As a practicing Catholic married to a lapsed Catholic, lots of well-meaning Catholic friends say, “I’ll pray for your husband’s conversion!” Of course I appreciate those prayers, and earlier in our marriage I prayed for the same thing. On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with praying for the conversion of a loved one — offering these prayers is an act of love and charity. But after reading “The Secret Diary of Élisabeth Leseur,” and “Salt and Light: The Spiritual Journey of Élisabeth Leseur,” I stopped praying for my husband’s conversion.
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I first came across Servant of God Élisabeth Leseur in a Facebook group that offered support to Catholic women with husbands who are not Catholic. Her Secret Diary was recommended as a treasure trove of wisdom for women in this situation. Élisabeth and her husband, Félix, were bourgeois intellectuals living in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. Although both were born into Catholic families and raised in the faith, Félix rejected religion in his teen years in favor of fiery atheism. Élisabeth, though she never abandoned her faith, only truly fell in love with it as an adult — after she had already married Félix. As Félix scoffed and scorned the Church and faith as anti-intellectual nonsense, Élisabeth was experiencing a deep conversion, intellectually and experientially.
Fortunately, my husband isn’t as condescending and spiteful about my faith as Félix sometimes was to Élisabeth, but Élisabeth has taught me a lot about how to pray for a spouse who does not share your faith. Élisabeth longed for her husband to know God and encounter the fullness of truth in the teachings and tradition of the Church, but this longing was born of a truly selfless desire for her husband’s happiness and, more importantly, for his soul. Although his jibes about God and Catholicism were hurtful to her, instead of asking God to change his ways she offered her pain in prayer for her husband. She even went so far as to tell God that she was ready to die if it would bring her husband to faith.
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Élisabeth died at 47, after a long battle with cancer. At the time of her death, Félix was still an atheist. But in the following years, not only did he revert and re-embrace the Catholic faith, he actually ended up becoming a Dominican priest. He experienced the beginnings of this conversion while reading his wife’s diaries after her death, but he initially assumed this was merely a response to his grief. He decided to go to Lourdes, where he expected to find nothing but performative pomp and hollow displays of faith. Instead, he experienced a deep and profound conversion. Élisabeth’s prayers were answered, even though she never witnessed the fruits of them in her lifetime.
Of course, I hope my husband will return to the faith before I die. It can be lonely to feel as though we see the world through different lenses. Passing on the faith to our children would be much easier if their dad was invested in their relationship with God. I feel pangs of sadness when I see husbands embrace their wives during the sign of peace at Mass, and long for my husband to be there with me in the pew. There is nothing wrong with any of that, but it is ultimately focused on myself — what would make my life easier or more comfortable — rather than on the good of my husband and his soul.
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Élisabeth Leseur showed me how to keep an eternal perspective in prayer. It is often said that for those called to the vocation of marriage, our job is to get our spouse to heaven. Although we cannot know for sure if Félix reached heaven after his death, it is fair to say that Élisabeth succeeded in her duty. When I pray for my husband, I no longer pray for his conversion, but for his soul. By doing so, I’m putting trust in God’s timeline instead of my personal preferences, and seeking eternal good for my husband rather than the satisfaction of my temporal desires.
