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I made the usual visit to our convent library a few months back and I came
across a book-a biography of a discalced Carmelite nun from the convent of
Lisieux written by mother Agnes of Jesus, the prioress of the convent. She was
a little soul, a victim of the merciful love of Jesus and she died at a young age,
on fire with the love for God. “Well, we know her, sister. We have read her
autobiography. So, what else is new?” If you are thinking this, then I want to
tell you that you are mistaken. You may or may not have heard about her. I
hadn’t until I read this book. Her name is Sr. Isabel of the Sacred Heart who
was known as Yvonne Daurelle in the world. She was born on January 29 th ,
1882 in France. She lost her mother when she was just three and so she and her
two brothers were brought up by their mother’s sister. She hardly saw her
father- once a week till she was five and a half and thrice for a month or two at
a time before she entered Carmel. As a young girl living with her two brothers
and her boy cousins, it wasn’t surprising that she was a tom-boy who loved the
open air and nature. At the age of eleven, her aunt remarried and Yvonne
became a boarder instead of a day-scholar at her school. It was at this age that
she made her first holy communion. She used to recount that she did not
particularly feel any devotion or fervour, only a reverential fear. She confessed
later on how she regretted at having spent her childhood and youth in ignorance
of God’s love and this made her write a pamphlet titled “THE SECRET OF
HAPPINESS FOR THE LITTLE ONES”- an attractive history of the saints for
the children.
Yvonne was passionately fond of reading and at the ages of fourteen and fifteen,
she was reading adventure books that transported her to other countries and
people. Human love dawned upon her full of charm and like any other teenager,
she longed to meet ‘someone’ with a heart at one with her own. When she was
nearly seventeen, she turned from frivolous reading to more solid matter. This,
however, did not draw her near to God, but she became less sentimental. God
finally enlightened her with His grace on March 7 th , 1899. She was watching a
splendid sunset and was thinking about the mystery of the Trinity with no
particular devotion or love, when suddenly she felt the divine contact. Her soul
was filled with love and a longing for heavenly things and she never lost that
longing. The influence of this grace of conversion was permanent. At the age of
nineteen, she felt she had a religious vocation and later on discerned that it was
to Carmel.

Yvonne got her hands on the autobiography of St. Therese of the Child Jesus in
1901 and immediately took her as her guide and model. Like the Little Flower,
she offered herself as a holocaust to the merciful love of Jesus and understood
that the Carmel of Lisieux was her promised land. She wanted to enter as soon
as she could, but her relatives were opposed to this. She spoke to her spiritual
director about it, but he did not encourage her and waited till she was almost
twenty-one before writing to the Lisieux Carmel about her desire to join them.
When the bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux came to know about her, he expressed
a desire to meet her. In spite of difficulties, she did so. When he realized that
her family was against her joining the convent, he postponed Yvonne’s entrance
indefinitely. The young girl was understandably heart broken and in despair.
She met with a lot of other trials, but her ardent desire for Carmel and her
perseverance got her what she yearned for. (It is interesting to note that Isidore
Guerin, St. Therese’s uncle had an important role to play in her finally entering
the Carmel of Lisieux.)
On January 13, 1904, Yvonne entered the Carmel of Lisieux taking the name of
Sr. Isabel of the Sacred Heart. She had a deep attraction for prayer and regular
observance of the rule, but with regard to manual labour, she was less
satisfactory. Many complaints were made about her slowness. Though she did
not realize it then, she later on recounted how God was leading her on the path
of humility by all the “hard lessons” she received during the initial years of her
religious life. Sr. Marie-Ange, who was just a year older than her and who was
her ‘angel’ in the novitiate, received an order to reprimand her companion
whenever she thought well, for her superiors knew her worth and wanted to test
and try her. Sr. Isabel also had to struggle with a violent dislike for her vocation
which she felt as soon as she entered Carmel. She was deprived of all spiritual
delights and consolations that she had previously experienced. She also had to
wage a war against her too strong a natural affection for the Mother Prioress.
Sometimes she seemed so sad and absent-minded that the sisters feared that she
was one of those melancholic personalities that our holy mother, St. Teresa of
Avila warned against. While still a postulant, Sr. Isabel was brought to the
realization that she had a very weak and petty soul- a far cry from the grand soul
that she thought she possessed. She found it very difficult to make little
sacrifices of giving up her will. These failures taught her self-knowledge and
she considered this as one of the greatest graces that God bestowed on her. She
began to distrust herself and place all her hope in God.
She, like little Therese, came to Carmel mainly with the intention of sacrificing
herself for priests. “I have always kept this object of my religious life in view
and I feel confident that after I die, I shall be able to help priests specially.”

