Leonie Martin's First Communon: May 23, 1875

Leonie martin at about age 20. cOURTESY OF THE VISITATION OF CAEN.

On Trinity Sunday, May 23, 1875, Leonie Martin, the future Servant of God, third daughter of Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin and elder sister of St. Therese of Lisieux, received her First Holy Communion in the church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Alencon.  Today, during the centenary year of St. Therese’s canonization, we celebrate the 150th anniversary of that great grace.

Leonie’s Preparation for her First Communion

Background

Leonie was the only one of the five surviving Martin daughters who did not make her First Communion under the auspices of a monastery boarding school.  Like her two older sisters, she had been sent to the Monastery of the Visitation in Le Mans, where her mother’s sister, Elise Guerin (Sister Marie-Dosithee), was among the nuns.  Leonie’s learning disabilities and social difficulties made it impossible for her to be in a class with the other pupils; she would have required a private tutor, so she had been sent away twice.   She took some lessons from a private teacher in Alencon.  In January 1874, when she was ten, Louis and Zelie sent her to the Visitation in Le Mans a third time with her older sisters, hoping  that she could be prepared for her First Communion there.  Although Leonie did learn her catechism, the nuns could not keep her (much to Zelie’s distress), and she returned to Alencon on April 6, 1874. 

In July Leonie began to take some lessons from two women who pretended that they had once been religious sisters.  Zelie learned that they were abusing a foster child they had taken in; she took them to court to make sure the little girl, Armandine, was properly cared for, and she took Leonie away from them.

Leonie Prepares At Home and in her parish

In Alencon, Leonie joined the class of children who were being prepared for their First Communion in the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption, to which the Martin family had moved in 1871.  Zelie also took on the task of preparing Leonie personally for her First Communion, postponing her lace work till late at night.

On December 13, 1874, Zelie wrote to her sister-in-law, Celine Guerin, who had asked what to send the children for New Year’s:

“As for Leonie . . .  you could get her a rosary for her First Communion, which she’ll make on the feast of the Holy Trinity. She knows her catechism perfectly and answers the questions better than I would have believed.  If she didn’t become flustered, she would be one of the first in her class.  Last Tuesday [December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception], I took her on a pilgrimage to the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Seez to obtain the grace to make a good First Holy Communion.

from A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885, ed. Frances Renda, tr. Ann Connors Hess.  (Staten Island, New York: Society of St. Paul/Alba House, 2011), p. 160.

Leonie was to receive her First Communion during the Universal Jubilee Year of 1875; we celebrate the 150th anniversary of this event during our Jubilee Year of 2025.  On March 14, 1875, Zelie wrote to her sister-in-law again:

We’re currently celebrating the Jubilee in Alencon. . . . Leonie earned her Jubilee indulgence and received absolution.  [In France at that time, younger children, when they went to confession, usually received a blessing; for them, absolutions were reserved for great occasions].  She was afraid of not being prepared well enough and this attitude pleased me.  I hope God, in His mercy, answers my prayers for this child.”

Ibid., p. 175.

Then, on May 19, 1875, four days before Leonie’s First Communion, Zelie wrote to Celine Guerin;

I’m more pleased with Leonie.  She does what she can to do well.  She gives the correct answers when we question her and knows her catechism perfectly.  Every day she tells us that she’s going to become a Poor Clare, and I have as much confidence in this as if it were little Therese saying it.

Ibid., p. 179.

Leonie’s First Communion Day

In her memoir, Story of a Soul, Therese, who was only 28 months old at the time, recounts her clear memory of Leonie’s First Communion.   [Her mention of “Leonie’s little companion” refers to Armandine Dagoreau, a little girl whom Zelie, after the custom of the better-off families, had dressed for her First Communion and made a guest of honor at the festive dinner that night]. [Thanks to the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux and the Internet Archive].

Leonie’s remembrances of her First Communion Day

In Leonie’s surviving letters, we find at least five happy references to the various anniversaries of her First Communion.  In a May 1928 letter to her sister Pauline, Leonie gives us insight into the fervent Eucharistic spirituality she shared with Therese:

What an immense blessing daily Communion is! What would become of us without Jesus? . . . Life would be unbearable, and the best and most efficient preparation, it seems to me, is to take Communion, because Jesus, the God of all purity, prepares our hearts Himself to become His beloved tabernacle.

[Thanks to the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux and the Internet Archive].

Yet Leonie remembers the day of her First Communion, and that whole period of her life, as unhappy.  On May 23, 1937, she wrote to her sister Marie:

Beloved little sister,

It was 62 years ago today, on the fine feast of the Holy Trinity, and on the same date, that I took my first Communion. Would you believe it? Well, I have only sweet memories of it. It wasn’t the best day of my life, because my childhood and early youth were times of suffering and very painful trials.

