Thérèse of Lisieux

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux is the patroness of florists and gardeners because of her own image of holiness: she called herself “the Little Flower of Jesus” and promised, famously, “After my death I will let fall a shower of roses” — so roses became her sign, and those who grow and sell flowers claim the saint who made a flower the emblem of her “Little Way” of small acts done with great love. She is patroness of the missions, co-equal with Saint Francis Xavier, though she never left her cloister: from within Carmel she offered her prayers and sufferings for missionaries and longed to carry the Gospel to the whole world, so the Church named the hidden contemplative the patroness of those who go out. The same all-embracing love made her a patroness of France, and her gentle endurance of a slow, wasting death from tuberculosis drew to her, in modern times, the prayers of those suffering from AIDS.