Today, the barefoot Carmel remembers the memorial of Bl. Maria-Eugène of the Child Jesus OCD /Henri Grialou, 1894–1967/ – on the anniversary of the day he received priestly ordination and also as a sign that his desire to join Carmel comes from the Lord (February 4, 1922).
Henri had sensed his vocation to the priesthood since childhood. At the age of seventeen, he entered the seminary in Rodez, where he was inspired by the autobiography of Thérèse of Lisieux. He obtained his own copy and read "Story of a Soul" repeatedly. After two years, he interrupted his studies and voluntarily enlisted in the army. The young officer spent five years on the front and took part in the bloodiest battles of World War I (l'Argonne, Verdun). It was this (yet to be beatified) Thérèse to whom he entrusted for protection, both himself and his soldiers, in the trenches. For his dedication, he received the highest French state decoration – the Legion of Honor – and in 1919 happily returned to the seminary to continue preparing for the priesthood; upon entering Carmel (1922), he took the same religious surname as his close protector Thérèse ("of the Child Jesus").
War is undoubtedly harsh, terrifying, barbaric; it brings with it great suffering. (...) However, in the evening after the battle, a person again finds that they are still a human being, and above all a Christian – and it is then, when hearing the moans of wounded wretches or the gasps of the dying, that one suffers the most.
We are still being pelted with bullets. They were whistling around us so fiercely that at that moment one does not know how to avoid them. (…) Sister Thérèse pushes them away and catches them.
(Maria-Eugène of the Child Jesus /1894–1967/, two excerpts from correspondence, 1914)
