Mystics

The Carmelite Mystics form a group of major spiritual writers in the Church. They are also the Doctors of the Church.

The first Carmelite to be declared a Doctor of the Church in 1926 was our Holy Father St. John of the Cross. He died in Ubeda in 1591, outstanding in holiness and wisdom. A joint founder of the Discalced Carmelites along with St. Theresa of Avila, St. John is the Doctor of Mystical Theology.

ST. TERESA OF AVILA

This Spanish nun and mystic, our founder and holy mother, is the first woman Doctor of the Church. She wrote several spiritual classics like The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle, which are renowned for their depth of doctrine and which showed her own spiritual depth and experience. She died at Alba de Tormes in 1582. St. Teresa was made the first woman doctor of the Church in 1970.

ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX

She was a French Carmelite nun. Known as The Little Flower, her autobiographical Story of a Soul has become a spiritual classic, inspiring millions to follow her "Little Way" of holiness. Already Patroness of the Missions, she was proclaimed the third woman Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II on October 19th, 1997.

Little Flower

St. Therese of Lisieux was known as the Little Flower of Jesus. Born in 1873 to devout parents and a very religious family, she decided at the age of 15 that she was going to enter a Carmelite Monastery.

Also known as the Carmelite of Lisieux, Little Flower of Jesus was born at Alencon, France, on 2nd January, 1873 and died at Lisieux on 30th September, 1897. She was born Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin but took the religious name of Sister Therese of the Child Jesus. But she is popularly known as "The Little Flower of Jesus", or simply "The Little Flower.”

Therese was not yet fifteen when she approached the Carmelite authorities again for permission to enter. Again she was refused.

But after entering the convent she called herself "God's Little Flower" and lived a cloistered life of obscurity in the convent of Lisieux, France.

The young Carmelite of Lisieux had the genius to make use of the texts, documents, images and objects of her time. The Little Flower Prayerbook is a vintage manual of prayers combined with a treasury of St. Therese's spiritual writings.

This Doctor of the Church was canonized on 17^th May, 1925 and her feast day is on 1^st October.