What makes St. Therese of Lisieux a missionary?

In the year 1927, Pope Pius XI declared St Therese of Lisieux as the Patron of Missions. Below is my opinion on why St Therese has been considered a Patron for Missions when she herself never left the convent to evangelize unlike St. Francis Xavier a great missionary who was also named Patron of Missions during the year 1748.

1.      At the age of fourteen, she came to know about a murderer through the newspapers who is about to be executed for his crimes, and she decided to pray for him that he may repent and his soul be saved. After the execution, Therese was so delighted to read from the papers that the convict repented and kissed the crucifix three times before his punishment. The convict named Pranzini is known later as her ‘first son’ that she had interceded for and to bring to his conversion.

2.      St. Therese herself wanted to be a missionary that she even expressed her desire to go to Hanoi when the Saigon Carmel was founded, but her poor health prevented her from becoming one so instead she prayed daily for active missionaries. Two particular missionaries she prayed for worth mentioning here is a young priest Adolphe Roulland (missionary to Africa) and a young seminarian, Maurice Belliere (missionary to China). She wrote to her sister "Our mission as Carmelites is to form evangelical workers who will save thousands of souls whose mothers we shall be.”

3.      In her writings, St. Therese has many ways expressed her desire to save souls. This is an element in missionary activity, that all people may come to know the Father whom Jesus Christ His son revealed to all of us. I believe that is why her monastic life motto was “to love Jesus and to make him loved.” In her autobiography; “The story of a soul” she shares her principle of her Carmelite life that is “for prayer and sacrifice that one can help the missionaries” The elements of missionary attraction in her life and writings could be seen as her motive to her Carmelite vocation and that is another reason why the church has named her Patron for Missions.