suffered cruel hallucinations. Writing of one bout of delirium, she explained, “I was absolutely terrified by everything. My bed seemed to be surrounded by frightful precipices; some nails in the wall of the room took on the appearance of big black charred fingers, making me cry out in fear. One day, while Papa was looking at me and smiling, the hat in his hand was suddenly transformed into some indescribable dreadful shape and I showed such great fear that poor Papa left the room sobbing.” None of the treatments helped. Then, on May 13, 1883, Thérèse turned her head to a statue of the Virgin Mary near her bed, and prayed for a cure. “Suddenly” Thérèse writes, “Mary’s face radiated kindness and love.” Thérèse was cured. The statue has since been called “Our Lady of the Smile”.
It was shortly after Pauline’s departure that Thérèse decided to join her at Lisieux’s Carmelite convent. She approached the prioress of the monastery and sought entrance. Carefully little Thérèse explained she wished to enter, not for Pauline’s sake, but for Jesus’ sake. The prioress advised her to return when she grew up. Thérèse was only nine years old at the time.
During her long illness, her resolve to join the Carmelites grew even stronger. “I am convinced that the thought of one day becoming a Carmelite made me live”, she later declared. After her illness, Thérèse was more than ever determined to do something great for God and for others. She thought of herself as a new Joan of Arc, dedicated to the rescue not only of France but of the whole world. With unbelievable boldness the ten year old stated, “I was born for glory”. And thus another great theme of Thérèse’s life manifested itself. She perceived her life’s mission as one of salvation for all people. She was to accomplish this by becoming a saint. She understood that her glory would be hidden from the eyes of others until God wished to reveal it.
At ten years of age she reaffirmed and clarified her life’s goals. She was intelligent enough to realize she could not accomplish them without suffering. What was hidden from her eyes was just how much she would have to endure to win her glory.
Confirmation
At age eleven, on May 8, 1884, she received her first “kiss of love”; a sense of being “united” with Jesus, of His giving Himself to her as she gave herself to Him. Her eucharistic hunger made her long for daily communion. Confirmation, “the sacrament of love”, which she received on June 14, 1884, filled her with ecstasy. Holidays in Trouville and Saint-Ouen-le-Pin were followed however by a retreat which triggered a crisis of scruples, lasting seventeen months. Her sister Marie helped her to overcome it. But Marie in her turn entered the Lisieux Carmel on October 15, 1886.
This was too much for the adolescent Thérèse, who had now lost a third mother. She was nearly fourteen and already strikingly good-looking, 1.62 meters tall with magnificent eyes and long hair. She attracted notice on the beach in Trouville where people nicknamed her “the tall English girl”. But she was tormented by an inner anguish which found relief, only when in November 1886, she appealed to her brothers and sisters in heaven to intercede for her. Even then, she remained hypersensitive, weak-willed, “crying at having cried”. How could she in this pitiful state possibly enter the Carmel; something she had dreamed of since the age of nine as a way of living with Jesus?
Christmas Conversion
Grace intervened to change her life as she was going up the stairs at Les Buissonnets on her return from midnight mass at Saint Peter’s Cathedral on December 25, 1886. Something her father said provoked a sudden inner change. The Holy Child’s strength supplanted her weakness. The strong character she had had at the age of four and a half was suddenly restored to her. A ten-year struggle had ended. Her tears had dried up. Freed at last from herself, she embarked on her “Giant’s Race”. “My heart was filled with charity, I forgot myself to please others, and in doing so, became happy myself”. Now she could fulfill her dream of entering the Carmel as soon as possible to love Jesus and pray for sinners. Grace received at mass in the summer 0f 1887 left her with a vision of standing at the foot of the cross collecting the blood of Jesus and giving it to souls. Having heard people speak of the three murders committed by Henri Pranzini, she decided to save him from hell through prayer and sacrifice. On September 1, 1887, she wept for joy; just before being guillotined, the prisoner kissed the crucifix. For Thérése, her “first child” had obtained God’s mercy. She hoped that many others would follow once she was in the Carmel.
For Thérèse, 1887 was a year of overall development;
physical, intellectual, artistic and especially spiritual. With the stubbornness of a woman in love, she fought to enter the Carmel at the age of fifteen. She had to overcome the opposition of her father (easily persuaded), her uncle Isidore Guérin, the bursar of the Carmel and Monseigneur Hugonin, the Bishop of Bayeux. So, during the pilgrimage to Italy with her father and sister Céline, she decided to approach Pope Leo XIII himself.
During the month of November 1887, she discovered Switzerland, Florence, Venice, Assisi and especially Rome; marking a turning point in her life. She looked and listened eagerly now realizing that priests were not angels, but “weak and fragile human beings”, greatly in need of prayer. She understood better just what it meant to be a Carmelite. But the aim of her pilgrimage never wavered; to ask the Pope’s permission to enter the Carmel at fifteen. According to Céline, the audience which took place on Sunday November 20, 1887, was a disaster. Pope Leo XIII answered Thérèse’s entreaties evasively. The young girl was carried out in tears by the papal guards. Now she only had Jesus to turn to.
Back in Lisieux and after a difficult wait, she finally received Bishop Hugonin’s permission. But she still had to be patient a while longer. On Monday April 9, 1888, an emotional and tearful but determined Thérèse Martin said good-bye to Les Buissonnets and her family. She was going to live “for ever and ever” in the desert with Jesus and twenty-four enclosed companions. She was fifteen years and three months old.
Discovering Her Vocation
“Considering the mystical body of the Church, I did not recognize myself in any of the members described by St. Paul, or rather I desired to see myself in them all. Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that if the Church had a body composed of different members, the most necessary and most noble of all could not be lacking to it, and so I understood that the Church had a heart and that this Heart was burning with Love. I understood it was Love alone that made the Church’s members act, that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the Gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood… I understood that Love comprised all times and places… in a word, that it was eternal!
Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out, O Jesus my Love… my vocation, at last I have found it, my vocation is Love! Yes, I have found my place in the Church and it is You, O my God, who have given me this place… In the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love… thus I shall be everything… and thus my dream will be realized!!!”
“I don’t hasten to the first place but to the last; rather than advance myself like the Pharisee, I repeat, filled with confidence, the publican’s humble prayer. Most of all, I imitate the conduct of Magdalene; her astonishing or rather her loving audacity, which charms the heart of Jesus, also attracts my own. Yes, I feel it; even though I had on my conscience all the sins that can be committed, I would go, my heart broken with sorrow, and throw myself into Jesus’ arms, for I know how much He loves the prodigal child who returns to Him. It is because God in His anticipating Mercy, has preserved my soul from mortal sin that I go to Him with confidence and love”.