Élisabeth Leseur’s prayer for her husband
When Élisabeth prayed for Félix to share her faith, she was praying for the man she loved most. During their marriage she saw him grow more tender toward her beliefs. She never saw him become a priest.
A marriage in Paris
Élisabeth Arrighi was born in Paris in 1866 into a prosperous Catholic family. She cared about her faith as a girl, although only later would it shape the smallest decisions of her day. Childhood hepatitis left her with recurring liver trouble. Over the years she also endured abdominal illness and typhoid fever.
In 1889 she married Félix Leseur, a physician who shared her love of books and conversation. He, too, had grown up Catholic. Shortly before the wedding he told her he had given up the faith and kept up appearances for his family. She wanted to marry him and asked that he respect her freedom to practice.
The book that sent her back to the Gospels
Félix wrote for newspapers that opposed the influence of the Church. At home, his arguments wore on Élisabeth. During a long illness she gradually stopped practicing her faith, a lapse that lasted about two years. Félix thought a skeptical book on the life of Jesus would settle the question for her. Instead, she questioned the author’s assumptions and turned back to the Gospels to read for herself.
In her early thirties she began a spiritual journal. Its pages record the ordinary work of living with people she loved who did not share her convictions. She studied, wrote letters, welcomed Félix’s friends, and quietly helped families in need. She longed for children and grieved that she and Félix could have none. She brought that sorrow and her recurring pain into her prayers for him.
The years Félix cared for her
As her health declined, friends came to visit her at home, where she often received them from a chaise longue. In 1911 she underwent surgery and radiation treatment for cancer. The following year Félix took her to Lourdes because he knew how much prayer meant to her. By July 1913 she was confined to bed. She died in his arms on May 3, 1914, at forty-seven. They had remained close friends throughout their marriage, and he grieved deeply.
What Félix found in her journal
Élisabeth had once wanted her private journal destroyed. Her sister helped preserve it, and after Élisabeth’s death Félix read it. For the first time he understood how often she had prayed for him and offered her suffering on his behalf. He later recalled her conviction that he would return to the Catholic faith and one day become a priest.
Félix had approached accounts of healing at Lourdes as a skeptical physician. On returning there after her death, he found himself at the grotto trying to pray the Rosary. He later described his return to faith as a gift of grace. He published Élisabeth’s journal, entered the Dominican Order, and was ordained a priest in 1923.
How her prayer reached Fulton Sheen
In 1924, a young American priest named Fulton Sheen made a retreat at a Dominican monastery in Belgium. Father Félix Leseur was his spiritual director. Sheen later recalled hearing Félix speak of his wife during the retreat and learning their story from him personally.
Years later, as Archbishop Fulton Sheen, he retold their story while teaching about difficulties in marriage. His listeners heard about a woman who had prayed for her husband through years of disagreement. She never saw him at the altar, but the young priest he guided carried the memory of her prayer to others.
A study of Élisabeth’s married life · A Dominican account of Félix’s conversion · Sheen’s recollection of the retreat
How Fulton Sheen brought Catholic apologetics to television
Two years after his retreat with Father Félix, Sheen preached a series of Lenten sermons on New York radio. In 1930 he began speaking on NBC’s The Catholic Hour. Now people could hear a priest explain the faith in their own homes, including listeners who had never thought of stepping inside a Catholic church.
On Easter Sunday in 1940, Sheen spoke on an early Catholic television broadcast. In 1952, by then a bishop, he began hosting Life Is Worth Living. With a piece of chalk and a blackboard, he invited viewers to think through questions they already cared about. What makes a person free? How do we face suffering? Millions tuned in to hear him connect questions like these with the Gospel.
This was Catholic apologetics in everyday language. To practice apologetics is to give reasons for what we believe. Sheen helped pioneer that work on television by treating viewers as people who could weigh those reasons for themselves. One way to get to know the young priest who listened to Félix is to hear how he, in turn, spoke to others about prayer.
Watch Sheen’s talk on prayer and explore his broadcasts at The Catholic University of America
Janet Ruffing on Élisabeth’s life and illness · A Dominican account of Félix’s conversion