  Yet she continues immediately:

 Nevertheless, blessed be those days and years spent in tears, for they did me much good. Despite my unworthiness, I too have had the oh so indescribable honour of becoming Jesus’ bride! In all truthfulness, the best day of my life was my religious profession on 2nd July 1900, the very day of our patronal feast. Tell me, darling little sisters, was I not granted an inner Visitation that day? Did I not sing my Magnificat alongside our divine Mother Mary?

[Thanks to the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux and the Internet Archive].

In later years, the future transfigured Leonie’s memory. She treasured the remembrance of her unhappy youth as a prelude to her vocation to the Visitation Monastery, which was her true home on earth and where she was so happy. 

In this Jubilee Year of Hope, let’s ask the Servant of God, Leonie Martin, Sister Francoise-Therese, who entered religious life four times before succeeding, but never gave up hope,to help us realize the power of the Eucharist to transform our souls, our Church, and our world.

"Supper with the Martin Family" at the Center for Carmelite Studies, Catholic University of America, on Tuesday evening, October 3, 2023

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023, at 6:00 p.m., I will have the honor of speaking on Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin, St. Therese's parents, and on the Martin family for the Center for Carmelite Studies at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. This is part of a series of events the Center is sponsoring in honor of the 150th jubilee of St. Therese's birth and her recognition by UNESCO. Everyone is welcome.

Supper begins at 5:45 p.m. This same information is available on the University's Web site at https://cua.campuslabs.com/engage/event/9362223

In the above poster, see Leonie at the extreme left in the black Visitation habit.

"A Map of St. Therese's Way of Confidence and Love" on October 1, 2023 at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul and the Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel in Philadelphia

I’ve been asked to present “A Map of the Way of Confidence and Love of St. Therese of Lisieux” on Sunday, October 1 at 5:30 p.m. in the chapel of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul and the Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel in Philadelphia. Everyone is welcome. Anyone who wants to do so is welcome to remain for the 6:30 p.m. Sunday Mass in the Basilica. This event appears on the Basilica’s Web site here.

Leonie was the first disciple of Therese’s way, and I hope God will permit many people to understand it better through this event. Please pray that God uses this event to help souls. Thank you.

A Novena to Leonie Martin, Sister Francoise-Therese, for the healing of Kerry O'Riordan McAdam - April 6, 2022

Sister Francoise-Therese (Marie Leonie Martin)

My dear readers, friends, and persons of faith:

This is to ask you to take part in a novena prayer for the healing of my niece, Kerry O’Riordan McAdam. I ask you to pray for Kerry through the intercession of the Servant of God, Leonie Martin, Sister Francoise-Therese of the Visitation at Caen, the sister of St. Therese of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face (also known as St. Therese of Lisieux).

About Sister Francoise-Therese

Please see “The life of Leonie Martin, Sister Francoise-Therese,” an English translation of a booklet created by the Visitation nuns of Leonie’s monastery at Caen in France. It contains a brief story with photos of Leonie, her family, and the monastery.

About Kerry O’Riordan McAdam

Kerry O’Riordan McAdam, left, and jacquie reynolds beck at their fundraising gala for cancer research, february 22, 2022

In early 2020, my niece Kerry, then aged 29, was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Please read Kerry’s story as published by Penn Medicine. With a close family friend, Jacquie Beck, she has dedicated herself to increasing awareness of metastatic breast cancer and raising funds for research for a cure. In less than two years, they have raised more than $415,000. Kerry is in comfort care now, and she has asked for prayers. I invite each of you to join in praying a novena for the miracle of her cure.

About the Novena

A novena is nine days of prayer to ask God for a special grace. This novena begins on Thursday, April 7, and ends on Friday, April 15, 2022. To participate in the novena, you need only pray at least once each day, asking God to heal Kerry through the intercession of Sister Francoise-Therese. You may, but you need not, use the prayer below:

Lord our God,

through the example of the Servant of God,

Sister Françoise-Thérèse,

Léonie Martin, daughter of Saints Louis and Zélie Martin

and sister of St. Thérèse,

You have given us an understanding of the mercy

and the tenderness of Your love.

You watched over her fragile health from the first hours of her life.

You supported her in the difficult times of her childhood and adolescence.

You called her to the consecrated life,

and You supported her on the delicate path of her response.

You inspired her to lead a hidden life,

humble and offered to Your love,

as a Visitation nun at Caen,

accepting her limitations.

