June 17, 2021

"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

June 17, 2021/ Maureen O'Riordan

“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.

Léonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Léonie Martin, the sister of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, became Sister Françoise-Thérèse of the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen in northern France. Léonie led a challenging life: ill from childhood; abused by a maidservant; expelled from school; isolated within her family. She tried religious life three times before she succeeded: in 1899, at the age of 35, she entered definitively the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen, where she died in 1941 at the age of 78.

How did the troubled child and unhappy teenager turn into the sister everyone remembered as so kind, so serene, and so happy that they could not believe she had had a difficult childhood? As a laywoman, Léonie lived at the margins of her family and her society. She found Christ there and made him the center and the source of her life. She discovered God within herself, in her woundedness, and she became the first disciple of Thérèse's "way of confidence and love."

After her death, Léonie was almost forgotten for a long time. But, about 1960, the nuns of her monastery began to receive letters from all over the world asking them to pray that Léonie might obtain graces for those who wrote. Many of these letters came from the parents of special children, from families in conflict, and from persons who, like Léonie, struggle to find and to fulfill their vocations. These were followed by letters of thanksgiving. Pilgrims come to pray at her tomb, to ask for graces and to give thanks. Now she is being considered for beatifcation. Mgr Jean-Claude Boulanger, bishop of Bayeux-Lisieux, the diocese where Léonie lived most of her life and where she died, has granted the imprimatur for a prayer asking that Léonie might be declared "venerable" (that is, declared to have practced heroic virtue).

Léonie's mission is to draw souls, especially the wounded, the broken, and those who have not found a place in the world, to God. Invite her to accompany you and to lead you to surrender yourself, as she did, to God's "consuming and transforming love."

Léonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

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Léonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Léonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Thérèse of Lisieux