With regard to herself, she practised the simple, continual self-denial that is
characteristic of the Little Flower. Whenever she felt a slight attachment to
anything, she used to mortify herself at once since she felt strongly that even the
littlest attachment to something can hinder perfect divine union. After her
profession, following the advice that had been given her, she hastened to the
“bleeding Flower of Calvary.” She received each day, the grace to bear her daily
cross and she carried it cheerfully finding by experience that the first step is the
hardest and that by accepting a light cross generously brings with it a deep
peace which gives strength for greater and harder mortifications.
Yvonne had always wanted to be a ‘somebody’. She wanted to be someone
famous and well-known by all. While still in the world, she used to read a
magazine which asked some questions every month to its young readers and
published the best answers. To the question: “Do you think that, as some
astronomers declare, the world will be destroyed by contact with the comet
which is coming?” Yvonne sent this astonishing reply: “No, the comet will do
us no harm, for I have a presentiment that my name will become famous, so the
world must last long enough for my fame to be established and to be made
known to the ends of the earth.” But as a result of God’s grace working in her,
all Sr. Isabel wanted now was to be unknown and be considered as a ‘nobody’.
She no longer dreamt of becoming famous and only cared to become a saint and
be a part of the legion of little souls for which St. Therese of the Child Jesus
asked our Lord.
This ‘little soul’ endured many physical as well as interior trials. One was
particularly hard for her, but it came with a great reward. Let us read what she
went through in her own words: “For some days I have undergone a singular
trial during which my will, calm and at peace, has witnessed a violent onslaught
delivered against my soul by the demon of pride. It reminded me of the war
between the good and bad angels. An accursed voice exclaimed within my
heart “I would rather possess nothing than possess all from God. Rather would
I be annihilated than receive beatitude and eternal glory as alms given out of
compassion.” I clung by my will close to Him Whom I loved, anxiously awaiting
the end of the battle without feeling the blows, resisting without effort; indeed, I
even smiled at the furious attack, anticipating that it was the fore-runner of
great graces, in which hope I was not mistaken. In a short time, I found myself
united to God in a way new to me and the words of our Lord to Saint Teresa
when He raised her to the spiritual nuptials perpetually recurred to me: “Show
zeal for My honour like a true bride.” A zeal for souls and a longing to spend
myself for my divine Bridegroom consumed my heart.”