Lord, if such is Your will,

deign to grant us the grace that we ask of You,

the healing of Kerry O’Riordan McAdam,

through the intercession of Sister Françoise-Thérèse.

May she, one day, be counted

among the Venerables of your Church.

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.

Imprimatur, feast of St. Francis de Sales, January 20, 2015

+ Jean-Claude Boulanger, Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux

Note: A “Venerable” is a person declared by the Church to have practiced virtue to an heroic degree. The next step on the road to sainthood is to be declared “Blessed.”

Note: This prayer is translated and published with the kind permission of the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen. It is part of a novena to Leonie in French created by the Monastery of the Visitation de la Roche-sur-Yon.

Please accept my fervent thanks for joining in this novena for Kerry’s healing.

Your grateful sister,

Maureen O’Riordan

Curator of “Leonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Therese of Lisieux”

An update:

In the early morning of April 7, the nuns of the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen, where Leonie lived from 1899 until she died in 1941, swiftly answered my appeal with this letter, translated and published with their permission. They will be making the novena with us. If you want to make a virtual pilgrimage to Leonie’s shrine while you are praying the novena for Kerry, please visit http://leoniemartin.org/virtual-tour

Dear Maureen,

We have received your email.

We are very sorry for this sad news, and it is with all our hearts that we unite ourselves to this novena.

We put a prayer for Kerry and your family near Leonie's tomb.

We entrust Kerry to the intercession of our dear Léonie.

Be assured of the support of our prayers.

The Sisters of the Visitation of Caen

August 14, 1921, the "day of great joy" for Leonie when Therese was declared Venerable

The new Venerable. Photo credit: La Croix, August 17, 1921, in the National Library of France

On Sunday, August 14, 1921, in Rome, the decree was issued that Therese had practiced heroic virtue. At the ceremony Pope Benedict XV spoke for 45 minutes about the “little way of spiritual childhood.” That night Leonie wrote to her Carmelite sisters describing in detail how this great feast was celebrated at the Visitation of Caen. Read Leonie’s letter of August 14, 1921 (thanks to the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux).

"Discover Leonie Martin, a lesson in life and in love," a video in French for the 80th anniversary of Leonie's death (June 17, 1941) prepared by the Shrine of Sts. Louis and Zelie at Alencon

“Discover Leonie, a lesson in life and in love”

“Discover Leonie, a lesson in life and in love” premiers today for the 80th anniversary of Leonie’s death on June 17, 1941. In this 35-minute video in French, Fr. Thierry Henault-Morel, rector of the Shrine of Sts. Louis and Zelie at Alencon, speaks about Leonie’s life and spirituality from the house where she lived from ages 8-14. Then he visits the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen, where she lived from age 35 until her death at age 78, and speaks to two sisters of the present-day monastery about the community today and about the recent progress of Leonie’s cause.

If you do not speak French, please scroll through to see the backgrounds and photographs. And, if you prefer reading the narration to listening to it, please download the transcript. We congratulate the Shrine on their lovely tribute for this historic anniversary.

“In the footsteps of Leonie Martin in Alencon,” an 11-minute film about Leonie’s youth

LEONIE AS A YOUNG GIRL. PLEASE CLICK THE IMAGE TO VIEW THE FILM!

The Shrine of Louis and Zelie at Alencon has produced “In the footsteps of Leonie,” a lovely 11-minute film of Leonie’s youth at Alencon. Although the narration by Fr. Thierry Henault-Morel and M. Guy Fournier is in French, even if you do not understand spoken French you can enjoy the images of Leonie’s birthplace; St. Pierre de Monsort, the church she attended till she was eight, and the font where she was baptized; Notre Dame Church, which she attended for six years; the Visitation of Le Mans; the surrounding countryside; and the images which made up her everyday life. For technical reasons, I can’t display the film on this Web site, but please view it at https://fb.watch/1woZVCF5vl/ Thank you.

Episode 2 of "A Sister of St. Therese: Leonie Martin, Bearer of Hope," by Fr. Timothy Gallagher, O.M.V. October 6, 2020

In this second episode Fr. Gallagher continues to examine Leonie’s childhood through the medium of the family’s letters, touching on the sad death of little Helene, the child closest to Leonie in age, as well as of three other children, and speaking of the family’s attempt to send her to the same Visitation boarding school her two older sisters attended.

"A Sister of St. Therese: Servant of God, Leonie Martin, Bearer of Hope," Episode 1 of a Podcast by Fr. Timothy Gallagher, O.M.V. September 28, 2020

The “Discerning Hearts” Podcast has introduced the series “A Sister of St. Therese: Servant of God, Leonie Martin, Bearer of Hope,” by Fr. Timothy Gallagher, O.M.V. This is an audio series which examines Leonie’s life through her letters and those of her family. It will include about 15 episodes. Episode 1 features an introduction to the series and reads Zelie’s letters during Leonie’s early childhood from the book A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of St. Therese (Staten Island, New York: Society of St. Paul/Alba House, 2011). Listen to it above.

