Desiree Cauvin 1865-1916)
Lay sister and novitiate companion of Sainte Thérèse
Childhood and youth
Désirée-Florence Marthe CAUVIN was born in Giverville, a small village in the department of Eure, on July 16, 1865. At the age of six she lost her mother and while her only sister, eight years older, remained with her father, she is admitted to the orphanage of the Sisters of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Paris where one of her cousins is a nun. Later she is sent to the Bernay orphanage. His father, alas!, died two years later. At the age of eight she found herself an orphan. The convent of the Sisters of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul was therefore her only family and the setting in which she lived throughout her childhood and youth. She was to remain deeply marked by it and some of her later behaviors find their explanation there: her excessive attachment to her Prioress, her aggressiveness towards her sisters, for example.
In Paris as in Bernay, she received a serious religious education, but her schooling left something to be desired, especially since her intellectual faculties seemed limited. Mother Agnès wrote of her, at her death: “The young sister was of mediocre intelligence. She suffered a lot and she herself, unwittingly, made others suffer a lot through her contradictory spirit that she never managed to correct despite all her efforts. However, it is necessary to note his frankness, his good heart, his devotion which never counted with fatigue..."
At Carmel
The young Florence Cauvin therefore entered the Carmel on December 23, 1887. She was twenty-two and a half years old. The beginnings of her religious life were difficult and Mother Marie de Gonzague allowed her to have with Sister Thérèse, who entered three months after her, in April, “little spiritual talks” thinking that Thérèse's influence would be beneficial to Sister Marthe.
Admittedly, Carmel is recognized for its uprightness, its solid piety and its devotion, but it remains not very sociable by a certain narrow-mindedness, a brutal and straightforward frankness, a permanent aggressiveness combined with a complex of frustration which is explained by its childhood weaned from maternal tenderness. She became attached to Mother Marie de Gonzague, of whom she made herself the servant and following, and to Sister Thérèse herself, even if it meant sometimes shutting herself up in long sulky silences or trying to hurt her friend with biting sarcasm. It was she who, for lack of judgment, served Sister Thérèse dried leftovers, she also who charitably invited her, and without success, to come and warm herself in the kitchen.
Despite her character, she was very attached to Sister Thérèse to the point of asking — and obtaining — to remain in the novitiate like her long after her profession pronounced on September 23, 1890. She thus remained under the direction of her younger sister in the same capacity. than the other novices, so much did she need to be supported in her vocation. It was she again who asked that Thérèse make, for three years, her annual private retreat with her and we then see Thérèse apply herself to mark sacrifices and practices of virtues every day in the complicated way of Sister Marthe who will say more later: “Even though she was eight years younger than me, Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus was always my support, my consoling angel and my guide in my temptations and in the difficulties that I had to go through. Seeing that the advice she gave me did me so much good, our Mother Prioress allowed me, during the time of my retirement, to spend recreation with her.
Thérèse for her part writes to Céline: “... I am even obliged to have a rosary of practices, I did it out of charity for one of my companions...” And Sister Marthe adds on the subject of retreats: “ One year, I expressed to her my desire to make my annual retreat with her. She acceded to my request and for three years she did me this favor. For that, she let the time of her profession pass and waited for me to leave in solitude. I learned later that I was making her make a very great sacrifice in this, but I would never have suspected it, because she let nothing show. This happened, no doubt, in 1891, 1892, 1893.
