Léonie Martin
| |
| Born | 3 June 1863, Alençon, France |
|---|---|
| Died | 16 June 1941, Caen, France |
| State of life | Professed Visitation nun |
| Church or tradition | Latin Church; Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary |
| Ecclesial status | Servant of God; diocesan cause opened in 2015 |
| Recognition | Title received in 2014; diocesan inquiry opened in 2015 |
Léonie Martin was a French Visitation nun, known in religion as Sister Françoise-Thérèse, whose difficult path to stable vocation became a witness of perseverance, humility, and confidence in divine mercy.
Overview
Léonie Martin, also known as Sister Françoise-Thérèse, VHM (3 June 1863 – 17 June 1941) was a French Catholic nun who led a cloistered life as a member of the Visitation Sisters. She was the daughter of Saints Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin and an elder sister of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. She is sometimes dubbed Saint Thérèse's "difficult sister".
Her cause for beatification was introduced in the Diocese of Bayeux and Lisieux in 2015, and she was given the posthumous title Servant of God.[1]
Life
Marie Léonie Martin was born in Alençon in the department of Orne in France on 3 June 1863. She was the third child born to Louis and Zélie Martin – both of whom were canonized on 18 October 2015 by Pope Francis. She had several siblings, including Thérèse, who was canonized within Léonie's lifetime. The Martin daughters each bore the first baptismal name "Marie", just as Zélie, her siblings and her nieces did, but only the eldest Martin child commonly used the name.
As a child, Léonie had fragile health; at eighteen months old, she almost died. She suffered from the whooping cough in addition to measles with strong convulsions and eczema.[2] She was a restless child, who was seen as a burden on her mother, who suffered much to care for her – a difficult child. She was so disruptive at the Visitation convent school that she was asked to leave. It was later revealed that Léonie was abused as a child by the family's maid.[3]
Her mother died on 28 August 1877, leaving the fourteen-year-old Léonie with her father and sisters. With his own siblings long since buried and Zélie's sister predeceasing her in February 1877, Louis Martin and his five daughters then moved to Lisieux to be near their remaining close family, (Marie) Isidore Guérin, his wife and daughters. Léonie was a boarding pupil at the school run by the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of Notre Dame du Pré in Lisieux, where Thérèse later studied.
Louis and Zélie both unsuccessfully pursued monastic lives before their marriage. Zélie had zealously prayed for their children to be consecrated to God. In October 1882, Léonie's older sister, Pauline, entered the Carmelite Monastery at Lisieux. Three of her sisters later followed.
In October 1886, the Martin family visited Alençon so that their oldest daughter, Marie Louise, could see the scenes of her childhood and say goodbye to their friends there before she entered the Carmelite Monastery in Lisieux. While there, Léonie, then 23, unexpectedly entered the monastery of the Poor Clares; however, she found their austere rule too difficult and remained there only six weeks. In the summer of 1887 she entered the Monastery of the Visitation at Caen, but returned to Lisieux only six months later. Soon after that, in April 1888, Thérèse, then 15, entered the Carmelite Monastery at Lisieux.
Léonie and Céline were left at home with their father, whose health was beginning to fail. In February 1889, suffering from hallucinations, he was interned in a psychiatric hospital at Caen. For several months Léonie and Céline moved to Caen to be near him, but as he was allowed only one visit a week and the likelihood of his release diminished, they returned to Lisieux, joining their uncle's family, and made the weekly visits by train. While they were in Caen, Léonie often attended the Monastery of the Visitation. In May 1892, Louis Martin returned to Lisieux, and Léonie and Céline took care of him in a small house on rue Labbey in Lisieux, across the way from their uncle's house. Léonie made her second attempt at joining the Visitation at Caen in 1893, which successfully saw her receive the habit. Her father died the next year, and Céline joined the other three living sisters at the Carmel in Lisieux soon afterward. In the summer of 1895, Léonie left the Visitation on account of her health, returning to Lisieux, where she resided with her uncle Isidore, whose daughter Marie-Louise-Hélène soon joined her cousins at the Carmel. During both of Léonie's stays in the Visitation, she corresponded frequently with her sisters. Of particular interest are her letters with Thérèse, who led Léonie along the "way of confidence and love" she herself was discovering. Thérèse died of tuberculosis in 1897. Her memoir, Story of a Soul, was published in 1898. Reading it gave Léonie new hope for her own religious vocation. She entered the Visitation at Caen definitively on 28 January 1899, and on 2 July 1900 she at last became a professed member of the Visitation Sisters, honoring her sister's memory taking the religious name of "Françoise-Thérèse".