Leonie enters the Visitation for the second time, June 24, 1893

Leonie in 1893, shortly before her second entrance into the Visitation/ She is about 30 years old.

June 24, 1893 is usually listed as the date on which Leonie Martin entered the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen for the second time. But thereby hangs a tale. In fact, Leonie arrived on June 24 with the intention of making a week’s retreat.

Louis Martin was released from the Bon Sauveur asylum on May 10, 1892. He joined his daughters at the home of his brother-in-law, Isidore Guerin, in Lisieux. On July 1, a small house on rue Labbey, just across from the back entrance to the Guerin mansion,was leased for Louis, Leonie, and Celine. There his daughters looked after him happily with the help of two servants, Marie and Desire Le Juif.

The Guerins spent part of each summer at La Musse, an estate near Evreux inherited from Madame Guerin’s family, the Fournets. In 1892 Louis remained in Lisieux, while Leonie took care of him, and Celine joined the Guerins at La Musse for a couple of weeks in August.

In April 1893, Celine and Marie Guerin traveled to Caen to stay with Jeanne Guerin (Celine’s cousin and Marie’s elder sister) and enjoy the big Caen Fair. This year the whole family planned to spend part of the summer at La Musse, bringing Louis with them. About this time Leonie suggested that, instead of joining them immediately, she might make a retreat at the Visitation of Caen,where she had been a postulant for six months in 1887. On April 23, 1893, Leonie received an angry letter from Celine, who was very upset by this plan. Madame Guerin’s letter of that date to her daughter Marie in Caen contains this passage:

Dear Léonie was very upset this morning when she received Céline’s letter. She gave it to me to read and I tried to comfort her, and she agrees with me that if the annoyance she was feeling about going to La Musse was more pleasing to God than the happiness she feels about going to the Visitation, she will readily make the sacrifice of the latter and doesn’t even want to hear anything more about it. The poor girl is no longer crying now, and I find she is really being very good. She wrote to Thérèse about what Céline had said to her.

Read Madame Guerin’s letter on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.

In the end, Leonie did go to the Visitation for a week’s retreat, arriving on June 24. Three days later Celine left for La Musse with her father and the Guerin family. It seems that Leonie must have realized after only a few days at the Visitation that she wanted to enter again. Before June 30 she asked the superior for permission to enter, and she wrote M. Guerin, her uncle and guardian, for his consent. For the next chapter, stay tuned!

Anniversary of Leonie's death on June 17, 1941

LEONIE MARTIN, SISTER FRANCOISE-THERESE, IN DEATH, JUNE 1941

The death of Leonie Martin, Sister Francoise-Therese
June 17, 1941

On June 11, 1941, Leonie, already very weak, celebrated the anniversary of her baptism. She read to her Visitation community Therese’s Offering to Merciful Love. The next morning, on arising, she collapsed. The chaplain gave her the last sacraments. In the afternoon two “turn-sisters” from the Carmel of Lisieux arrived to represent her surviving sisters, Pauline and Celine. Leonie had the happiness of recognizing them, and they stayed with her until her death five days later.

THE STATUE OF THE VIRGIN OF THE SMILE

The community surrounded her with prayers. As Leonie lay waiting for God, she fingered her late sister Marie’s rosary and Therese’s Profession crucifix. Near her bed in the infirmary was a reproduction of the statue of the “Virgin of the Smile” so cherished by her parents, the statue before which she and her sisters had been praying when, during a vision of Mary, Therese, at age ten, was cured. Leonie smiled at the statue and stretched her arms toward it while the nuns repeated Therese’s words:

 “You who came to smile at me in the morning of my life;

Come and smile once more, Mother, at its close!”

therese’s profession crucifix

She scattered over Therese’s crucifix petals from flowers her Carmelite sisters had cut in the monastery garden at Lisieux. On the evening of June 16, Leonie visibly weakened. The nuns prayed intensely to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Our Lady of the Visitation, St. Therese, and Louis and Zelie, begging them to help her in the last hour. God seemed very near when Leonie suddenly came out of a coma-like state that she had been in for several hours. She smiled radiantly at her superior, Mother Marie-Agnes Debon, and at the two extern sisters from Carmel. Mother Marie-Agnes blessed her and embraced her once for Pauline and once for Celine. Leonie closed her eyes, and, without distress, gave a few sighs and seemed to fall asleep. It was June 17, the anniversary of the day the Sacred Heart appeared to St. Margaret Mary. Mother Marie-Agnes was inspired to recite the Magnificat. The nuns reported that “below white roses, our dear Sister Françoise-Thérèse appeared to reflect the peace and happiness of the eternal.  She had a beautiful smile that we did not tire of contemplating.”

