Who is Élise Bisschop? What makes her special? What is her charism? Let us discover it together by entering Élise's world with attentiveness, delicacy, wonder, and great joy.
Who is Élise Bisschop?
Although marked by illness, she is a young woman who radiates contagious joy around her. She lives between 1925 and 1964 in the French countryside and dies on April 9, 1964, at the age of 38, in Auxerre Hospital, 200 kilometers south of Paris.
At her death, she leaves behind a vivid image of Christian faith and inner joy. In 2017, her cause for beatification is opened.
What makes her special?
She is a special girl with a heavenly smile. In one of her poems, written at the age of 13, Élise says that she received a particular grace when she was still little: joy. A pure joy, filled with self-giving, that would be the distinctive mark of her entire life.
And this is how her friends and the children in catechism remember her.
For Élise, teaching catechism requires considerable effort, but she is motivated by the fact that the parish has no priest, and above all by her profound desire to convey the beauty of the faith to children, and love for the Lord who died and rose again. With her lovely smile and constant dedication, Élise soon becomes a point of reference, not only for the children, but also for the parishioners. Only a special grace can explain such an ability to bring light.
The Joy of Easter
Élise has a very strong love for the Lord who died on the cross. For this reason, the month of April, with the mystery of Easter, is the center of the year for her. And here is what she wrote, at just 13 years old, in one of her poems:
But behold, the holy days and Easter are near:
The most beautiful miracle of April! …
Jesus on the Cross tells us, when the bells fall silent:
“Think of the souls in danger!”
Oh! We who possess light in our souls
Let us pray for those who do not have it!
We must pray for them, because Jesus wants it
He who, nailed to the cross, stretches out His arms to us.
And then, at the age of 22, she writes:
Joy entered my life:
Jesus placed it there for you one fine day…
I understand that it has captivated me
Because it comes from His Love!
Gifted with this joy, Élise never stops conveying it to everyone through a constant smile, putting into practice what she resolved to live at the age of 13: «Smile at everything and everyone for the love of Jesus». And she does so until the end of her life.
A providential rediscovery
In 2004, a new curate arrives in the parish. One of Élise’s friends is quick to show him the poems written by the girl, distributed by the Dominican Father Boschin shortly after her death.
For the priest, it is a beautiful discovery to see that those writings contain a treasure and that Christian joy was the driving force behind Élise’s spirituality, so devoted to young families and children. But older people also always remembered her, and especially the simple smile that accompanied her everywhere, even through the humiliation of the illness that gradually destroyed her body.
The little firefly
Élise considered herself of little importance. Above all, she wished to be, on the path of souls, a little firefly that could show the way toward the Lord, toward the source of true joy and true peace.
It seems that Providence finally granted him this grace because many people today feel, in his words and in his example of life, a lightness of soul. Precisely the kind needed to rise humbly toward the Heights:
From a meadow dotted with fresh violets
The lark rises singing.
And my soul feels like a sister to the larks
And rises to God at the same time.
Father Dominique-Marie Morstad