Sr. Isabel describes as follows, the grace of union which came after her trial:
“During prayer on the evening of the third day, I entered the interior of my
soul, and seemed to descend into the giddy depths of an abyss where I had the
impression of being surrounded by limitless space. Then I felt the presence of
the Blessed Trinity, realizing my own nothingness, which I understood better
than ever before, and the knowledge was very sweet. The divine Immensity in
which I was plunged and which filled me had the same sweetness. My joy at
seeing my own nothingness equalled my indignation at it during those three
days. This grace gradually grew weaker, but lasted for a long while. For many
months I never opened a book during prayer; it was enough for me to descend
into the abyss. My soul resembled a tiny shell floating peaceful and solitary,
upon a shoreless ocean. What a joy it was! Now I often say to myself: “let me
descend!” but the scene is changed: I can no longer find the deep abyss nor the
infinite space around me - The good God has come to the surface!”
She was swiftly climbing the stairway to perfection. Initially her prayer time
used to always pass in dryness or in struggling against distractions, but later on,
she writes: “The Master instructed me without the sound of words. I felt with
delight that He was beautifying my soul. I was like a flower endowed with
consciousness and able to love and enjoy the sun which had made it bloom and
given it colour. Without seeing anything with the eyes either of the body or the
soul, I realized that God was present, I felt His gaze bent on me full of
gentleness and affection, and that He smiled kindly upon me. I seemed plunged
in God.”
At the elections in November 1909, Sr. Isabel was made sub-prioress at the age
of twenty-seven. Soon after that, she was made the mistress of novices. She
treated her novices with simplicity, compassion and love. She often made them
bear the cross, especially that which brought humiliation rather than physical
pain, for she used to say that what mortifies the mind and the heart is far more
meritorious than bodily mortifications. She used to, however, require from them
small physical mortifications such as bearing without complaint whatever
discomforts they felt such as cold, heat, ill-cooked food or ill-fitting clothes and
the like.
The time left her by her eight novices was spent in working for her who had led
her to the Carmel of Lisieux. A few months after her election as the sub-
prioress, the process of the beatification of Sr. Therese of the Child Jesus was
brought forward and she was chosen as witness of the holy nun’s reputation for
sanctity in France and in other countries. She also willingly undertook the
laborious task of reviving the book ‘Pluie de Roses’ (Shower of Roses) and the

third edition of ‘La Pluie des Roses’, a volume of 550 pages of close, small
print.

In the meantime, Sr. Isabel of the Sacred Heart had a presentiment that she was
going to fly away soon. Some few years before her death, she had written, “Like
little Therese, I know by what is passing in my soul that I shall not be long in
this world.” Her soul was consumed by an ardent longing for heaven which had
never left her since her conversion. She asked the Lord to give her a sign that
she would not live for more than two or three years. The Lord answered her
with a violent attack of the haemorrhage of the lungs. She was consoled that her
dream of leaving this world for her true fatherland was going to be realized in
the near future. However, the rupture healed and she had to resign herself to
living longer. God kept her on earth for three more years, although she never
really recovered fully.
Towards the beginning of March, 1914, Sr. Isabel was in a very weak state due
to her fever and haemorrhage which had returned with greater intensity. It was
thought wise to administer the last sacraments when the attacks became very
frequent and the fever ran high. Repeated haemorrhages caused her the most
painful sense of suffocation, accompanied by a burning thirst which never left
her until she died. On the evening of July 29 th , she begged pardon from all the
sisters. On July 31 st , at about three in the morning, her condition was very
serious and so all the nuns were summoned. She edified them with her touching
words. At about six o’ clock, she told her sisters with a smile that she was in a
very good state to die. “I am going to die! I am going to see the good God! Oh!
What a solemn moment!” Although she was in her agony, she was waiting for
that longed for moment to be united with the One she loved. The sisters had to
leave for the Holy Mass after sometime. Sr. Isabel of the Sacred Heart passed
away quietly at the ringing of the bell during the elevation of the chalice. She
was thirty-two years and six months of which she spent ten years and six
months in Carmel.
Before her death she had written: “I am restrained now, my victories will come
after death. I will rain down light and fire I will form a trio with Therese and
Marie-Ange (her companion in the novitiate who had passed away earlier from
a serious illness) and will help them until the end of the world to make Love
beloved.” A few days following her death, after Matins, one of the sisters was
amazed when she noticed an immense star or rather a sun, over the convent,
sheltering beneath it two smaller and equally brilliant stars with which it formed
a triangle as it shed its rays on the part of the convent in which Sr. Isabel had

died. The cell was lighted for about a quarter of an hour and the sister who
witnessed this burst into tears as she thought to herself, “It is our little saint
with Sr. Isabel and Sr. Marie- Ange!” Sr. Isabel of the Sacred Heart was buried
in the cemetery of Lisieux between Sr. Therese of the Child Jesus and Sr.
Marie-Ange.
May this little saintly soul intercede for us.