When Therese Martin died in 1897, she was an unknown nun of 24. She had lived 15 years at home with her father, nine more in the Carmelite cloister at Lisieux, France. She worked no eye-catching miracles, made no famous converts, succumbed to tuberculosis like many others of her time. Yet within 28 years of her death, Pope Pius XI had canonized Therese, and her artless autobiography, The Story of a Soul, had blossomed into one of the world's best-selling books.
The secret of Therese's overnight success was simple: she had a genius for loving Jesus. "Passing by me," she wrote,...
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