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My Spirit Rejoices: The Diary of a Christian Soul in an Age of Unbelief
From Elisabeth's example, and from the precepts she lived by, you will learn how to transform your own circumstances - no matter how difficult they may be - into occasions of grace for you and your loved ones.
- GenresSpiritualityBook Club
252 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1996
About the author
Elisabeth Leseur
26 books9 followersÉlisabeth Arrighi Leseur was a French mystic best known for her spiritual diary and the conversion of her husband, Félix Leseur (1861–1950), a medical doctor and well known leader of the French anti-clerical, atheistic movement.
After her death, her husband found a note by her addressed to himself, that prophesied about his conversion and him becoming a priest. In order to get rid of such "superstition", Félix left for the Marian shrine of Lourdes, wanting to expose the reports of the healings there as fake. At the Lourdes grotto however, he experienced a religious conversion. Félix subsequently published his wife's journal.
In the fall of 1919 he became a Dominican novice. He was ordained a priest in 1923 and spent much of his remaining twenty seven years publicly speaking about his wife's spiritual writings.
After her death, her husband found a note by her addressed to himself, that prophesied about his conversion and him becoming a priest. In order to get rid of such "superstition", Félix left for the Marian shrine of Lourdes, wanting to expose the reports of the healings there as fake. At the Lourdes grotto however, he experienced a religious conversion. Félix subsequently published his wife's journal.
In the fall of 1919 he became a Dominican novice. He was ordained a priest in 1923 and spent much of his remaining twenty seven years publicly speaking about his wife's spiritual writings.
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August 8, 2024
THE PRIVATE WRITINGS OF THE FRENCH MYSTIC
An introductory section of this 1996 publication states, “‘My Spirit Rejoices’ is an English translation of Elisabeth Leseur’s ‘Journal et pensées de chaque jour’ [1917] She lived from 1866-1914.
Felix Leseur, her husband (1861-1950), explains in the ‘In Memoriam’ section, “St. Francis de Sales, in the preface to his immortal ‘Introduction to the Devout Life,’ explains how … his book … was not to be printed… But it was sent … ‘to a great, learned, and devout religious, who… strongly exhorted me to have it published…’ I, too, met with a religious whose judgment had ‘great authority over mine.’ … the holy companion Elisabeth, whom God has taken from me… [and who wrote] the ‘Journal’ and ‘Thoughts’ that I found after her death and now edit...” (Pg. 3-4)
He continues, “These pages were not written day by day, but rather when their author, impelled by an inner compulsion, felt the need to pour out in secret the thoughts and emotions that filled her heart… her manuscript… is not a journal in the true sense of the word. She wrote irregularly, often at long intervals; little is related of the events of her life. Strictly speaking, it is the history of a soul, noting the principal stages of its evolution, a kind of examination of conscience set down by hand at odd moments… the author wrote for herself alone, this conscience disclosed itself to God in all simplicity, truth, and freedom, without a thought of style or of composition… I did not suspect the existence of this journal; it was revealed to me only after the writer’s death, by her sister to whom she had given some passages from it in confidence…
“I found the manuscript of the Journal, and saw that there was a long interval or gap in it. Begun on September 11, 1899, it ended for the first time on Augst 11, 1906… it was suddenly resumed on October 19, 1911, to be continued until January 9, 1914, when, in the writer’s last illness… she could write no more. Therefore, from August 1906 to October 1911 there was a gap of more than five years, all the more regrettable because those years were among the most interesting of Elisabeth Leseur’s religions development…
“However… I came upon a copybook called ‘Book of Resolutions,’ which filled up this gap and slightly overlapped the second part of the Journal, since it began on October, 1906, to end on July 18, 1912… The ‘Daily Thoughts’ are entirely distinct from the Journal… I have added as an epilogue the ‘Spiritual Testament,’ which left me the last thoughts and final advice of her whom I had just lost… thus all holds together and makes a perfect whole. The Journal, the Book of Resolutions, the Daily Thoughts, and the Spiritual testament succeed each other in chronological order, and enlighten, explain, and complete each other.” (Pg. 4-7)
