Marie Campain 1858-1936
The Professed of the third centenary
On October 15, 1882, the Carmel Order celebrated the 3rd Centenary of the death of its Reformer, Saint Thérèse of Avila. The Carmel of Lisieux, which Pauline Martin, Sister Agnès of Jesus, had just entered, had no spared no effort to organize a solemn Triduum on October 15, 16, 17. Bishop Hugonin presided over the closing himself, and the Eucharist on Tuesday 17 saw the religious consecration of a young sister of twenty-four : Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph It was Abbé Lecacheux, her former director, chaplain to the Dames Augustines de Coutances who gave the sermon for the occasion. centenary professed who thus benefited from the brilliance of the festivals given to the glory of the Madre?
Childhood and Youth (1858-1881)
Marie Campain was born in Valognes on January 29, 1858. Her father, aged twenty-eight, was a lawyer in the rue de l'Officialité. His mother, born Marie Bois, twenty-one years old, originally from Périers, belongs to a wealthy family. The witnesses chosen for the declarations to the civil status: attorney: lawyer, business agent, are an index of the social level of the family. Marie is followed by two sisters and a brother. Everything smiles on this close-knit family when the terrible ordeal occurs: the mother dies eight days after the birth of little Hélène. She was only 31 years old. Two young unmarried aunts, the Misses Bois, take care, with their parents, of the education of the four orphans, one and the other competing in kindness. Mr. Campain entrusts their instruction to a tutor whom he brings to his castle in Gerville. The aunts are good pianists, sing very well, embroider wonderfully: Marie will cultivate these same talents with them.
At the Carmel - before Thérèse (1881-1888)
It was therefore a tall young girl of 23 who crossed the threshold of the Carmel of Lisieux on April 28, 1881, shortly after Easter. Mother Marie de Gonzague greatly favored this entry. Herself the daughter of a solicitor, like the postulant, Marie Davy de Virville has a number of ancestors in the region where Marie Campain's youth flourished, she sees in her a young “country”.
Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph joined the novitiate directed by the foundress, Holy Mother Geneviève de Sainte-Thérèse, a recent 53-year-old professed sister, Sister M. Emmanuel, a widow from Vendée whose heart was still young. She took the habit on October 15, 1881. It was also in October that the community met little Thérèse in the parlor. Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph was seduced from the start and around Christmas she sent the little girl a picture with these words: “To my nice little Thérèse! May she think close to her baby Jesus of the little sister of her dear little Pauline! I especially promise her a little prayer so that she may always be very kind and well-behaved and always deserve to bear your sweet name of Thérèse of the Child Jesus. In less than six years, the "nice little Thérèse" will become his companion in Carmel.
Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph has a gift that will bring good fortune to historians: a rare memory and a rapidity of writing that allow her to take more and more copious notes during preached retreats.
With Therese (1888-1897)
It is thanks to these notes that we know the text of Father Pichon's sermon at the taking of the veil of Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart (May 23, 1888) and that of the instructions for the following four days. At the end of this first retreat, Thérèse, a postulant since April 9, took Father Pichon as her spiritual father. Temporarily at least.
The reading of the notes thus taken during the various retreats by Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph invalidates the thesis of the “Jansenism” of the preachers heard by Thérèse<, Carmelite. In February 1893, following the elections which raised Mother Agnès to the priorate, our Sister replaced Thérèse as second sacristan. From this time we have the smiling portrait that Sister Marie des Anges traces of her:
“Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph 36 years old. Second Sacristan. Nightingale of Carmel... Sparkling spirit and doing what she wants with her fingers, pulling everything and never losing anything.» Shadows, however, must have already appeared. Very quickly she revealed herself to be “too nervous to lead with all the regularity and desirable profit a Carmelite life”, according to the judgment of Abbé Doucet. “Extremely frank and ardent nature” affirms this priest who knew her well in the last years of her life. She dominates less and less the impressions of an unstable temperament, "alternately exalted or depressed, subject to violent anger." The affectionate indulgence of her prioresses fails to balance it. Someone, however, takes on a growing ascendancy over her: it is Thérèse. From 1894-1895, Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph obtained permission from Mother Agnès to ask her for advice. She had only good intentions but with her poor sick mind she made her heroic adviser endure a real martyrdom. This one (...) obtained something well but it was necessary to fight, to be tired and to undergo terrible scenes sometimes. Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus knew very well that her efforts were, so to speak, sterile, but nevertheless she never tired of devoting her time and her strength to this poor sister each time she came to her” (NPPA, Force cf. PA 187 s).
For his birthday (March 19, 1896), Thérèse composed a few verses for him: “The eternal canticle sung from exile. The “great misery” of his companion should not prevent him from singing: “Jesus; I love you and my life is just one act of love!”