Léonie carried on a fervent correspondence with her sisters at the Lisieux Carmel. Her health continued to falter, and she lived in the shadow of ill health, besieged with ailments such as eczema. She died on 17 June 1941.[4]
Origins and formation
Marie-Léonie Martin was the daughter of Saints Louis and Zélie Martin and an elder sister of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Poor health, educational difficulty, emotional volatility, and secret mistreatment by a household servant marked her childhood. These wounds strained family relationships, but later recognition of the abuse helped her parents respond with protection and patience rather than interpreting every difficulty as simple disobedience.
Vocation and service
Martin attempted religious life with the Poor Clares and more than once with the Visitation at Caen, but illness and instability repeatedly brought her home. In 1899, at thirty-five, she entered the Visitation definitively, received the name Sister Françoise-Thérèse, and made profession in 1900. She remained there until death, living a hidden observance of prayer, community service, obedience, and the gentle discipline of Saint Francis de Sales.
Christian witness
Correspondence with Thérèse helped Léonie receive the little way of confidence and love without merely copying her younger sister. Her holiness, if finally recognized by the Church, must be her own: a gradual cooperation with grace in weakness, repeated failure, ordinary community frictions, and perseverance. Family sainthood does not pass by inheritance.
Her story has become especially meaningful to wounded people, parents of children who struggle, and those whose vocation unfolds through false starts. That pastoral fruit should not romanticize abuse or make disability and illness into moral defects. Catholic hope rests in God's transforming grace, responsible care, forgiveness, and the real agency of the person who continues to answer a vocation.
Ecclesial recognition
Cause and present status
Léonie Martin received the title Servant of God in 2014, and the Diocese of Bayeux and Lisieux formally opened the cause of canonization of Sister Françoise-Thérèse in 2015. The diocesan inquiry later closed and its acts proceeded to Rome, but no papal decree of heroic virtues has yet given her the title Venerable. Her saintly parents and sister do not advance her automatically through any canonical stage.[5][6]
Liturgical and devotional scope
Catholics may pray privately for the intercession of Servant of God Léonie Martin using the approved prayer and may visit her tomb according to the monastery's rules. No public liturgical cult follows from the opened cause.
Beatification process
On January 24, 2015 her beatification process began in France with the declaration of "nihil obstat" (nothing against), thus conferring upon her the posthumous title of the Servant of God. This began the local diocesan process that gathered documentation and testimonies about Léonie's life and writings; the local process was opened in the chapel of the Visitandine convent at Caen on 2 July 2015. The first, diocesan, phase of the beatification process was closed on 22 February 2020.[7]
Prayers are now being offered for her to be declared "Venerable", the next step on the road to beatification.
References
- Back to citation "Servant of God Françoise-Thérèse (Leonie Martin)". Santi e Beati. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
- Back to citation Kosloski, Philip (26 January 2017). "Leonie Martin: St. Therese's "difficult sister" continues on the road to canonization". Retrieved 2020-06-21.
- Back to citation Martin, Zélie (2011). A call to a deeper love: the family correspondence of the parents of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885. Internet Archive. New York: Society of St. Paul. ISBN 978-0-8189-1321-1.
- Back to citation "MARTIN Léonie, Sister Françoise-Thérèse — Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux". Archives du Carmel de Lisieux. Retrieved 2024-12-17; "Servant of God Sister Francoise Therese (Leonie Martin), sister of St. Therese of Lisieux". www.martinsisters.org. Retrieved 2024-12-17; "A Fourth Saint for the Little Flower Family?". NCR. 2015-07-03. Retrieved 2024-12-17.
- Back to citation Diocese and Shrine of Lisieux: cause chronology — Diocesan shrine chronology recording Léonie Martin's title as Servant of God in 2014 and formal opening of the cause in 2015.
- Back to citation Decree opening the cause of Sister Françoise-Thérèse — English publication of the Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux's canonical decree identifying Marie-Léonie Martin, her religious name, evangelical reputation, and Servant-of-God status.
- Back to citation Clôture de l'enquête diocésaine. leonie-martin.fr, 10 January 2020.