September 23, 2023

"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

September 23, 2023/ Maureen O'Riordan

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.

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

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

Leonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Therese of Lisieux Blog

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

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