Thérèse of Lisieux was born Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin (2 January 1873 – 30 September 1897). She is popularly known in English as the Little Flower of Jesus, or simply the Little Flower.
Thérèse has been a highly influential model of sanctity for Catholics and for others because of the simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life. She is one of the most popular saints in the history of the church. Pope Pius X once called her "the greatest saint of modern times".
Thérèse felt an earl call to religious life and, after overcoming various obstacles, she became a nun at the age of 15, joining two of her older sisters in the cloistered Carmelite community of Lisieux, Normandy. After nine years as a Carmelite religious, she fell into a ‘night of faith’, in which she is said to have felt Jesus was absent and been tormented by doubts that God existed. Thérèse died at the age of 24 from tuberculosis.