[These details are based on the “life of Leonie” written by her Visitation sisters in 1941. The Visitations of Caen graciously gave us permission to translate it into English and to publish it. We thank them from our hearts. To see the English document, click on the words “life of Leonie.”].

125 years ago with Leonie Martin: Therese's letter of April 28, 1895 urging Leonie to remain at the Visitation of Caen

Chapel of the monastery of the visitation at caen, where leonie made her profession in 1900

Leonie is now in the midst of her second attempt at the Visitation of Caen, which she had entered on June 24, 1893. She had received the habit on April 6, 1894. Now her superiors told her that they had decided to delay her Profession. Discouraged, she considered asking for a transfer to the Visitation of Le Mans, where her aunt, Sister Marie-Dosithee Guerin, had spent her religious life and where her elder sisters Marie and Pauline had been educated. Her letter to her Carmelite sisters telling them this news has been lost, but Leonie kept the autograph of Therese’s response on April 28, 1895, Good Shepherd Sunday.

Therese says “I am interiorly persuaded that you are in your vocation, not only as a Visitation but as a Caen Visitandine.” She identifies Leonie’s thought of transferring to Le Mans as a Visitation. Eager to support her sister, she writes candidly of how disappointed she was at the postponement of her own Profession and of the insight God gave her that “there was a great self-seeking in this desire to pronounce my holy vows.” Therese tells Leonie of how, spiritually, she “prepared her wedding dress” and of her confidence that, when it was ready, Jesus would come to look for her.

Therese ends with the story of how she had often called herself Jesus’ little Toy and of how she wanted to be a poor toy that He would not be afraid to touch. This letter radiates the grace Therese is receiving in 1895; she ends “now that I have given you my spiritual direction, pray that I may put into practice the lights Jesus is giving me.” Please read the full text of this letter on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux. It appears there courtesy of the Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites. For a richer understanding of the Martin family and of the valuable correspondence between Therese and Leonie, I highly recommend their Letters of St. Therese of Lisieux, Volume II, 1890-1897 (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1988). After Story of a Soul, this is the volume of Therese’s writings through which one learns to know her and her world best.

January 28: the anniversary of Leonie's definitive entrance into the Monastery of the Visitation of Caen

Leonie’s second attempt to become a Visitation nun at Caen had lasted two years, from June 24, 1893 to July 20, 1895. In those years the monastery was administered with a severity inconsistent with the gentleness so characteristic of Jeanne de Chantal, the Order’s founder, and Francis de Sales, her close friend and adviser, who was considered the spiritual father of the Visitandines. Leonie’s novice mistress, Mother Marie de Sales Lefrancois, enforced the rule vigorously, and many postulants left the Order because of her rigidity. 1

Several years later, a new spirit came to the Visitation at Caen. Approached by the nuns’ confessor, Father Enault, the Visitation Monastery at Boulogne-sur-Mer had missioned three nuns to Caen in 1897, and one of them, Sister Louise-Henriette Vaugeois, was made novice mistress. The work of reconstructing the old Abbey was quickly resumed. Under the more liberal superiors, several women who had left the monastery returned. The community now had about forty nuns and was characterized by a spirit of familial peace and fervor. Devotion to the Sacred Heart grews within the community and radiated throughout the whole region. Every year, in June, the community hosted all the local parishes in succession, and many priests wanted to offer one of their first Masses at the Visitation. 2

During her visits to Caen after 1895, Leonie became aware of this transformation. In October 1898, when Therese’s Story of a Soul was published, Leonie read it avidly, finding in its radiant pages new hope for her own religious vocation. On November 21, 1898, the feast of the Presentation (a solemn feast in the Visitation Order), she wrote to her three Carmelite sisters telling of how she had just told her aunt, Celine Guerin, of her desire to enter the Visitation and had asked permission to enter on January 29 or on February 2. Both her aunt and uncle, now her guardians, consented. Escorted by her uncle, she entered on Saturday, January 28, 1899. The enclosure door through which she passed is pictured above.

“Deeply moved, but full of trust,” she threw herself into the arms of her “tender Mother Superior,” saying “I will leave here, yes, but in my coffin!” (Interestingly, her body did not leave the Visitation, for she was buried there). Leonie always liked to be well dressed, and the nuns who saw her arrive, wearing an elegant, tightly fitted velvet jacket, could have believed that she was still interested in worldly fashions.

