Friday, October 20, 2017

Review: The Secret Diary of Elisabeth Leseur



This book, the secret diary of Elisabeth, is a beautiful love story.  None of her friends, or even her husband, knew how deeply she loved, until her husband read (and published) this diary --- upon her death.  And as a result of her words, (and her prayers,) he later became a priest.  This story reminds one of how St. Monica must have prayed for St. Augustine, but she lived to see his conversion.  And it reminds us to NEVER give up; prayer can move mountains --- surely it can change a heart.
Elisabeth, although very well-to-do, did not live boisterously.  She wrote how she felt it “my duty to my dear husband … above all, to be extremely reserved concerning matters of faith, which are still veiled to him.  Let him see the fruit but not the sap … only on those lines, I think, must I hope for the conversion and sanctity of my dear companion of my life, my beloved Felix.”  What humility!
She loved the goodness of her friends, and prayed for their spiritual and physical well-being, yet over and over thanked God for them, as they are.  She trusted.  Here are some of her thoughts:
·                  My God and my Savior, I consecrate to Thee my future, my words, my actions, and all the good works I can ever do, begging that I may be used in Thy service to make Thee known and loved.       March 10, 1905
·                 This is the resolve of this meditation:  silence in regard to my trials, silence about my interior life and what God has done unceasingly for me.  I believe it is my duty in waiting the divine hour to preach Jesus Christ only through my prayers, my sufferings, and my example.
·         If I can fruitfully show him a little of what is in my heart, that must at least be a rare event, done with careful thought, performed in all gentleness. 
·         I must be all things to all men, occupied only with others’ griefs, not saddening or troubling anyone around me with mine.
·         And now, O Lord, with all my soul I say the sorrowful words: “I thirst.”  I thirst for the peace Thou alone canst give…. I thirst for light, to know, to see, to possess, as we shall see and possess in eternity.  I thirst for life, the only Life, full and eternal.  O my God, I thirst for Thee!
·         What good is confiding one’s pains, miseries, and regrets to those to whom one cannot say at the end: “Pray for me”?
·         Prayer to Ask of God the Virtue of Hope:   My God, who hast allowed us human hopes, but who alone bestowest Christian and supernatural hope, grant, I beseech Thee, by Thy grace, this virtue to my soul, to the souls of all I love, and to all Christian souls.  Let it enlighten and transform our lives, our suffering, and even our death, and let it uphold in us, through the disappointment and sadness of each day, an inner strength and unalterable serenity.

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After reading the above book, I read a somewhat similar one next (God seems to arrange these things in an order so I can fully appreciate the depths of the matter).  In A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken writes of his love story, and of his dear Davy.  Atheists, in love, they “raised The Shining Barrier against creeping separateness … against a world of indecencies and decaying standards, the mockers of love, and above all, we would be us-centered, not self-centered.”  They vowed nothing would come between their love.  They vowed to not have children, and to not let careers come between them.  And they made many other vows and goals, like sailing around the world on their own Grey Goose --- which they did. 
And Christianity?  “Could there be more to it?  Maybe I ought to have another look at it.  Some day.  Just to be --- well, intellectually honest.”  But, “Of course, Christianity wasn’t true.  And Davy was amused and a bit mocking, when I told her about it.  We laughed together.”   But later they went to Oxford to teach, together, and were much surprised to find most of their friends Christian, their intelligent friends --- but “that didn’t make sense.”  And they made friends with C. S. Lewis, and exchanged many letters, on their love, on God, and the logical and sensible choice to believe, with Sheldon in particular coming to believe that it really was a choice, to believe (or not) in God.  And, in part to let nothing tear down their Shining Barrier uniting them against the world, he chose to believe, as his beloved Davy had come to do.
And that belief supported him strongly, as Davy sickened and died. 
I read A Severe Mercy as I was participating in the Alpha Program at my local church.  I believe the first 100 pages of this book are a great example of how people alien to religion can logically come to choose Christianity, and believe it true.  And, as with Elisabeth, I saw how God can work, slowly and deliberately, with little help from us, if we just trust and, like St. Monica, persevere.

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