Zoe-Adele Alaterre 1841-1905
brave and courageous
An orphan girl
Zoé-Adèle Alaterre was born on August 13, 1841 at 10 p.m., rue de la Poudrière in Cherbourg. His father, 25, a stonemason, had married Désirée Maurouard, six years older than him. Zoé was the second of six children who, from 1839 to 1848, came to brighten up this hard-working home. Three of them will die before they are two years old.
Baptized on Assumption Day (1841) in the beautiful Trinity Church, Zoé turned out to be a child full of life, carefree, mischievous and insubordinate. She prefers games to the seriousness of family prayer. Alas, misfortune will soon befall her. Since 1832, in fact, cholera has appeared in Normandy, in 1849 Cherbourg is reached and the victims are countless. The Alaterre family did not escape the scourge. An aunt of the little girl dies in front of her struck down in a few minutes by the terrible illness and the next day her mother is also affected and dies at dawn on September 18 in the arms of Zoé who clings to her neck. Less than forty-eight hours later his father also died, leaving four orphans. The little girl is eight years old. The time of family happiness is over. Zoé and her younger sister Ernestine, aged three, are first entrusted to a "horrible woman" before being sent to Caen to the Sisters of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. The ordeal profoundly changed the girl's exuberant character, she became shy and quiet. After her communion, she finds a little of her joie de vivre, she likes to laugh and sing, often she even dances. This does not prevent her from dreaming of loneliness and penance to the point that she decides to be a Carmelite.
She was still with the Sisters of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, at the orphanage on rue de Bayeux, and fulfilled the functions of sacristan and nurse there when, on March 25, 1863, her companion in misfortune, her sister Ernestine , aged 16, dies after telling her: "Don't cry, when I go to Heaven, you will enter Carmel, I promise you that!" Less than a year later, on February 2, 1864, Zoé crossed the fence of the Carmel of Lisieux. She is twenty-two and a half.
At Carmel
She was admitted there to replace Sister Marie de l'Incarnation converse too ill to be able to fulfill her office and she received the name of Sister Saint Vincent de Paul. His beginnings in the community are painful. She regretted her daily Communion, she wept in front of the large curtain of the choir which veiled the Tabernacle from her, object of her love. She is a very small woman (perhaps less than 1,50 m), of fragile health, but very energetic and not listening to herself.
Little expert in housework, she nevertheless excels in all kinds of manual work and is, in particular, an excellent embroiderer. In addition to the tasks usually reserved for the sisters of the white veil: cooking, laundry, cleaning, gardening, she will be in charge of making and repairing alpargates.
The testimonies of her Carmelite sisters allow us to know her better. Sister Marie des Anges describes her thus, not without a touch of humour: “Always valiant and courageous despite the suffering, and doctor of Sorbonne appreciated by the Carmel! Whatever the question, theology or politics, mysticism or literature, mathematics or astronomy, you will find here an encyclopedia that will answer any question for you. The pen of Sister Geneviève adds: “She was delicate and clever. And she loved the Blessed Virgin very much.” Let us add that she liked to talk.
Here, then, is Sister Saint-Vincent de Paul who took the habit on December 8, 1864 at the same time as Sister Thérèse of the Sacred Heart. It was the Superior of the Carmel, then Father Cagniard, who gave the sermon for the occasion. But will our little sister's health allow her to remain a Carmelite? Some time later, she vomited blood. The doctor recommends not to worry: it seems that it is only the rupture of a vessel. And yet each year these haemorrhages will be renewed, to the point that she will spend entire nights sitting on the ground, unable to remain lying down. The next day, she always resumes her work as if nothing had happened.
She made her profession on December 14, 1865. The young nun expressed three wishes in this first period of her religious life: to obtain true contrition for her sins, to be humble, to become more charitable towards her sisters and more fervent towards the Eucharist, while She edifies those around her by the long moments she spends in meditation at the foot of the tabernacle.
With Therese
The relationship of Sister Saint-Vincent de Paul with Thérèse will never be banal. Schematically, they could be characterized as follows:
— three years of probation (1888-1891),
— three years of contribution (1894-1897),
— the placing on the altars (1897-1906).