Leonie was admitted to the novitiate on Wednesday, February 1. The next day she wrote to her three Carmelite sisters:

I am perfectly happy; the strong and gentle direction under which I am is unlike any other. Oh! how can I make you understand the extreme tenderness God has put into the wholly maternal hearts that are directing me, no, never before have I found a truer or more profound affection, it exceeds anything I could have imagined.

My translation; see the original French letter of February 2, 1899. (This letter is online thanks to the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux). Here was Leonie’s true homecoming on earth. We may take note of her writing, at age 35, that she was loved at the Visitation as she never had been before.

1 Leonie Martin: A Difficult Life, by Marie Baudoin-Croix. Dublin: Veritas, 1993, p. 54.

2 Leonie, by Stephane-Joseph Piat. chapter 5.

3 Piat, cited above.

Announcement of the closing on February 22, 2020 of the diocesan inquiry into the holiness of the Servant of God, Leonie Martin, Sister Francoise-Therese, the sister of St. Therese of Lisieux.

Leonie Martin, Sister Francoise-Therese, six months before her death

The Monastery of the Visitation at Caen announces joyful news of the progress of Leonie’s cause for beatification:

On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 4:00 p.m., in the chapel of the monastery of the Visitation of Caen, Mgr Jean-Claude Boulanger, bishop of the diocese of Bayeux and Lisieux, will preside at the closing celebration of the diocesan investigation of the process for the beatification of the Servant of God, Léonie Martin, Sister Françoise-Thérèse.

The work of the commission of inquiry and of the historical commission will be officially transferred to Rome, more precisely to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Only after a long process of verification of the procedures will the Roman inquiry, the second stage of the process of beatification, begin.

A long path on which to live in the trust and perseverance that were so dear to Léonie!

[Update: on January 10, 2020, the Visitation announced that the time and date of the ceremony has been changed to 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 22, 2020]. This is an important milestone in the legal procedures by which the Church is investigating Leonie’s holiness. It means that the diocesan tribunal that has been examining her life, virtues, writings, and reputation for holiness since 2015 is satisfied that she is a candidate worth considering for beatification. Immediately after the diocesan process closes on January 4, 2020, the anniversary of Therese’s baptism, the diocese will transfer to Rome its findings, including thousands of pages of documentation, and to ask the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to open a second inquiry. At the time of Therese this second inquiry was called the “Apostolic Process” because, unlike the first inquiry, which was opened by the diocese in which the candidate died, the Apostolic Process derives its authority directly from the Vatican.

The original announcement appeared in French on the Web site of the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen. We thank the Visitation nuns for generously allowing us to translate it into English and to publish it here.

Film of the welcome of the relics of St. Bernadette of Lourdes at the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen, March 27, 2019

The Monastery of the Visitation at Caen graciously permitted me to embed this historic film for the benefit of their English-speaking friends. Please join me in thanking them.

The relics of St. Bernadette of Lourdes visit the shrine of Leonie Martin in the chapel of the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen, March 27-28, 2019

In honor of the 175th anniversary of Bernadette’s birth and the 140th anniversary of her death, her reliquary is making a pilgrimage throughout Normandy. At six o’clock this evening (Wednesday, March 27), the relics of St. Bernadette arrived at the chapel of the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen, where the shrine of the Servant of God, Leonie Martin, is located.

St. Bernadette

A few moments later Leonie’s webmaster over there generously notified me of the visit and sent the first photos of the welcoming ceremony.

In June 1877, when Leonie was 14, she made a pilgrimage to Lourdes with her mother and her sisters Marie and Pauline. The four had gone there to pray that Zelie might be cured of breast cancer. God did not answer “yes” to that prayer. But Zelie poured the Lourdes water on Leonie’s forehead and begged God to open her intelligence and make her a saint. Are we not seeing the answer to that prayer?

The women of the Martin family did not see Bernadette on that visit, for she was then living in her convent in Nevers. But now Bernadette’s reliquary has come for the first time to Caen, where the body of Leonie is now enshrined in the chapel. We cannot all be there in person, so let’s unite with these two holy Frenchwomen and with Our Lady of Lourdes to beg God to pour out his grace on the whole world and especially on France.

