How a French Atheist Learned to Love the Saints
Henri Ghéon was a French atheist playwright, author, and poet who converted to the Catholic faith during World War I. Then he dedicated his life to teaching about the saints.
Maria von Trapp is one of my Catholic heroines.
Best known as the beautiful Austrian singing mother portrayed in the 1965 film The Sound of Music, Mrs. von Trapp was a devout Catholic with a knack for bringing the liturgical year into her home and family life. Thanks be to God, she wrote six books about her wonderful Catholic life, and so I take her recommendations to heart as if they were coming from my own great-grandmother.
I love to browse her excellent book Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family¹ for liturgically-inspired cooking, decorating, and celebration tips and tricks. I was doing so again recently, when I discovered Maria’s recommendation of Henri Ghéon’s book The Secret of Saint Thérèse.
After some digging, I was delighted to purchase a dusty old 1934 printing of The Secret of Saint Thérèse. I finished it in less than a week. It impressed me so much that I moved on to Ghéon’s other saint biographies (he has written several—Saint Martin, Saint Claire of Assisi, Saint John Bosco and more).
Then I set out on a mission to learn more about the man behind these great works.
Even though Ghéon was born over 150 years ago, his work stands the test of time; as one of his contemporaries, Léon Daudet, predicted it would:
“As long as there will be a Catholic audience, hence as long as time will last, the little grain that Henri Ghéon has sown in this, our twentieth century, will continue to bear fruit. All honor to such a man!”²
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from catholic to atheist and back again
As a child, Henri Ghéon was raised in the Catholic faith.
Each morning, he kneeled before a crucifix with his mother and sister to recite his prayers. He made his First Communion, and he loved the annual Corpus Christi procession when his sister and the other little girls scattered rose petals before the Blessed Sacrament.
As a teenager, Henri was bothered by the fact that his father, who was an atheist, did not participate in the Faith. He describes his dilemma in A Man Born of War: Testimony of a Convert³:
“Between the good pious mother, and the godless father … the young man hesitates, wavers. He has two examples, and one single way to choose.”
When he was fifteen years old, Henri decided to follow his father’s example
On Easter morning, as the family prepared for Mass, he told his poor mother that he no longer believed in God, and that he would no longer be attending.
During his wayward youth, Henri developed his natural gift for writing. But, convinced that it would be difficult to earn his living through writing alone, he decided to become a doctor. Nevertheless, he continued to write, paint, study art, and travel when he could.
By his own description, during this time of his life, Henri Ghéon lived as a pagan, worshipping art and beauty.
In 1912, Henri visited Italy and was deeply touched by the religious art. He realized that these great works of art were the fruits of the Catholic Church and was moved to tears.
But Henri did not return to the Faith. That would require a war.
Two years later, Henri answered the call to arms for World War I, offering his service as an army doctor. During the war, he met a devout Catholic naval officer, Pierre Dupouey. Henri was extremely impressed by Dupoey’s conduct. Particularly, he noted how Dupouey treated his subordinates in a fatherly way.
On Holy Saturday 1915, Officer Dupouey was killed in action. Although he had only interacted with Dupouey minimally, Henri found himself devastated at the loss of this man who had impressed him so much. Bringing a blessed palm given to him by his sister, Henri went to visit the grave. He prayed for the first time in years.
He later reflected on the experience in a letter to a friend:³
“Did I pray for him? I believe so … I am able to pray without believing … to believe for others, not for myself.”
Over the next few months, Henri felt more and more certain that Officer Dupouey was in Heaven, and this idea drew him closer to the Church. That Christmas, he returned to the sacrament of Confession, and received the Eucharist for the first time in 20 years.
After his conversion, Henri dedicated his life to sharing the faith with others. He founded an amateur theatre group called "Companions of Our Lady”. With the Companions, he produced over 60 plays—most on the lives of the saints.
At the encouragement of friends, he also began work on his biographies of the saints.
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how to love the saints like henri ghéon
In his work, Ghéon strived to make the saints seem more human, so that we could relate to them and love them more fully.
He, and others of his time, recognized a problem: Catholics were praying to the saints, but they did not really know them. In a 1926 paper⁴, Mrs. Reginald Balfour articulated a sentiment that Henri Ghéon shared:
“In this generation, we still invoke the saints. But we no longer make friends of them. We hardly know them. We charge them with our commissions without knowing anything of their qualifications. We are satisfied with their good references. Ask that good woman kneeling before a statue of St. Anthony of Padua what she can tell you of the great ascete and miracle worker. All she knows is that he keeps a lost property office.”
I think this criticism holds true today, nearly 100 years later.
What can we do?
The more I “get to know” the saints, the more I look up to them for examples on how to live.
If I’m in an unpleasant situation, I can ask myself, “What would Saint John of the Cross say right now?” And nearly always, the answer comes to me.
Is this intercession? Maybe. More likely, it’s the good fruit of developing a personal relationship with the holy men and women of our Faith.
One of Henri Ghéon’s dreams was that every parish would celebrate the feast of its patron saint by giving a play in the parish hall or churchyard after Mass.⁵
I think this is a lovely idea, and I would love to see it implemented in parishes across the United States, Canada, and around the world.
At the very least, let’s honor Monsieur Ghéon by continuing his legacy—befriending the saints, and telling others about them!
Henry Ghéon, pray for us.
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Sources
¹ Trapp, Maria Augusta. “Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family.” 1955. Sophia Institute Press, 2018. p. 92
² Donlin, Mary Oliver, "An Appreciation of Henri Gheon." 1939. Master's Theses. 146. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/146. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
³ Ghéon, Henri. “L'homme Né De La Guerre: Témoignage D'un Converti” (Man Born of War: Testimony of a Convert.) 1915. Nabu Press, 2011.
⁴ Balfour, M.R. “Henri Ghéon, The Saints’ Playwright.” 1926. New Blackfriars, 7: 399-408. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1741-2005.1926.tb03965.x. Accessed 10 Mar. 2021.
⁵Keeler, Sister Jerome. “Henri Ghéon and His Religious Plays.” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 26, no. 104, 1937, pp. 631–640. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30097478. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
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