In the Journal, she wrote on September 22, 1899, “We must create in ourselves a ‘new spirit,’ the spirit of intelligence and strength; we must renew ourselves and live our interior life with intensity. We must pray and act. Every day of our life must carry us nearer to the supreme Good and Intelligence—that is, nearer to God.” (Pg. 45)
She wrote on December 18, 1901, “to hear one’s ideas and beliefs perpetually criticized, to know them misunderstood… is to some extent to suffer persecution for justice’s sake. Could I on this account deserve some pity from God?... When I want to pour out my soul, I go to Him and…. brings me increased strength and fills me with joy greater than any words can say. After all, perhaps He alone can penetrate to the infinite depth and sensitivity of the human soul.” (Pg. 64)
On November 21, 1904, she wrote, “The tremendous longing to be an apostle, renewed love of souls---all this through the divine grace I have lately been conscious of. But how much there is in that thought: to be a Christian, to be an apostle, and how little worthy I am of these two titles.” (Pg. 87)
On January31, 1906, she wrote, “For some time I have gradually been giving out too much of my being and of my interior life. It used not to be thus; the work of my soul was done in solitude in the sight of God and known only to my spiritual father---as much as those things can ever be revealed. But under the influence of grief and the tenderness and sympathy that then enveloped me, I gave way to this sort of appeal from without and came to speak too easily of myself, my sorrow, and my illnesses, and even of my soul and of the graces I have received.” (Pg. 104)
In the ‘Resolutions,’ she stated. “Three General Resolutions: SILENCE: To avoid speaking of myself, my troubles, my illnesses, and especially of my soul and the graces I have received from God… GIVING MYSELF: Not only in doing my duty to all, not only in charitable works, not only in prayer, but in my whole attitude and way of life… PERSONAL AUSTERITY: … in this illness that I am afflicted with, the precautions I am obliged to take, the discomforts it brings, and privations it sometimes imposes on me… there is a plentiful source of mortification… our personal immolation will often be of actual benefit to others…” (Pg. 117-118)
Later, she adds, “When we feel impotent against hostility and indifference, when it is impossible to speak of God or the spiritual life, when many hearts brush against ours without penetrating it, then we must enter peacefully into ourselves in the sweet company that our souls never lack; and to others we must give only prayers and the quiet example of our lives and the secret immolation that makes the most fruitful apostolate.” (Pg. 146)
In the later Journal (October 19, 1911), she summarizes, “When I look at the past, I see all my childhood and youth, even the beginnings of maturity, passed in ignorance of and estrangement from God. I see the first graces received while I was still young… flashes from on high streaking a path of indifference and superficiality… the breaking of every link, even the external ones, with God and the total forgiveness of Him in my heart; then the slow, silent action of Providence in me and for me; the wonderful work of inner conversion, begun, guided, completed by god alone, outside all human influence or contact, sometimes by the very means that should have caused me to lose all of my religious faith, an action whose intelligent and loving beauty one could discern only when it was completed. Then, when the divine task was done, the friend and guide of my soul was put in my way by circumstances that were truly but gently providential. Then my reconciliation with God, the journey to Rome, and… my consecration to Jesus Christ, whom I carried in my heart by Communion, then years of trial, and the greatest grief of my life up to this time, and my ill-health, and the decisive consecration of myself on October 2, 1908, in the dear church at Jougne… Finally, this last year full of suffering: spiritual sufferings and deprivations… the feeling of having progressed in God’s service in spite of all my struggles and weaknesses… asking of Him in return the graces that I desire deeply and whose complete accomplishment I hope for from Him, for the souls dear to me, for all souls, and for the Church. That is a swift review of my life. But what I cannot say… is the greatness of Thy love, the wonderful graces Thou hast favored me with, which I never did anything to deserve.” (Pg. 167-168)
On February 20, 1913, she observes, “More and more I see that God does not want me to be active, unless a new state of affairs should arise. What He seems to expect from me is an apostolate of prayer and suffering. What a blessed vocation, and how much I will try to respond better to it than in the past…” (Pg. 186)
This book will interest Catholics (and other Christians, or course) interested in spirituality.