Despite everything, the “dark melancholy” of Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph marginalized her more and more. “With the connivance of Mother Marie de Gonzague, Thérèse took the initiative which broke the vicious circle: in March 1896, she offered to help this sister who was difficult in the employment of lingerie. » Heroic decision, which the witnesses will relate to the Trials in often harsh terms for the poor neurasthenic sister. Sister Marie des Anges was able to sum up the situation with her customary delicacy: “She (Thérèse) asked herself to be a workmate with a sister near whom a true and difficult apostolate awaited her. What patience and what charity she had to practice on this ground bristling with more than one thorn! But she worked with such kindness, intelligence and wisdom that she succeeded in doing him much good” (PA 355).
On the occasion of a private retreat, Thérèse wrote short notes to Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph. Four of them have been preserved for us (the recipient saw them as real relics...): little marvels of fraternal tenderness. “Sharing her work, she also watches over her sleep (LT 199). She channels her belligerent mood in favor of spiritual combat (LT 199 and 200). It tears him away from egocentrism by associating him with his own missionary zeal” (LT 194 and 195). Under a childish skin, these tickets dispense the same doctrine as the most sublime pages of the Story of a Soul (Ms B). Thérèse, as always, understands this sister from the inside. She said one day to Mother Agnès: “I assure you that she inspires deep compassion in me. If you followed her like me, you would see that she is not responsible for all that she says and does of reprehensible (...). I thought that if I had such a disease and such a bad mind, I would not do better than her and I would despair because she suffers a lot morally (NPPA, Strength; PA 163).
To Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart she will say: “Ah! If you only knew how to forgive him! How pitiful she is! It's not her fault if she's bad at it. It's like a poor clock that you have to wind up every quarter of an hour. Yes, it's also worse than that (sic)... Well, won't you pity? Oh! how we must practice charity towards our neighbour! (DE, 659.) At recreation, Thérèse often sits next to her protegee.
Therese's illness
One can imagine the disarray of Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph when illness overwhelmed her friend. Small tickets start the shuttle again. Thérèse was still composing a lullaby full of freshness for her, as Christmas 1896 approached. She did her best to help her "first" to the limit of her strength. She did not surrender until May 1897. Thérèse learned a lot during these fourteen months of difficult fraternal service. At the hour when the "luminous torch of faith" is eclipsed for her, the dazzling "torch of charity" rises in her heart.
This year, my dear Mother, the good Lord has given me the grace to understand what (fraternal) charity is,” she wrote three weeks after returning her seamstress apron. With what compassion does she then speak of “wounded souls” and their chronic moral infirmities”. Like almost all the sisters, Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph was denied access to the infirmary: “the branch that supported the little bird” was therefore taken away from her! Therese consoles her once again with a note.
One day in September, the sister picks a violet for her. She would have liked to give it to him herself, but had to content herself with “simply slipping it over the edge of the window as she passed because it was forbidden to enter the infirmary”. Thérèse will give thanks in her own way, the day after her death; Friday evening 1er October, Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph finds her own cell perfumed with such a perfume of violets that she looks everywhere for the scented bouquet. Nothing! At the moment she remembers the little violet of September 13, she understands, and the perfume vanishes (DE, 659).
After Teresa's death
Sister Marie de Saint-Joseph had to live henceforth without her sole support at Carmel. We were unaware of the therapies of the psyche. We put up with the sick and let them sink until there was no cure. Appropriate treatment, applied in time, could have helped the “poor neurasthenic” to overcome her infirmity. In June 1909, the new Prioress, Mother Marie-Ange of the Child Jesus, resolved to have Doctor La Néele draw up a medical certificate justifying the removal from the community for "serious neurasthenia, causing numerous nervous disorders". ... The sister left her Carmel on June 29, 1909, after 28 years of religious life. She is 51 years old and she returns to the world where she will live until 1936. She will experience years of painful wandering. But she remains linked with Mother Agnes of Jesus and writes to her often. Through her letters, we discover how much she was helped and marked by Thérèse... "I therefore apply myself only to remaining a very flexible and confident little child in his divine arms to be everything he wants..." (...) “I am nothing, my Jesus, but this poor little nothing that I am now wants to lose itself in you! .. And a few months later (30-10-1929): "The work of sanctification that my beloved Thérèse had so fraternally begun in me before taking off, it is still continuing and it seems to me that I can tell you in all sincerity that "my home has also been peaceful" and I now live in total abandonment. As long as I love my Jesus and that he is happy with me as well as my Little Thérèse, the rest matters little to me». All sorts of infirmities darken his last months. She took to her bed in November 1936 and saw her death on November 27 in Gavray in all lucidity; Father Quesnel would say of her: "She generously made the sacrifice of her life to God and surrendered herself completely to his holy will".
Sr Cecile ocd
