Some of the lesser known, less venerated Catholic women of the past who contributed in important ways to the history of the Church and of their times more broadly include rather ordinary women who have not traditionally been acknowledged in our history books. In Mother Cabrini’s time, for example, on the eve of World War I, Catholic women all over the world were busy with countless responsibilities for their families, parishes, religious communities, and wider societies. Unlike more ordinary Catholic women in previous epochs, much can be learned about them because numerous records survive, including letters and journals written in their own hands since women’s literacy and educational opportunities had increased dramatically by that point.
One such woman was Élisabeth Arrighi Leseur, a middle-class Frenchwoman married to a physician named Félix Leseur. She kept a diary on spiritual matters after her husband began publicly promoting atheism in Paris. Her husband’s anti-religious activities made her even more devout, and she prayed continuously for her husband’s conversion, especially after she fell sick in 1907 at age forty.
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