The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux : With Additional Writings and Sayings of St. Thérèse

This book is a memoir of Thérèse of Lisieux, a French Catholic Discalced Carmelite nun. Her blood sisters were also nuns and they insisted she should write a memoir two years before her death at the age of 24. The book contains her childhood memories from the tragedy of the loss of her mother and her childhood nervous fits to finding peace in the convent. To a large extent the book deals with her spiritual search and describes her thoughts, emotions and beliefs she developed during her service. In the last eighteen month of her life, Therese fell into a crisis of belief, when she was tormented by the doubts, which he had to overcome. Suffering a severe form of tuberculosis, Therese perceived this illness as a one of her last examinations of faith and transformed her pain and suffering into the feeling of happiness based on her faith in salvation. This memoir became a very influential book on spirituality, which made Therese famous beyond the borders of France and remains an important piece of spiritual literature today.