Zephirine-Josephine Lecouturier 1828-1911
Peace and very humble greetings to Our Lord, who has just withdrawn from among us our very dear Sister Zéphirine-JOSEPHINE-MARIE DE L'INCARNATION, oldest of our Sisters of the White Veil, aged 82 years, 7 months, 10 days, and of religion 58 years, 6 months and 12 days.
Our dear Sister was born in Firfol, a small village in Calvados, into a large Christian family. Feelings of tender piety were awakened in her from childhood, as well as the first signs of her religious vocation. She was favored at a certain time of her youth with great graces from the Blessed Virgin and her devotion for this divine Mother having increased with the years, she later made to her, in Carmel, the total consecration of herself. , following the method of Blessed Grignon de Montfort.
Presented to our Community by our venerable Founding Father, the dear aspirant, aged 24, was received there with joy by our Reverend Mother Geneviève de Sainte Thérèse, of such sweet and holy memory.
Some time after her Profession, Sister Marie of the Incarnation having committed, out of devotion, a very serious imprudence, was attacked on the same day by a fatal illness which compromised her health for the rest of her long life. For thirty years, she saw herself tried by all sorts of ailments, of which paralysis of the legs was the least cruel. Finally, her robust constitution having triumphed over this state of impotence, she was able, without however ever resuming fasting and abstinence, to devote herself to some of the work of our White Veil Sisters, which she accomplishes with great address and attendance. However, she had to give up the job of cooking and laundry, where she would have been very valuable for her intelligence and her spirit of order and poverty.
Her contemplative soul rose easily to God: "My Mother," she sometimes told us, "when I go into the garden to take care of my 'little animals' and when I see, especially in spring, all the life that there is in nature, I feel like surges of love towards the good God; I feel far from the earth and very close to Him. »
On Saturday, February 11, we were touched by his fervor. Despite her great fatigue, because she had been very weak for several months, our dear Sister had gone to the Chapter to attend a Profession. This ceremony had particularly moved her. At the end, she held out her arms to us and, embracing us with tears in her eyes, she said to us: “O my Mother, how beautiful a Profession is! How touching and heavenly! It completely renewed me…”
Three days later, my Reverend Mother, the influenza epidemic descended on our Community, almost as terrible as twenty years ago. Sister Marie de l'Incarnation did not worry us at first but, on February 22, she was struck down by illness. Our good Sister had been praying for years to obtain the grace not to remain in bed for more than eight days in her last illness, so as not to give her sisters fatigue; she was fulfilled beyond her desires. But her spirit of faith had also made her ask earnestly to see her Mother Prioress at her side at the time of her death, and, as we ourselves were detained in the infirmary, this consolation was refused to her... She accepted the trial with great surrender to the Will of God.
Moreover, all the help of our holy religion was lavished on her, and after having piously received the Holy Viaticum, the very morning of her death, February 23, she fell asleep in the peace of the Lord, around 4 o'clock in the morning. afternoon.
We beg you, my Reverend Mother, to restore to our very dear Sister Marie of the Incarnation the suffrages of our Holy Order as soon as possible; by grace, a Communion of your fervent Community, a day of good works, the indulgence of the Way of the Cross and the six Paters.
She will be very grateful to you, as well as to us, who have the grace to tell us, with the deepest respect and the most religious union, My Reverend and Most Honored Mother,
Your humble sister and servant,
Sister AGNES OF JESUS,
thank you
From our Monastery of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Conception of the Carmelites of Lisieux, March 1, 1