She further affirms: “I can say in all truth that Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus has always been a true mother to my soul through the care she took to form me. I recognize that I have often exercised her virtue and I am convinced that another sister, in her place, would have abandoned me, I was so unbearable; but she always treated me with much love and charity, without ever showing the slightest boredom. »
Sister Marthe confesses both her admiration for Thérèse and a certain fear of being discovered: "Very often, if I had followed my nature, I would have avoided going in the direction of the Servant of God, knowing full well that my faults would be revealed to me”, but above all a great and faithful affection. She recognizes her patience and her kindness: “She was for me of a kindness and a charity that cannot be expressed. However, I made her suffer a lot because of my difficult character; but I can honestly say that she always retained the same gentleness, the same equanimity of character... she never pushed me away despite the frequency of my visits... I couldn't believe how charitable she was. treated me. » Sister Marthe is aware of her poverty and suffers from her condition as a lay sister, who could she interest? Thereupon Thérèse wants to put her in confidence and show her that her condition is in no way humiliating: "Don't think that to reach perfection it is necessary to do great things... how much I would like to be in your place , in your position as the little sister of the white veil! Your life is humble and hidden, but know well that in the eyes of the Good Lord there is nothing small if everything you do, you do it out of love. To this anguished soul, Sister Thérèse understood that it was necessary to give confidence.
After Teresa's death
We cannot, within the restricted framework of this article, make a proper statement of the important testimony given by Sister Marthe at the Beatification and Canonization Processes. Her testimony is very important, it highlights Thérèse's pedagogical qualities and each of her virtues. Her faith: “she saw the Good God in all things and in all people”. His love of God: “everything was indifferent to him, except what interested the glory of God and souls...”. Her charity towards her neighbour: “Never did Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus show any annoyance at being disturbed. She was always ready to please, sometimes at the cost of great sacrifices. Her caution: “She resumed with great gentleness, but also with great firmness; she never gave in to our faults, nor went back on something said”. Her strength: “she always had the same equanimity; his character always remained calm and benevolent”. Her temperance: “she loved us all very much, but with disinterestedness... (she) rather sought out the nuns whose character could make her suffer”. Her obedience: “the Servant of God accomplished exactly what the superiors asked for, without ever allowing herself to reflect and without judging their conduct or their way of acting”. Her poverty: “I never saw Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus lose a moment... The alpargates found after the Servant of God's death show how much she loved poverty. They were so worn and mended that not a sister in the community would have wanted to wear them. So how much I regret having burned them!... I can say that I have never seen a nun practice poverty to such a degree of perfection..." Her humility: "everything the Servant of God desired, it was to remain in obscurity and oblivion, that no one paid any attention to her and that she was considered the last of the community...”
Thérèse came to Sister Marthe on several occasions. A few months after her death she appeared to her in the kitchen of the Carmel to tell her: “Sister Marthe, be more kind to the sisters if you want to be happy”. Around 1908, twice, the place where the converse sister passes smells of heliotrope and violets. But above all she helps Sister Marthe to correct herself from her difficult character and to enter the path of humility, to the point that one day Sister Marthe could say to her Prioress: “... you always spare my bad temper. Oh! don't do it anymore, I'm at the end of my life and I want to deserve, like my companions, the graces of humiliation”.
In February 1916 Sister Marthe went down to the infirmary following an infectious flu. In July, she goes to bed never to get up again. During the last weeks of her life she "showed herself always forgetful of herself, gentle, patient, and exclusively occupied in preparing for death."
After receiving Extreme Unction on August 28, 1916, she said: “During the ceremony I felt the presence of our little saint. It was like a heavenly voice saying in my ear: "You too, if you wanted, despite your poor life, you could go straight to heaven" and I understood that the greatest sinners could obtain this grace by trust and humility. »
At the end of her life, she confided: “It's incredible how calm I feel. I can not believe it! The Good Lord is only sweetness. I never expected to find him so sweet; my confidence in him is unlimited" and again, when a passage of Scripture was quoted to her: "It is easy for the Lord to suddenly enrich the poor", she answered: "This poor man, is not it's not me, my Mother? But the more miserable one is, the more merciful he is”.
She died on September 4, 1916, murmuring like Thérèse once: “My God, I love you... with all my heart”. She was 51 years old and had spent 29 years in Carmel. At her death she was the oldest of the White Veil Sisters.
P. Gires