An introductory section of this 1996 publication states, “‘My Spirit Rejoices’ is an English translation of Elisabeth Leseur’s ‘Journal et pensées de chaque jour’ [1917] She lived from 1866-1914.
Felix Leseur, her husband (1861-1950), explains in the ‘In Memoriam’ section, “St. Francis de Sales, in the preface to his immortal ‘Introduction to the Devout Life,’ explains how … his book … was not to be printed… But it was sent … ‘to a great, learned, and devout religious, who… strongly exhorted me to have it published…’ I, too, met with a religious whose judgment had ‘great authority over mine.’ … the holy companion Elisabeth, whom God has taken from me… [and who wrote] the ‘Journal’ and ‘Thoughts’ that I found after her death and now edit...” (Pg. 3-4)
He continues, “These pages were not written day by day, but rather when their author, impelled by an inner compulsion, felt the need to pour out in secret the thoughts and emotions that filled her heart… her manuscript… is not a journal in the true sense of the word. She wrote irregularly, often at long intervals; little is related of the events of her life. Strictly speaking, it is the history of a soul, noting the principal stages of its evolution, a kind of examination of conscience set down by hand at odd moments… the author wrote for herself alone, this conscience disclosed itself to God in all simplicity, truth, and freedom, without a thought of style or of composition… I did not suspect the existence of this journal; it was revealed to me only after the writer’s death, by her sister to whom she had given some passages from it in confidence…
“I found the manuscript of the Journal, and saw that there was a long interval or gap in it. Begun on September 11, 1899, it ended for the first time on Augst 11, 1906… it was suddenly resumed on October 19, 1911, to be continued until January 9, 1914, when, in the writer’s last illness… she could write no more. Therefore, from August 1906 to October 1911 there was a gap of more than five years, all the more regrettable because those years were among the most interesting of Elisabeth Leseur’s religions development…
“However… I came upon a copybook called ‘Book of Resolutions,’ which filled up this gap and slightly overlapped the second part of the Journal, since it began on October, 1906, to end on July 18, 1912… The ‘Daily Thoughts’ are entirely distinct from the Journal… I have added as an epilogue the ‘Spiritual Testament,’ which left me the last thoughts and final advice of her whom I had just lost… thus all holds together and makes a perfect whole. The Journal, the Book of Resolutions, the Daily Thoughts, and the Spiritual testament succeed each other in chronological order, and enlighten, explain, and complete each other.” (Pg. 4-7)
In the Journal, she wrote on September 22, 1899, “We must create in ourselves a ‘new spirit,’ the spirit of intelligence and strength; we must renew ourselves and live our interior life with intensity. We must pray and act. Every day of our life must carry us nearer to the supreme Good and Intelligence—that is, nearer to God.” (Pg. 45)
She wrote on December 18, 1901, “to hear one’s ideas and beliefs perpetually criticized, to know them misunderstood… is to some extent to suffer persecution for justice’s sake. Could I on this account deserve some pity from God?... When I want to pour out my soul, I go to Him and…. brings me increased strength and fills me with joy greater than any words can say. After all, perhaps He alone can penetrate to the infinite depth and sensitivity of the human soul.” (Pg. 64)
On November 21, 1904, she wrote, “The tremendous longing to be an apostle, renewed love of souls---all this through the divine grace I have lately been conscious of. But how much there is in that thought: to be a Christian, to be an apostle, and how little worthy I am of these two titles.” (Pg. 87)
On January31, 1906, she wrote, “For some time I have gradually been giving out too much of my being and of my interior life. It used not to be thus; the work of my soul was done in solitude in the sight of God and known only to my spiritual father---as much as those things can ever be revealed. But under the influence of grief and the tenderness and sympathy that then enveloped me, I gave way to this sort of appeal from without and came to speak too easily of myself, my sorrow, and my illnesses, and even of my soul and of the graces I have received.” (Pg. 104)
