Summary: <br> My dear daughters, I’m hurrying to send you a few words today, the day when I’m least busy. I can’t wait to be with you again, so I hope that on Thursday we’ll have the happiness of being together, not to be parted from each other for a long time. My children, pay attention to all the recommendations of your uncle and your good aunt. You know the great sacrifices I had to make to obtain for you the help of their good advice, so don’t let a single opportunity to benefit from it pass you by.<br> You, my Marie, my big girl, my first, you know how much I love you. Well, continue to devote yourself more and more to your sisters. Try and make sure that in seeing you, they’ll have in front of them a good example to follow. Tell Léonie that if she continues to be a perfectly good girl, I’ll definitely give her something on New Year’s Day that will make her happy…. I press you all loving to my heart, and I entrust you to your holy mother….<br> Give a big hug from me to Pauline, my little “Pearl”, as well as Léonie, Celine, my courageous one, and Thérèse, the queen of my heart, and give my best wishes to the entire Guérin family.<br> Good-bye, my beloved. Say a Hail Mary for us.<br> <br> Saint Louis († 1894) and his wife, Saint Zélie († 1877), were the parents of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Their feast day is 12 July. The cause for the canonisation of Léonie, another daughter, was opened in 2015. [From A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885, Ann Connors Hess, Tr. © 2011, The Fathers and Brothers of the Society of St. Paul, ST PAULS/Alba House, Staten Island, New York. www.stpauls.us.]<br> <br> <br>