The schedule of prayers and ceremonies is below:

Tuesday, March 27, 2019

6:00 p.m. Welcome and presentation of the Relics after the Office of Vespers (Evening Prayer)

8:00 p.m. The Rosary: The Glorious Mysteries

8:40 p.m. The Office of Compline (Night Prayer)

Wednesday, March 28, 2019

8:30 a.m. The Office of Lauds (Morning Prayer)

9:00 a.m. The Rosary: The Joyful Mysteries

10:00 a.m. The Rosary: The Sorrowful Mysteries

11:00 a.m. The Mass in honor of Our Lady of Lourdes

2:00 p.m. The Office of None (afternoon prayer)

3:00 p.m. Departure of the Relics

Please unite yourself to the prayer of the Visitation nuns and their friends during these privileged hours. Note that the time in Caen is, at present, five hours later than Eastern time in the United States. You can find the exact time at https://www.worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_FR.aspx?city=Caen

I received gracious permission from the nuns of the Visitation of Caen to translate and publish this schedule and to publish their photographs. Please see the original story in French at the Web site of the Visitation of Caen.

"The Unmentioned Martin": Crisis Magazine writes about Leonie, June 22, 2017

The Servant of God, Leonie Martin, Sister Francoise-Therese of the Visitation of Holy Mary, about six months before her death.  

In "The Unmentioned Martin," Elise Erhard writes about Leonie for Crisis Magazine.  I'm delighted that this article, which will introduce new readers to Leonie, contains two links to "Leonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of Saint Therese of Lisieux.":

Bishop Boulanger's homily at the Mass for the transfer of Leonie's body to its new shrine, 2017.

Léonie: Sister Françoise–Thérèse

JEAN-CLAUDE BOULANGER, BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF BAYEUX AND LISIEUX.  Photo credit: Diocese of Bayeux and Lisieux. 

[Homily preached January 21, 2017 in the Chapel of the Monastèry of the Visitation in Caen, France by Jean-Claude Boulanger, bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux, at the Mass celebrating the transfer of Léonie’s body from the crypt to her new shrine in the chapel]

 “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.”   

(Matthew 11:24)

Brothers and sisters,

The one who draws us together this afternoon is not a nun who founded a religious order the way St. Teresa of Avila did.  No, she is a child in the Gospel sense, a little sister, named Léonie, Sister Françoise-Thérèse, here at the Visitation.  There was, of course, little Thérèse, the youngest; but there was above all poor Léonie.  Being little and being poor go together very well.  Being little, then, is the opposite of being powerful.  A powerful man eventually instills fear.  One may admire him, perhaps . . . but for what he does or for what he possesses, much more than for who he is.  Yet Léonie has nothing else to offer except who she is.  Every human being, therefore, with individual failures and successes, may recognize himself or herself in Léonie.  It is in this capacity that the one who accepts being little, being deprived of a thousand things, becomes rich with a thousand relationships, with a thousand bonds . . .  Without knowing it, such a person weaves an immense tapestry of a thousand faces.  This, then, is what Léonie reveals to us.  Only the one who is little is truly a sister, and we can name her Sister Françoise-Thérèse.

Jesus was little because he was fully the Son of God, and he had learned to receive everything from God his Father. He was little. and he was fully the brother of humanity.  The perfect example of the little brother is really Jesus of Nazareth.  In him all those who search for a little brother have found one.  But at the same time Jesus showed who the Father is.  The humble, the poor . . . in a word, all those who know themselves to be little even if they have some money, some success, some intelligence, these discover what the Father is . . . a God all-powerful in Love . . . but so dependent on his creatures . . .  A God who is capable of suffering before the disfigured face of his creatures… Yes, a God who is a heart marked with a cross.  There it is, what we have learned during this year of Mercy.  In contemplating Léonie, it is the face of Jesus that we discover.

In 1935 she wrote in a letter addressed to her sisters at the Lisieux Carmel:  “I want to be so little that Jesus is forced to keep me in his arms.  This, then, is the Léonie who has implemented in her life the little way of spiritual childhood of her sister Thérèse.  She adds:  “My spirituality is that of my Thérèse, and as a result, that of our holy founder (St. Francis de Sales), his doctrine and hers are all one, she is the soul of whom our great Doctor was dreaming. I am in a state of perfect abandonment…” (Letter of May 3, 1935).

Léonie and the Little Way . . . the way of childhood . . . the little way of confidence.

St. Teresa of Avila wrote in the 16th century:  “The Lord is present even among the pots and pans.”  Léonie, certainly, was not at Carmel, but she could have written what the reformer of Carmel said.  At the heart of the little way that Thérèse described, it is Léonie who understood it best.  Léonie wrote:  “O my God, in my life where you have put little which shines, grant that, like you, I might go towards authentic values, disdaining the human values for estimating worth and wanting only the absolute, the eternal, the Love of God, in the strength of hope.”  It is Léonie who makes herself a disciple of her sister even though ten years separate them.  After Leonie’s death, her influence spread very rapidly: letters arrived from every continent, and they still continue to arrive constantly here at the Monastery of the Visitation.

