Niki, Grenoble
This summer, while my three boys were on vacation with their father, I decided to come and spend a week at the Alençon sanctuary.
I had heard about vacations for single parents. Twelve years after my divorce, although being an active, dynamic woman, looking to the future and loving human relationships, I still have not mourned it.
I thought maybe this week would be an opportunity to finally turn the page.
Je suis protestante, et je ne prie donc pas les saints. Mon seul intercesseur est Christ, selon ce qu’Il nous dit : « Je suis le chemin, la vérité et la vie, nul ne vient au père que par moi ».
However, Saints Louis and Zélie are an example of a couple with whom we can identify: they experienced failures in their projects, bereavements, illnesses... They were tormented by anxieties, but in the face of all this, they managed to to stand firm in love, to show perseverance.
Their life spoke to me, because it is a reflection of everything beautiful and ugly that we can experience, we can identify with them in all or part of what they have endured, want to follow in their spirituality, although they have not experienced divorce, fortunately for them.
As for Thérèse, I particularly admire her humility, her contentment in little.
Although certain points bother me about Catholics (prayer to the saints, rituals that seem useless to me, etc.), I like doing retreats among Catholics because they are focused on the rejected (divorced, etc.) and the wounded.
I also find the habit of the consecrated persons (sisters and fathers) majestic and their appellation (my father, my sister) full of proximity and reminder of our Father and our sisters in Christ.
I find the same Christ in the Catholic Church, and the songs, when we also add the organ, as well as the works of art of the churches contribute to the praise. The temples are bare of them and I deplore it.
During this stay, I had a very profound realization.
One evening, during a vigil in the chapel, Father Hénault-Morel asked us the question of Christ to the blind: “What do you want me to do for you?”
An inner movement was set in motion, deep within me, to be able to answer this question. The answer came to me as obvious: serenity.
