She Walked Toward God

Surely, some time when you were at school or college, you must have read The Little Prince, the famous novella written by the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Posing to be a children’s book, it speaks to adults on a number of things that are important to them. One of the best-selling books in history and translated into numerous languages, it is famous for a quotation: ‘You can see things clearly only with your heart.’

            It is 225 years since Antoine was born in Lyon, France. But it is not Antoine de Saint-Exupery that I want to hold up this month as a candle in the dark. It is his mother, Marie de Saint-Exupery. Obviously, she is not as well-known as her writer-aviator son. But the more you read about her, the more convinced you will be that she is a rare, remarkable woman.

            Marie was born in a noble family that lived in a castle in Lyon. She learnt music, poetry and painting from her beloved father. She wrote poems and painted water-colours and pastels. Her son, Antoine, once wrote to her, “You’re a great painter, Mother -- a great painter of inner life. I’m very proud of you." No wonder that such a smart, sensitive and energetic young woman caught the eye of Viscount Jean de Saint-Exupéry. They married in 1896 and settled in Paris.

            In seven years, they had five children -- three girls and two boys. During the holidays, the whole family would escape to the vast farm of her aunt that enchanted the children. This idyllic life came crashing in 1904 when her husband died suddenly. That made her a widow at the young age of 28 and she had five children to look after, whose age ranged from 18 months to 8 years. Soon two of them, a boy younger to Antoine and her eldest daughter, died. Naturally she was anxious about her eldest son, Antoine’s perilous missions on an airplane.

            It is easy to imagine how much the widowed mother must have suffered when Antoine disappeared at the age of 44 during an aerial reconnaissance mission. But since there was no formal proof of his death, her maternal heart wanted to believe that he was alive. She kept hoping that he could have lost his memory due to the injuries he must have suffered when his plane crashed or that he was in some monastery somewhere. Only 40 years after her death, the wreckage of his plane was found.

            During a life marked by one cross after another, Marie courageously went about doing all her duties towards her children and grandchildren. It was her deep faith and her dedication to serving others that kept her going. Since she had a degree in nursing, she set up an infirmary in 1914 for soldiers wounded in World War I. She started a dispensary in 1919. She worked full-time for the Red Cross for two years (1927-1928), then lent a hand several days a week to the Dames du Calvaire de Lyon, a Catholic charitable organization founded in Lyon in 1842 by Jeanne Garnier to provide care for incurably ill and elderly women. She welcomed refugees and made them feel at home.

            She devoted one day a week to teaching catechism and do manual work to help the village children. What sustained all these were her deep faith and life of prayer. She had a loving devotion to St. Francis of Assisi, whose Canticle of the Creatures she set to music. To her eldest son, Antoine, who had lost his faith and become an agnostic, Marie wrote, “There’s no need for signs to believe. Every believer, as I have experienced myself, has moments of doubt, of eclipse, so one must walk toward God like a blind man toward a fire, palms open, continuing one's search for the Light.”