Today, I was listening to the Ven. Fulton Sheen tell the story for the conversion of Fr Felix Leseur, OP. Fr Leseur, pictured above, was a medical doctor in Paris and the erstwhile editor of an atheist newspaper that ran in city. His wife, yes, his wife, was the simple pious Servant of God, Élizabeth Leseur, won his conversion by offering up her life in exchange for his soul....and his vocation.
After she passed away from breast cancer in 1914, Dr Leseur discovered a note written to him in her papers. It said: "In 1905, I asked almighty God to send me sufficient sufferings to purchase your soul. On the day that I die, the price will have been paid. Greater love than this no woman has than she who lay down her life for her husband."
This eventually lead to the crumbling of the walls of atheism when he visited Lourdes after her death to write a book about its falsity, eventually, he was ordained priest of the order of preachers and began many a sermon with, 'As my wife, Élizabeth, says...'
This reminded me of a lovely book that I had finished last month on the life of Servant of God, Dr Nagai Takashi, a pioneering radiologist with the University of Nakasaki in Japan. Like Fr Leseur, Dr Nagai's soul was also won by the pious prayers and sufferings of his Catholic wife-to-be, Midori.
The story of Nagai and Midori, which you can read in full in Fr Paul Gynn, S.M.'s book, A Song for Nagasaki, is almost a fairytale worthy of a hollywood movie (which is in post production). The atheistic Nagai, having discovered Pascal's Penseés, searched for a Catholic family to stay with while completing his medical studies. As the perfect plan of God will have it, the family also had a beautiful, single, and pious daughter. They met for the first time when Nagai was invited to partake in the Christmas festivities on Christmas eve, a very foreign holiday. That night, through the correct diagnosis of appendicitis and by carrying Midori on his back through a blizzard to the hospital, he saved her life. Midori would later save his soul.
There is another fairytale event that occurred before their official courtship. Dr Nagai was conscripted and sent off to fight in the Sino-Japanese war in Manchuria. As with all young army boys away from home, he and his platoonmates took the opportunity during their first weekend off to get drunk and go to a brothel. There, facing the prostitute, Nagai was unable to carry out the act, losing all desire for it. He later writes in one of his books, that at that precise moment, 'a young woman was praying for me before a statue of the Blessed Virgin in Nagasaki Cathedral.' A discovery made, when he received her letter a few days later, together with a catechism.
He eventually returned, and went to see Midori, hoping to apologise to Midori for a prior transgression, but unable to say anything, he placed the cardigan she knitted for him and left. Much pain did he cause her in that moment of confusion, and through the whole war. From the book,
Tears coursing down her cheeks, she prayed: 'Jesus, here is his cardigan. I begged you to bring him back and you did. Thank you. You know that I love him, Lord, but that someone far more academic than I must be his wife. I suppose you smile at me, Lord, for even dreaming of marrying him! Now that he is safely back from the war, I shall meet some of the men my parents and the go-between suggest. I offer you the pain he has brought me, Lord, as a prayer that he will receive the gift of faith.'
She felt drained. She tried to busy herself but finally slipped out of the house and walked the quarter mile to the cathedral. At its entrance was a stone crucifixion scene. She glanced up at the Sorrowful Mother and murmured interiorly as she passed: 'You always said yes to God. Help me, Mother, to say yes. But why does God make life so painful? I feel lost. Show me the way.' She entered the dim cathedral, knelt and took out her rosary. It was Friday, the day for the five sorrowful mysteries. That matched the pain in her heart. Twenty minutes later, she lifted her head as she rose from her knees-- and froze on the spot. Nagai was kneeling up at the front of the cathedral absorbed, it seemed, in prayer. It seemed that Christ was saying: 'Midori, your task is finished. Now that he is home with me, you must forget him.' Her genuflection was the heaviest she had ever made.
Shortly after, Dr Nagai was baptised and took Midori for his bride.
God certainly uses such romantic stories to remind us to hope and to aspire toward true love, that is the love of the Cross. To choose to suffer and wish for the highest good of another. Not all of our sufferings will bear fruit before our eyes as Midori, sometimes it will happen after we pass, like Élizabeth Leseur, yet, the end is the same, love will eventually conquer all.
That, and I also noticed a trend! It's seems atheist doctors have it easier finding pious Catholic wives. Guess, I better start studying Dawkins. Hmmmmm...
Abp Fulton Sheen tells the story of Fr Leseur, OP
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