Of all the calculations I could make . . .

Father Ernest Lelièvre,

Friend and Father to the Aged Poor

One saint leads to another. After posting my entries on Blessed John Henry Newman and Saint Claude La Colombière, another friend came to mind: Father Ernest Lelièvre (1826-1889), the devoted co-worker and auxiliary priest of the Little Sisters of the Poor founded by Saint Jeanne (Mary of the Cross) Jugan (1792-1879). Father Lelièvre devoted his resources, his energy, his worldly goods, and his priesthood to the service of the aged poor. In July 1868 he arrived in New York to prepare the arrival of the Little Sisters of the Poor in the “New World.”

Although there is much that I would want to say about Father Lelièvre, here is the text that, to my mind, links him, in some way, to both Blessed John Henry Newman and Saint Claude La Colombière:

I know that I serve a Master
who values the will of a sincere heart
beyond any talent.
My ignorance counts on His knowledge,
my poverty on His wealth,
my weakness, on HIs strength.
And I know,
and am perfectly certain that,
of all the calculations I could make,
the wisest is to abandon myself to Him.