Failure, a path to holiness?
January 28, 1899 – definitive entry of Léonie to the Visitation of Caen
Shortly before her death, offering her sufferings for Léonie, Zélie had said: “If it only took the sacrifice of my life for Léonie to become a saint, I would do it with a good heart. »
In 1897, it was Thérèse's turn to say: “After my death, I will have her return to the Visitation and she will persevere there. »
In a letter, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart (Marie Martin) confided to Léonie these words of Thérèse: “I will obtain for her the grace to succeed and she will take my name and that of St François de Sales. »
On September 30, Thérèse entered life, not without having once again asked the Lord, for her dear Léonie, for the grace of a religious vocation…
Léonie had already discovered Thérèse's "little way" through their correspondence. She read The Story of a Soul as soon as it was published and committed herself even more resolutely to this path of spiritual childhood and abandonment, the fruits of which she had sensed in her little sister.
A few months after Thérèse's departure for Heaven, on January 28, 1899, Léonie entered the Convent of the Visitation in Caen for the third time. This is her 4th attempt at religious life: she had also started a novitiate with the Poor Clares of Alençon. She is thirty-five and a half years old.
His perseverance, his confidence and his good will will finally triumph over the obstacles. Léonie made her profession in July 1900 under the name of Sister Françoise-Thérèse, and was a nun at the Visitation of Caen until her death in 1941.
His perseverance in his vocation will however be a constant battle. In a letter to her Carmelite sisters in 1931, she wrote: “I can no longer acclimatize myself to this sad earth. Everything is a subject of boredom and weariness to me, pray well – this is addressed to Céline – for your poor little coward, because in short it is pure cowardice to no longer want to suffer for the good God, even though he is more offended than ever… I cling as much as I can to his will that I love and want above all, but all my poor efforts are fruitless and often leave me in untold suffering. » But confidence always takes over: “I am perfectly abandoned to live until the end of the world, if such is the good pleasure of the good Lord! It's what he does that I like…”.
During her deposition at the apostolic process in view of the beatification of Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, she will return to the relationship of deep tenderness and closeness which united her to the youngest of the family, recounting: “I was particularly touched by the great delicacy with which she acted towards me. I was then 23 years old and she was only 13, but I was very behind in my studies and my training; my little sister lent herself to instruct me with great charity and exquisite tact so as not to humiliate me. (…) My little sister was always very gentle and perfectly in control of herself. I don't remember ever seeing her show signs of impatience, let alone get angry. »
This extreme attention and delicacy of Thérèse manifested itself in her intercession, for her sister, from her heavenly stay…
