She is one of the great examples of the gospel paradox that we gain our life by losing it, and that the seed that falls to the ground must die in order to live. Thérèse of Lisieux sheds light on the depth of Day’s Catholic spirituality and illustrates why Thérèse’s simplicity and humility are so vital for today. Thérèse, like so many saints, sought to serve others, to do something outside herself, to forget herself in quiet acts of love. Dorothy Day’s unpretentious account of the life of St. Thérèse has much to teach our age of the image, the appearance, the “self.” We have become a dangerously self-conscious people, painfully aware of the need to be fulfilled, yet knowing we are not. Thérèse was canonized in 1925. On October 19, 1997, Pope John Paul II proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church, the third woman to be so recognized in light of her holiness and the influence of her teaching on spirituality in the Church. Dorothy Day was an admirer of Thérèse (she even named her own daughter Teresa), seeing in her that “however politically or socially involved a person may be, the love that motivates him or her is far more important than exterior accomplishments.”
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