Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower, showed that you don't have to do big things to be a saint: you can do small things with great love. Her feast day is October 1. Here are ways to celebrate it with children aged 4 to 9, at home, in class or in your parish, on her day or at any time of year.
Thérèse grew up in France about 150 years ago, the youngest of five sisters in a loving family. Her parents, Louis and Zélie, are saints too. At fifteen she became a Carmelite sister, and in the quiet of her convent she discovered her Little Way: becoming a saint by doing the smallest, plainest things with the greatest love. She wrote it all down in a little notebook, and today the whole Church honors her as one of its great teachers.
Our picture book tells her story gently for reading aloud, and ends with a simple prayer and three small ways to follow her Little Way this week. See the book.
When Thérèse was little, her big sister Marie gave her a string of beads for counting her small sacrifices. Their mother wrote how Thérèse would put her hand in her pocket again and again to pull a bead along, every time she did something hard out of love.
Make a set together: thread ten pony beads onto a cord, snug enough that each bead stays where you push it, and knot both ends. Each time your child does a small kindness, like sharing, helping or letting someone else go first, they slide one bead along. At bedtime, count the beads together and offer the day to God.
Thérèse promised that she would spend her heaven doing good on earth, letting kindnesses fall on the world like a shower of roses. That's why roses are her sign.
Make simple paper roses from tissue paper or paper cupcake liners. On each one, write or draw a small kindness your child will do, then give the roses away, or string them into a garland as each kindness is done.
When Thérèse was ten, she was so ill that her family feared for her. As she looked at a statue of Mary by her bed, she saw Mary smile at her, and she was well again. She never forgot that smile.
Pick or buy a few flowers with your children and bring them to a statue or picture of Mary, at home or in church. Say a Hail Mary together, and thank Mary for her love.
Thérèse never left her convent, yet she is a patron saint of missionaries, the people who carry God's love to faraway places. She prayed for them every day, and she wrote letters to two young missionaries, encouraging them in their work.
Help your children draw a card and write a prayer for a missionary your parish supports, or for your own parish priest. Then pray for them together, the way Thérèse did.
Thérèse loved to think of herself as a little flower in God's garden. Plant a few seeds or a small pot of flowers together. Each day, watering it can be a small thing done with love, and a reminder that small things grow.
Try the three challenges from the end of the book:
End the day with the prayer from the book:
Dear God, I am small, but my love can be big. Help me to do the little things today, a kind word, a helping hand, a happy smile, all with great love, the way Saint Thérèse did. Amen.
For a printable page with this prayer and the three challenges, with tick boxes for the week, download our free Be a Little Saint pages (PDF, opens in a new tab). Saint Thérèse's page is the third page.
More ideas for catechists and teachers are on our parishes and schools page.
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Doing small things with great love
In a house full of love in France, a little girl who felt everything deeply dreamed of doing something great for God.
Meet Saint Thérèse — the girl who was “far too young,” who bravely asked the Pope himself, and who discovered a secret that changed everything: you don't have to be big or famous to be a saint. You only have to do small things with great love.