Elisabeth Leseur (+1914 ) was a French Catholic laywoman who was
married to the well-known leader of the French anti-clerical and atheistic movement Felix
Leseur. In her profound spiritual writings, published in her Journal, Elisabeth wrote:

A natural light leads us to the place where the light of faith begins, to that point where, as
Pascal says, ‘reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of
things which are beyond it'.

These words serve as an apt description of the dynamism of the mystery of the
Transfiguration, to which Elisabeth gave personal witness in her life. The transfiguring impact
of Elisabeth’s faith had a profound impact on her husband; he was eventually converted.
Here is his testimony:

'My beloved wife, Elisabeth, prayed incessantly for my return to the Catholic Faith. Daily
for this intention, she offered up all her sacrifices, trials, sufferings, and at the end, even
her death. But she did this secretly, because when we married, I was profoundly anti-
religious. I had been raised Catholic but lost my faith in medical school. I searched for
weapons against Catholicism. I set myself to attack Elizabeth's Faith, to deprive her of it,
and --- may God pardon me! --- I nearly succeeded. Then, in 1913, she was struck down
by cancer, which for ten months was her Calvary until she died, just forty-eight years old. I
have, since Elisabeth's death, learned to appreciate the power of her silence. God heard
the constant prayer it concealed, and completed the conversion begun in me by her
influence and by my reading her Journal, which I found after her death'.

Felix Leseur was ordained a Dominican priest in 1923.

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