Guidance for Parenting from the Little Flower

It might seem a stretch to take inspiration and strength in parenting from a Saint who entered a cloistered convent when she was 15, and died at the age of 24, but the life of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower of Jesus, was defined by wisdom far beyond her years or life experience. 

Born Marie Francoise-Thérèse Martin, she lost her mother when she was four-years-old. In her mother’s absence, she turned her love to her older sisters, whom she idolized. All of them entered cloistered life. She immediately begged her father to let her follow them, and when she turned fifteen he relented.

Her spiritual autobiography, The Story of a Soul, was published after her death from tuberculosis in 1897. In its series of reflections on her own family and childhood, her conversion and religious vocation, her personal approach to faithfulness, and her ultimate illness and death, she made holiness accessible to everyday believers. Used to stories of Saints defined by their heroic deeds, mystical visions, or bravery in the face of martyrdom, readers encountered a simple young girl who attained holiness by centering her life in her love and trust of God’s mercy, reaching spiritual maturity far beyond her years.

Story of a Soul became an instant spiritual classic, captivating millions by its testimony to a faith that was as simple as it was deep. Thérèse described her spiritual practices as the “Little Way of Spiritual Childhood”—doing small things with great love, putting total trust in God’s grace rather than our own efforts, and embracing our own weakness as a path to holiness. 

It is in her Little Way that I find her a helpful companion in the daily trenches of parenting young children. In a world that bombards us with books and scripts and Instagram reels from individuals all confident that if we just use their (often conflicting) methods or theories we are guaranteed to raise healthy, secure, resilient children destined for a life of success and free from anxiety, Thérèse’s model of approaching her life of faith from a place of simplicity and humility is a balm. It is in her insistence on doing small things with great care, and loving God with the trust of a child, that I am reminded that what my own children want and need most from me is simple: tenderness, reliable love, and grace. The best life that I can offer them is one marked by steady,  everyday moments of love, and when I get it wrong, acknowledgement followed by trying again.

Declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II, Thérèse was canonized in 1925, just 28 years after her death. What accounts for a young woman, little more than a child, being declared a Doctor of the Church in a faith tradition not known for its openness to female contributions to the faith? I think it is the simplicity and practicality of her approach to sanctity, as well as her humility as shown in her honesty about her own seasons of spiritual dryness. 

In the last eighteen months of her life, as she suffered greatly from her final illness, she described in letters feeling far from God. She viewed this period, her time of “spiritual darkness,” as a test of her faith, and in the midst of it she chose hope and perseverance. In a radical act of faith, she trusted in God to the last, determined to love even as she felt the absence of his love, and offered her pain and desolation as solidarity with those who had no faith. Sometimes, as a parent, I find myself leading when I’m not entirely sure where I am going, and in this, too, I find strength from Thérèse, determined to be faithful to the end. She departed this life with the final proclamation: “My God, I love you!” and my prayer is that in that moment, she entered into the consolation of God’s love surrounding her once more.