In the ‘Resolutions,’ she stated. “Three General Resolutions: SILENCE: To avoid speaking of myself, my troubles, my illnesses, and especially of my soul and the graces I have received from God… GIVING MYSELF: Not only in doing my duty to all, not only in charitable works, not only in prayer, but in my whole attitude and way of life… PERSONAL AUSTERITY: … in this illness that I am afflicted with, the precautions I am obliged to take, the discomforts it brings, and privations it sometimes imposes on me… there is a plentiful source of mortification… our personal immolation will often be of actual benefit to others…” (Pg. 117-118)
Later, she adds, “When we feel impotent against hostility and indifference, when it is impossible to speak of God or the spiritual life, when many hearts brush against ours without penetrating it, then we must enter peacefully into ourselves in the sweet company that our souls never lack; and to others we must give only prayers and the quiet example of our lives and the secret immolation that makes the most fruitful apostolate.” (Pg. 146)
In the later Journal (October 19, 1911), she summarizes, “When I look at the past, I see all my childhood and youth, even the beginnings of maturity, passed in ignorance of and estrangement from God. I see the first graces received while I was still young… flashes from on high streaking a path of indifference and superficiality… the breaking of every link, even the external ones, with God and the total forgiveness of Him in my heart; then the slow, silent action of Providence in me and for me; the wonderful work of inner conversion, begun, guided, completed by god alone, outside all human influence or contact, sometimes by the very means that should have caused me to lose all of my religious faith, an action whose intelligent and loving beauty one could discern only when it was completed. Then, when the divine task was done, the friend and guide of my soul was put in my way by circumstances that were truly but gently providential. Then my reconciliation with God, the journey to Rome, and… my consecration to Jesus Christ, whom I carried in my heart by Communion, then years of trial, and the greatest grief of my life up to this time, and my ill-health, and the decisive consecration of myself on October 2, 1908, in the dear church at Jougne… Finally, this last year full of suffering: spiritual sufferings and deprivations… the feeling of having progressed in God’s service in spite of all my struggles and weaknesses… asking of Him in return the graces that I desire deeply and whose complete accomplishment I hope for from Him, for the souls dear to me, for all souls, and for the Church. That is a swift review of my life. But what I cannot say… is the greatness of Thy love, the wonderful graces Thou hast favored me with, which I never did anything to deserve.” (Pg. 167-168)
On February 20, 1913, she observes, “More and more I see that God does not want me to be active, unless a new state of affairs should arise. What He seems to expect from me is an apostolate of prayer and suffering. What a blessed vocation, and how much I will try to respond better to it than in the past…” (Pg. 186)
This book will interest Catholics (and other Christians, or course) interested in spirituality.
March 14, 2024
An insightful read into a truly gentle and sweet heart, who did her best to love those around her, in the context of her vocation. I will definitely be chewing on many of her words in the years to come. I think I could have benefited from reading a slightly abridged version, that would take the kernels of wisdom and condense them. Elisabeth is beautifully repetitive, as it makes sense to be on the path to holiness, but it can get tiring to read the same resolutions again and again. I look forward to reading a biography of her life, if I can get my hands on it.
May 7, 2015
Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book. There were times, especially during the Book of Resolutions where I felt like she just kept saying the same things over and over again. However, I was very moved by her love for souls and her obedience to God's will. My favorite part of the book was her Daily Thoughts. I would definitely recommend this book, particularly to anyone struggling in their faith or with their vocation. At least you will feel that Elisabeth is accompanying you in your trials through the Communion of Saints!
December 29, 2012
Read it twice; again in 2005 for Book Club
Want to Read
December 25, 2009Listed by Patrick Madrid in the Reading Plan of Search and Rescue in Phase 2 (Intermediate). (diary of Catholic woman who converted her atheist husband)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews