Élisabeth Leseur’s prayer for her husband
When Élisabeth and Félix Leseur married in 1889, they loved each other and enjoyed talking about books and ideas. Religion was the subject that divided them. Félix had lost his faith during his medical studies and came to call himself an atheist. Hoping she would see things his way, he gave Élisabeth a skeptical book about Jesus. It prompted her to study the Gospels more closely, and her Catholic faith deepened.
Élisabeth wanted Félix to share that faith. She also wanted him to know he was loved as her husband. They continued to welcome friends into their home, including those who shared his doubts. In private, she kept a journal. She prayed for Félix and offered God her acts of charity and, as her health failed, the suffering of her illness. When she died in his arms on May 3, 1914, she had yet to see him return to the Church.
What Félix found in her journal
After her death, Félix read the journal and discovered how often he had been at the heart of her prayers. Later, at the grotto in Lourdes, he tried to pray the Rosary. He described what happened there as receiving the gift of faith. He returned to the Church, had Élisabeth’s journal published, and entered the Dominican Order. In 1923 he was ordained a priest.
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