Collection of 48 letters from Elise to the bishopric
The news falls like a bomb into the heart of the postulator. We, parishioners and friends, are this Friday in Oslo. It is the penultimate day of the magnificent pilgrimage to Norway.
At noon this email arrives:
Dear father,
Sorting through multiple boxes of archives identified as coming from Abbé LEBOEUF, my predecessor, I just got hold of around forty letters written by Elise BISSCHOP, probably between the years 1957 and 1964. They were addressed to a priest.
Yours,
Nicolas TAFOIRY.
Graduated from the Ecole du Louvre.
Diocesan Archivist
What the diocesan's archivist has just found is all of Élise's letters to his spiritual father, Father Générat. He was the parish priest of Mailly-le-Château throughout her adolescence.
It was from these letters that Father Générat had drawn quotes from his homily at the funeral of Élise in April 1964.
From 1957 Father Générat became parish priest of Saint-Florentin. And it was from this date that Elise wrote to him. He died in 2001, nine years before the discovery of the article in La Collégiale, dating from May 1964, revealed the existence of the correspondence between him and Elise. Having the funeral article had already been an unexpected advancement. It was completely normal in 2010 to find it impossible to find the originals.
Élise had not said her last word, however. She waited until the secretary of the bishop, who was at the same time archivist, to know who she was so that the day when he would have been in front of his letters, he would understand its importance.
Monday morning, back from Norway, the postulator goes to the bishopric where Mr. Tafoiry gives him the letters to be analyzed and transcribed.
There is an immense gratitude towards Heaven which allowed this totally unexpected discovery.