Probation (1888-1891)
Relations between the poor orphan and the petty bourgeois Thérèse Martin will be established with difficulty! Thérèse wrote to Mother Agnès on January 7, 1889: “This morning I was sad at my Sister Saint-Vincent de Paul's, I went away with a very heavy heart. She also recounts, in July 1897, how shortly after taking the habit, Sister Saint-Vincent de Paul cried out on meeting her: “Oh! What a figure of prosperity! How strong is this big girl! Is she fat!. » And Thérèse adds : « I went away quite humiliated by the compliment... » It was then that she met another sister who was worried about her poor appearance: « You are visibly losing weight! And Thérèse concludes: "Since that moment I have no longer attached any importance to the opinion of creatures."
An incident clearly shows the difficulty of the relationship that existed between Thérèse and Sister Saint-Vincent de Paul. It was on the occasion of the death of the foundress of the Carmel, the venerated Mother Geneviève (December 5, 1891). The families of the sisters, the friends, the workers had sent numerous bouquets of flowers which Thérèse arranged as best she could near the coffin. Sister Saint Vincent de Paul, who was watching her, suddenly exclaimed: “You know how to put the wreaths sent by your family in the first row and you put the bouquets of the poor in the back. Perhaps among these humble bouquets she had seen the one offered by her older brother, Louis, who seems to have worked on the construction of the Tour house at that time? Sister Thérèse replies gently: “Thank you, sister, you are right, I am going to highlight the foam cross sent by the workers, that is where it will do well, I did not think of it.” Sister Saint Vincent de Paul confessed later that it was from that day that she looked on Thérèse as a saint.
Contribution (1894-1897)
Sister Saint-Vincent de Paul also recognized Thérèse's poetic gifts, to the point that she asked her for four poems. She is therefore one of the best clients of Thérèse versificatrice. These poems (The atom of the Sacred Heart (1894), The atom of Jesus-Host (1895), My desires with Jesus hidden in his prison of love (1895), My own heaven (1896) have a mainly eucharistic theme, which fits well with the sister's devotion to the “Blessed Sacrament.” What did Saint Vincent de Paul think of these poems?
It is again to Sister Saint-Vincent de Paul that we owe the well-known statement, related by Sister Geneviève: “She is a nice little sister, but what can we say about her after her death? She did nothing...” Mother Agnès reported the sister's words in the following way: “I wonder what our mother prioress could possibly write about Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus. What do you mean by a person who has been pampered all the time and who has not acquired virtue like us through struggle and suffering? She's sweet and good, but it's natural for her."
At the end of July 1897, Thérèse was seized with an insurmountable disgust for food. Sister Saint-Vincent de Paul came one day to offer him a cup of gravy. The patient refused, for lack of appetite and because this food had not been ordered to her by Mother Prioress; and Sister Saint-Vincent de Paul returned to the kitchen crumpled, saying: “Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus not only is not a saint but she is not even a good nun. » And Thérèse, informed, rejoiced: « To hear it said on my deathbed that I am not a good nun, what joy! nothing could give me more pleasure.” She appreciated less the reproach made to her for having known neither suffering nor humiliation: "And I who have suffered so much since my earliest childhood!" Ah! How good it does me to see the opinion of creatures at the moment of death!”
The “placing on the altars” (1897-1905)
The opinion of Saint-Vincent de Paul will change radically from the death of Thérèse. For on September 30 or October 1, the daring St. Vincent de Paul asked for the healing of the cerebral anemia which had afflicted him for a long time. Resting her head on the feet of the angelic child, she asked her forgiveness for her offenses and said that she had obtained her complete and immediate cure! She even came to find all the sisters one after the other to recount the act of humility that Thérèse had made concerning the flowers adorning Mother Geneviève's coffin, declared Sister Geneviève during the Apostolic Process.
Then we see her picking up scraps of photographs representing Thérèse everywhere, hastening to keep her memories and her portraits. She would say to Sister Geneviève in 1898: “You can flatter yourself and be very proud of having been the sister of a saint! »
But age was coming. From 1900 onwards more serious haemorrhages than the previous ones multiplied, she was no more than a shadow of herself and her sufferings were very acute: "I can't take it anymore, she cried, My God, my All! My God, My Everything! She repeated these same words for hours on end. "Oh! May he change all my complaints into acts of love,” she said again. Finally, on Thursday, April 13, 1905 at 2:30 a.m., she found with God the one she had so misunderstood on earth before having a fervent admiration for him.
P. Gires
