During her final illness in July 1897 Thérèse of Lisieux said: “I feel that my mission is about to begin, my mission to make God loved as I love Him, to give my little way to souls… If God answers my desires, my Heaven will be spent on earth until the end of the world. Yes, I want to spend my Heaven doing good on earth.”
The little saint died three months later at the age of just 24. Little could anyone imagine how literally her desires would be fulfilled. Seventeen years after Thérèse died – in August 1914 – France entered the First World War. Not long after the hostilities began, the nuns at the Carmelite monastery in Lisieux began receiving astonishing letters from soldiers in the front lines.