This little way, the way of spiritual childhood, Thérèse discovered at Christmas 1886, when she finally left childishness behind.  It is the path of trust and of complete abandonment into the hands of the Father.  It is a way where one leaves oneself behind in order to open oneself to others.  “I am only a child, powerless and feeble; however, it is my feebleness which gives me the audacity to offer myself to Jesus, to Your Love, O Jesus.”  She will write again:

I offered myself to the child Jesus to be his little toy.  I told him not to treat me like an expensive toy that children settle for looking at without ever daring to touch it, but like a little ball of no value which he could throw on the ground, kick with his feet, split open, leave in a corner, and even press to his heart if that would give him pleasure.

We find here again Thérèse’s sense of humor.  It is through her feebleness, her littleness that she comprehends the infinite nature of the Father’s Love.

I can, despite my littleness, aspire to sanctity; it is impossible for me to grow up.  I have to put up with myself just the way I am with all my imperfections, but I want to find a means of going to heaven by a little way that is quite straight, quite short, a completely new little way.

This way is made of trust and of love within the banality of everyday life.  “Jesus does not ask of me grand actions but only abandonment and gratitude.  It is abandonment alone which guides me.  I have no other compass at all.”  This little way is a path which everyone can follow, but only while practicing Love, the kind in which “the left hand does not know what the right is doing.”  We are all called to sanctity: for this it is enough to put much love into the most ordinary activities of life.  “Jesus doesn’t look at the grandeur of the actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which they are done.”

Thérèse is the saint of everyday life.  She speaks about the holiness of daily life, about being faithful in small things without making a fuss, about being completely filled with love.  She evokes the divine under the most human of circumstances.  “Picking up a needle out of love can save the world.”  It is also a way within the grasp of little people who express themselves through the ordinariness of life without ever having accomplished exceptional things which would be newsworthy.  It is the sanctity that is within reach of everyone.  She will speak of the elevator which must bring her up to heaven, and this elevator is not reserved for the wealthy.  It is within everyone’s reach; this elevator is the arms of Jesus

It is indeed this little way that Léonie lived.  Little people all across the world are rediscovering it through her.  Many families who have difficulties with one of their children come willingly to her.  Similarly, many young women search for their vocations on a meandering path.  They see themselves in Léonie, who found her path in life after three tries.  And finally, as Bernanos said: “It is much easier to detest oneself than it is to love oneself with humility.”  Léonie was reconciled to herself, and she accepted being different from her sisters.  Never does one find a trace of jealousy in her letters.  One can say that she learned to love herself with humility and in simplicity.

+       Jean Claude Boulanger
Bishop of the Bayeux-Lisieux Diocese

[Note: I thank Bishop Boulanger for permission to translate and publish his homily and for furnishing a photograph; the Webmaster of the Visitation at Caen; and Rod Murphy, who translated the homily.].

Celebrate Leonie Martin's birthday with a new video, "A day at the Monastery," created by her Visitation sisters at Caen. June 3, 2017

Vidéo réalisée au monastère de la Visitation de Caen. Copyright © 2016 Monastère de la Visitation de Caen

For the first time in history, in this lovely video, follow the Visitation nuns through a day in their monastery at Caen: Mass, private prayer, communal prayer, housework, bookbinding, operating a pension for students, study, recreation, conferences, playing volleyball in the garden    . . .  Experience not only the building where Leonie Martin lived for so long the way of her sister, St. Therese of Lisieux, but also the simple, joyful spirit of the Visitation community.  A beautiful way to celebrate Leonie's birthday.  16 minutes long; silent except for music and sung prayer. 

The book "Leonie Martin" by Fr. Stephane-Joseph Piat reissued in French - May 8, 2017

The nuns of the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen announced that Éditions Emmanuel has published a new edition of the biography of Léonie written by Franciscan Father Stephane-Joseph Piat.  Originally published in 1967 as Léonie, the book is now titled Léonie Martin: La sainteté inattendue de une soeur de Thérèse (Léonie Martin: The unexpected holiness of a sister of Thérèse) and features a short preface by Jean-Claude Boulanger, bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux.

I am delighted at this long-awaited publication, and I hope that it will serve to make the Servant of God, Leonie Martin (Sister Francoise-Therese) better known in the French-speaking world.  Who will be the first to publish it in English?  

• See more information, read the preface and a sample chapter, or order Leonie Martin from Éditions Emmanuel.
• Read excerpts (in French) of the first edition of Leonie on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.
• See the announcement on the Web site of the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen.