P. Marian Masařík, O.Carm.
This reflection of mine will not be “informative”; I would not want to overwhelm you with too much information or knowledge. It will rather be a testimony of what God can do with a person. We will also build on the reflections on education that we have engaged in on the occasion of the beatification of the Carmelite educator, Blessed Marie Teresa Scrilli. I received some articles about a girl—woman who was labeled a “problem child.” Perhaps you know this from your own families. Not all children are as we would like them to be. It happens that someone among our children or in the family “fails.” There are difficulties with them, anguish; they “have their own way,” and sometimes, additionally: whatever they touch in life, they do not succeed. They create one mess after another, they are difficult to deal with, and communication is challenging because they have a stubborn or unpleasant nature.
And so, we will now stop with one such problem child. And let’s say it plainly: if a person is problematic as a child, then it is very likely that they will have a problematic life as an adult. This problem child is named Leonie Martin.
More well-known is her sister, Saint Therese of Lisieux. Their parents will perhaps also be proclaimed blessed, the necessary process has already begun, and they can now officially use the title: venerable. Saint Therese of Lisieux is a great saint, while Leonie was a significant problem for her family. Leonie was precisely that kind of child who represented a great cross for her parents. The parents found no way to guide her—whether they tried to be strict or lenient. The other four daughters were a true pride for the parents; they were proud of them, but Leonie…?!
Saint Therese of Lisieux simply and very gently refers to her in her writings as “poor Leonie,” or it could be translated as “dear Leonie.”
Leonie was indeed very moody, often sick, yet stubborn, at times rebellious. It was never predictable how she would behave. Her mother was very worried about her, and when she was dying—suffering great pains in the last months of her life—she sacrificed everything for her daughter. For God to strengthen Leonie and transform her. The mother often said: “I don’t know what will become of her, what to do with her!” How many parents among us experience the same thing and say exactly the same: I don’t know what to do with this child!
Even the preparation for first Holy Communion caused a crisis. The mother’s sister, Leonie’s aunt, Sister Marie Dozitea, agreed to take her into the convent, to take care of her at the convent school, and prepare her. But after just a week, she had to send Leonie back. After a week! Because it was unbearable how the girl behaved in class. She “broke up” the entire child collective with her behavior, her lack of self-control. This Leonie—let me say this in advance, and maybe you already know—attempted to enter the convent four times. Three times unsuccessfully. How many times in life does someone try, strives for something, and hits the wall that it doesn’t work! And they would give up. Leonie is an example for us that there are no hopeless cases.
Childhood
I will begin with childhood. Leonie was born as the third child to her parents on June 3, 1863, and she was immediately completely different from her two older sisters, Marie and Pauline. They were very healthy, dark-haired; Leonie was slight, fair-haired. It took a year and a half for her to learn to walk. Perhaps you know from your own experience what it is like for parents when they suddenly have a child that is completely different. It was so bad with her that her devout father made a pilgrimage to a Marian shrine to ask Our Lady for his daughter. Leonie’s little body was already covered with some skin rash—eczema in the first months of her life. This followed her throughout her life, and these skin problems returned and worsened. Her parents, who had already experienced the deaths of several children (younger than Leonie), were very afraid that the girl would survive. For sixteen months, she was in a state between life and death. Leonie’s mother, Zelie, asked her sister, Marie Dozitea, to pray for her daughter. Only when Sister Dozitea made a novena in honor of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, the little niece’s health improved. As I have already hinted: during the first six years of Leonie’s life, before Celina was born, her parents had another girl and two boys, all three of whom died very young. We do not know to what extent these events marked Leonie psychologically. But we do know that her health stabilized after the novena.
However, this was not the case with her inner life. Her emotions were very variable. In one letter to her brother, her mother wrote at that time that Leonie was getting worse day by day. One incident as an example: Leonie took it into her head that she would go to Lisieux and screamed that she would go at all costs. At that moment, her mother did not know how to handle her at all. Only when her otherwise kind father got angry and forbade her plan did she gradually calm down. Simply a stubborn child, who thinks of something and screams and throws a tantrum until she gets it. Compared to her older sisters, Leonie was delayed; she was mentally slower. And as a result of being very lively, tumultuous at home and that she often fell and hurt herself on all sorts of things, she had numerous scars on her face, hands, and body from various injuries.
When the time came for her to go to school, she was not accepted into the school her sisters attended. Precisely because of how she behaved. Her mother herself complained that Leonie hardly listened to anyone.
Her mentioned aunt, Sister Marie Dozitea, tried to take her education into her own hands and diplomatically sought approval from her superior to take this niece into her school, which the nuns ran. The superior was astonished but agreed. So, the aunt took Leonie to the convent school. There, she could experience firsthand what Leonie was like. She refers to her as “that terrible little child” and would probably express her feelings today in words: “She gets on my nerves; it is a constant struggle with her; she fears no one but me; no one has any control over her…” But because Marie Dozitea was seriously ill and her health was deteriorating, Leonie had to be sent home after a while.
A year later, the family tried again—another attempt. They sent their problematic child back to the same school with her aunt; this time Sister Marie Dozitea tried to approach it differently: she was as kind as possible to the girl. It seemed that this educational method was bearing fruit. Some changes started to occur with Leonie. But only temporarily. After a few months, Leonie had to be sent home again. The school did not want her because she could not manage herself in the company of others. Her mother, a woman of strong faith, still relied on God’s help. She believed that only a miracle, only God’s intervention, could do anything with her daughter. Change her. When Leonie could not attend school due to her behavior, her mother paid two older retired teachers to give her private lessons. But even this attempt ended poorly. When Leonie thought over everything with her childish mind, she said: “When someone was taking care of me after my birth, you must have swapped me with someone! For when I look at my older sisters, I see that I am completely different!... ‘They must have switched me. I am not your Leonie!’ But her mother assured her that they had not made a mistake, that she was their daughter, even though she was different.
When Leonie was twelve years old, she was preparing for her first Holy Communion. We might recall how her younger sister Therese experienced her first Holy Communion. For her— as she said—it was the most wonderful day of her life: “Jesus came to me!” For Leonie, it was not like that. And yet there was something she had in common with her younger sister Therese: a strong will. So strong that when Leonie set her mind on something, once she wanted it, she simply went for it. We could say it was stubbornness, obstinacy. But when one is stubborn, it does not necessarily mean something negative. When a person channels this quality with God’s help in their life, it can grow into a beautiful, strong virtue—perseverance. Perseverance in doing good, steadfastness, so that nothing, no setbacks will deter me.
Mother Zelie describes her daughter’s piety at that age. She says that Leonie was not interested in learned prayers. That if she hadn’t insisted on them, her daughter would not have prayed them. Leonie was not noticeably “pious,” but she was interested in the figure of Jesus Christ—his life. This is evident from a specific incident. Once when her mother took her beside herself and they prayed together, after a while Leonie said, “I don’t want to anymore. Enough, that’s enough. But tell me; tell me about Jesus!” And her mother began to recount. When she recounted Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and his final days and hours, Leonie burst into tears.
Adolescence
Leonie was twelve, then thirteen years old, going through puberty, and she realized that her uncontrollable behavior caused pain and suffering to others. She suffered from an inferiority complex. When she looked at how her older sisters were good, she saw that she was incapable of matching them, of changing in some way. It troubled her greatly and made her unhappy. Her aunt, Sister Marie Dozitea, was dying at that time. Leonie wrote her a letter, asking her that when she came to heaven, to ask God for the grace of conversion and—notably—the grace to be a true—real nun. When the family saw that she was writing this, asking her aunt for this, they were shocked. She’s gone mad! They know her—what her character is like, how unstable, immature, behind in everything she is. Simply: she cannot be a nun! Her older sister Marie wanted her to erase the word “true” nun. But Leonie insisted that this is what she wanted. She truly wished to be holy.
From today’s psychological perspective, we could try to trace where the roots of Leonie’s character lie, why she was so scatterbrained and uncontrollable. Someone might see the cause in the fact that both parents had little time. They worked a lot. Her father was often forced to travel, having to handle many formalities related to the lace business they had. So, he was often not at home. He had little involvement in her life. Her mother was often overworked, having to work until two o’clock at night to keep up with all the matters associated with the lace business she ran. Moreover, she was beginning to realize that she was ill. She no longer had the strength. Thus, it might seem that one of the causes of Leonie’s problematic behavior was the lack of time and energy from her parents for their daughter. But it turned out that the root of Leonie’s behavior was likely found elsewhere. The oldest sister, Marie, realized the influence their servant had on Leonie. She was tasked with caring for Leonie and devoting a lot of time to her. However, the servant took advantage of Leonie’s slowness and weakness to control her for her own purposes. She led Leonie to obey only her. Whereas, when Leonie wanted to show affection to her parents or someone else, she felt entirely frightened. Once the family realized this, the energetic mother Zelie wanted to dismiss the servant because of this. But in the end, they kept her in their household, only she was no longer allowed to have any influence over Leonie. As this negative relationship between Leonie and the servant was interrupted, everything gradually began to change. Leonie, previously tied to that servant, now became equally attached to her mother. She began to show her affection, love. This did not solve everything, but it was a change for the better.1
Then another troubling situation arose in the family. The mother already knew that her days were numbered. The family wanted Zelie to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes, asking for her healing. During those days, Leonie was very close to her mother. She decided to pray a novena with the intention that God would take her rather than her mother—that is, that she would prefer to die than her mother. (When the mother heard this, she smiled in the last days of her life.) Thus, Leonie also demonstrated an effort to do something for another, in common Christian terms, to give oneself to another, to sacrifice oneself. And so, one Thursday morning, Leonie came to her sister Marie and said, “I feel poorly; God answered my prayers—I am dying; I am dying—and mom will live!” Marie laughed at this, but Leonie meant it seriously. And she was hurt and cried at how Marie reacted. After a quarter of an hour, she stopped and then began to think about buying some beautiful embroidered slippers. And Marie pointed out to her: “A moment ago, you said you were dying, and now you want to spend a lot of money?” As can be seen, the scatterbrained nature of Leonie!
Mother Zelie was dying. But she died with the hope that Leonie would eventually cope well in life. After the mother’s death, their father sold the lace business, and they moved to Lisieux. The two youngest daughters, Celina and Therese, each immediately chose their new mother—one chose Marie, the other Pauline. Leonie again remained on the sidelines. It may have seemed again that she was of no use, that she was incapable. But when little Therese fell ill with that mysterious illness, from which she was finally healed (as she herself wrote) “by the smile” of a statue of Our Lady, Leonie took care of her during her illness, and Therese found a new relationship with Leonie. To such an extent that she then chose her as her confirmation godmother. She began to discover something that others did not see.
Adulthood
Now we come to the phase of life when Leonie was grown up and tried to pursue what she thought she should be in life—a nun. Once the Martins were on a family trip to Alencon, where there was a convent of Poor Clares. Leonie was then 23 years old, and when they were there, she suddenly made a decision. When they visited that convent, she suddenly declared: “I want to stay here; I want to enter.” Just like a bolt from the blue—while they were on an outing, her vocational decision was made. It was remarkable that the mother superior said: “Yes.” So, Leonie never returned to Lisieux and did not pack her things. Therese was sorry that she could not say goodbye to her, that they could not part ways. Marie felt very offended by all this, while their father remained calm. But the strict, austere Franciscan style of life was too much for Leonie, who was in poor health. After two months, she left. Disappointed.2 And as if that were not enough, she made another attempt at entry just three-quarters of a year later. This time it was a convent of the Visitation Sisters in Cannes. It was an order to which her aunt belonged—Sister Marie Dozitea, but she lived at the convent in Le Mans.
Leonie was full of new enthusiasm in Cannes. She writes:
“I am happy here. Although I constantly have to struggle, it is difficult; it is hard for me to overcome myself, to give myself up.”
This time, Leonie lasted six months in the convent. That is: two months previously, now six months. When she returned home to Lisieux, she began to engage in household tasks, visited the sick, and helped the poor. After those two experiences, she realized that she had her limits. She also asked her younger sister Therese to teach her French grammar, and she agreed.
Then another dramatic issue arose in the family: the mental illness of their father. One day, he disappeared, and Leonie, with Celina and the maid, went looking for him3 and eventually had to place their father in an asylum. It was extremely painful for them, and their three Carmelite sisters asked for updates on what was happening with their father, how he was doing. They wrote letters that were mostly addressed to Celina (who was six years younger than Leonie) and contained only a small paragraph for Leonie (something like P.S.). So Leonie again stood in second place; she may have been overlooked, perhaps the sisters unknowingly intensified her feeling of inferiority and inadequacy. Once a week, Leonie and Celina took the train to Cannes to visit their father. He had been hospitalized there for three years, and during that time they visited various places. They made a pilgrimage to Lourdes because Leonie’s health worsened—she again had trouble with eczema. She suffered greatly from this.
Once, during a visit to their father in Cannes, Leonie also visited the local Visitation Sisters. They were having exercises at that time. And Leonie decided to stay with them for the exercises. Celina then got angry with Leonie for leaving her sister like that. At the end of the exercises— to everyone’s surprise—the mother superior gave Leonie permission to try again to join them. This was her second attempt with the Visitation Sisters and her third overall attempt to live a religious life. However, as Leonie stayed there, the relationship between her and Celina became very strained. (Celina felt abandoned, “the last remnant of the family”; she cared for their father with the help of the maids, who came back from the psychiatric hospital. A year later, she was at his bedside when he died with a completely clear mind.)4
Therese tried energetically to encourage both sisters with her letters and “iron out” the inconsistencies between them. From that time, we have preserved many of Therese’s letters. Leonie kept the letters she received from Therese very carefully, and they became a significant source of inspiration for her spiritual life. She returned to them repeatedly throughout her life. Her stay in the convent this time was longer—it lasted a full two years. It seemed that everything was fine, and she made her first vows. Yet she still struggled internally and faced difficulties. One of her problems was, for example, praying the breviary—which was prayed in Latin at that time. However, she was slow and not intellectually gifted enough; it was very challenging for her. Her vows were postponed, and she was deeply hurt by this. Therese once again encouraged her in a letter and confided to her that she had once experienced something similar.
Now I would like to include an excerpt from a letter that Therese wrote to Leonie precisely during this period:5
“You are truly happy, dear little sister, that Jesus is so jealous for your heart. He tells you like a bridegroom in the Song of Songs: ‘You have captivated me, my sister, my bride, you have captured me with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace...’ Jesus is pleased with you; I feel it. If He still allows you to see unfaithfulness in your heart, I am completely sure that He will gather many more acts of love.
Which Therese will be more zealous?6 The one who will be humbler, more united with Jesus, who will faithfully do all her deeds out of love!... Oh, let us pray for each other to be equally faithful... Let us wound Jesus with our eye and our one hair, that is with both the greatest and the smallest. Let us not deny Him even the slightest sacrifice. In religious life, everything is so great… Picking up a pin out of love can save a soul—what a mystery! Only Jesus can give such value to our deeds, so let us love Him with all our strength...”
But even this third overall attempt to enter the convent was not successful for Leonie. On July 20, 1895, she returned to her uncle and aunt Guérin.7 She took this failure very seriously. Imagine this life situation where a person struggles hard for something, and it is something very important (for example, the effort to establish a relationship and enter into marriage). A person “goes for it,” hopes, puts their whole heart into it—and it does not work out. The first time, the second, the third... Such failures can completely discourage a person, close them off from themselves.
A year before Therese’s death, Leonie writes to her: “You are ready to meet God. Surely you will be well received. But I, alas! I would come (before Him) with empty hands, and yet I am so bold that I am not afraid. Do you understand?”8 She has nothing. All her attempts at religious life ended in failure. In another letter, she writes to Therese:
“How are you? My beloved little sister, I do not trust you at all in this regard because you always tell me that you are doing well or better. But I do not believe you at all. When you write to me, tell me mainly the exact truth. Tell me about God and anything that can help me grow. If you knew how much I need help! Dear sister, will you protect me from my old errors, won’t you? I am so weak. I know how much I rely solely on you. Please ask God to free me from my troubles. I am always focused on myself, and that destroys me terribly, prevents me from growing and taking another step.”9
And thus, Therese begins to write to her honestly, begins to tell her the whole truth. She starts, as Leonie asked, to write about God. In one letter, Therese writes to Leonie:10
“I assure you that God is much better than you think. He is pleased with a glance and a sigh of love. I find perfection very easy because I have understood that it’s enough to catch Jesus by the heart. Look at a child who has just angered his mother by being naughty or disobedient. If he sulks stubbornly in the corner and cries in fear of being punished, his mother certainly does not forgive him for his mistake. But when he comes, stretches out his little arms to her, and says with a smile, ‘Kiss me, I will not do it again.’—what can a mother do but tenderly pull him to her heart and forget about his childish mischief? And yet she knows that her dear little one will do it again at the first opportunity. But that does not matter. If he catches her by the heart again, he will never be punished...”
These words helped Leonie greatly throughout her life—“to catch Jesus by the heart” (in the manner described), even when she does something again.
A wonderful relationship emerged between Leonie and Therese. But how difficult it must have been for Leonie when she could not be with this sister, who was slowly dying! Therese was behind the walls of the convent, behind bars, and Leonie could not be there. We know from testimonies how much she would have liked to exchange places with her older sisters and be with Therese. She urged them: “Write down everything she says. So I will know it.” Being separated from her suffering sister was a great pain for her.
The last letter Therese wrote to Leonie in July 1897, a few months before her death, says:11
“The only happiness on earth is to find always delightful the lot that Jesus gives us. Yours is truly beautiful, my dear little sister. If you want to be a saint, it will be easy for you because in the depths of your heart the world is nothing to you. You may, therefore, like us, engage in “the one necessary thing”12—which means, even if you selflessly engage in external deeds, you should have one goal—to please Jesus, to connect intimately with him.
Do you want me to ask the Most Sacred Heart for you in heaven? Be assured that I will not forget to convey your messages to Him and to ask for everything you need to become a great saint.
Goodbye, my beloved sister. I wish that the thought of my entry into heaven fills you with joy because I will be able to love you even more.”
For the rest of her life, Leonie read this letter and considered it one of her greatest treasures. Therese also confirmed in her letters that Leonie had a vocation to be a Visitation sister. Therese told this to others and assured Leonie that it was indeed so despite the failures Leonie had experienced. And this prophetic word from Therese was fulfilled. Two years after Therese’s death, Leonie entered the convent for the third time in Cannes. Already the fourth attempt overall. This time she persevered. On the fourth try!
Sometimes in life, a person tries something again and again and does not know when it will succeed.
Meanwhile, the situation in the convent had changed. The applicants for entry were now overseen by a different novice mistress, who was very wise and took Leonie’s state—including her health—into account. At the same time, Leonie was convinced that her sister Therese was a great help to her, for whom she constantly thought. She turned to her at all times. And she took the religious name Frances Theresa as Therese had predicted. Nor was it easy for her in the monastery; she still had the same errors and difficulties as before. What was new now was that Leonie had a sense of humor. According to preserved testimonies, she lifted the atmosphere during community recreation13. She managed to joke even about herself. She realized that the limitations she had could not be overcome by her effort. Just like Therese, Leonie in the convent found herself always at the level of one who never made it “higher” (in the sense of the convent social ladder). She was always, as she herself said, an assistant. Nothing was entrusted to her completely to be in charge of it. We know that Therese was always just an assistant to the novice mistress. Leonie sees a similarity between herself and Therese in this regard. Nothing significant was ever entrusted to her alone. But she nevertheless found a way in everything to approach God.
Because of what Leonie went through in her life—the pains, the sufferings, the uncertainties—she began, based on her experience, to help the sisters in the convent who had difficulties, some sorrows in the family, or even crises in their vocational calling. She began to devote herself to them because she knew what it was like, as she had gone through difficult things herself. She realized that her limitations—that she was not the best, the most perfect, the most beautiful, nor was she the most capable—were a means for her, a way to achieve the goal she sought: to be holy, to belong to Christ. She experienced the same difficulties, the same worries, the reluctance, the fatigue of all kinds—but felt that all these sufferings were a purification for her, that God was working in her this way. Therefore, she thanked Him for everything. She wrote this in her letters, and we can observe that she is a faithful disciple of her younger sister Therese in her little way.
Leonie wrote:
“I am weakness itself. I know very well that Jesus asks for nothing more than my effort. And so I will not allow anything to deter me, even if I am completely powerless. And precisely this weakness of mine is my strength.”
Throughout her life, she was plagued by illnesses. She constantly had problems with skin rashes, suffered from migraines, her teeth troubled her, and she lost them early on. Frequent stomach ailments followed her; she had sick nails on her hands, caught colds easily, and these colds then turned into bronchitis, pneumonia. Her life was marked by one cross after another, suffering after suffering. She had to undergo knee surgery, and after that, her legs no longer served her reliably when standing or walking. Rheumatism gradually bent her figure; she was hunched like an old woman. And how everything was connected to pain!
Leonie was indeed a problematic child. She caused anxiety to her parents and all relatives around her. It was difficult to get along with her; she constantly had health problems and difficulties. Whatever she attempted in life (I now mean her attempts at religious life), nothing worked out for her. Yet it is remarkable how mature a person she ultimately became. When she died, pilgrims began to visit her grave, and it is remarkable that of all of Therese’s native sisters, people began to express pious respect for Leonie. They went to her grave, and the Visitation sisters received reports in the convent about prayers being granted through the intercession of Leonie. So, neither Pauline, nor Marie, nor Celina, but the problematic child becomes a saint—the second saint in the Martin family after Therese. And a diocesan process has already begun for her beatification, with testimonies being collected about her life. May the testimony of her life be hope to us all that no one is a hopeless case—no problematic person, no problematic child.
