Gabrielle Bossis (1874-1950) was a French laywoman from Nantes who, after thirteen years as an actress and playwright for Catholic youth, became at sixty-two the witness of a shattering mystical experience: aboard the ocean liner Île-de-France, on her way to Canada, she heard an inner voice she attributes to Christ, calling her “My little daughter”[1][2]. This “conversation” (the word is hers) continued daily for nearly fourteen years, until two weeks before her death, and gave birth to an exceptional spiritual journal: Lui et moi, recorded in thirteen notebooks and published in seven volumes between 1948 and 1957[3].
Submitted as early as 1944 to the judgment of her bishop, Bishop Jean-Joseph-Léonce Villepelet, the work received the imprimatur and the nihil obstat of the Church before its first anonymous publication in 1948, prefaced by the Jesuit theologian Jules Lebreton and by the writer Daniel-Rops[4][5]. It met with immediate and lasting success: more than fifty French editions by 1967, an English translation (He and I) reprinted without interruption ever since, and a diffusion in many languages that has never stopped[6].
What this dialogue, held in the secrecy of a laywoman's heart, has to say is nothing esoteric: it is an unceasing call to intimacy with Christ in ordinary life, to the offering of the present moment, to joy as the sign of true love. “We are removing this prejudice that the soul's intimacy was possible only for the religious in his cloister,” Christ has her hear in 1950, “whereas My secret and tender Love is in reality for every soul living in this world”[7]. It is this conviction (that holiness and divine intimacy are offered to every baptised person, married or single, cloistered or living “in the world”) which explains the lasting place of Lui et moi in twentieth-century Catholic spiritual literature, alongside other great French laywomen such as Venerable Madeleine Delbrêl or Venerable Marthe Robin.
No cause for beatification has, to this day, been formally opened for Gabrielle Bossis: a file of testimonies is being compiled with a view to a future petition addressed to the Bishop of Nantes, an initiative which this article documents precisely in its final part, without anticipating a judgment that belongs to the Church alone.
A Childhood in Nantes in a Well-to-do Family
Birth and Family Background (1874-1898)
Gabrielle-Rose Bossis was born on 26 February 1874 in Nantes, in the department then called Loire-Inférieure, the youngest child of a well-to-do bourgeois family[8][9]. Her father ran a trading house supplying the navy; the family also owned land and a manor at Le Fresne-sur-Loire, in neighbouring Maine-et-Loire, where Gabrielle would spend much of her life and where she would later be buried[10]. She was educated at the Faithful Companions of Jesus school in Nantes, where she made her First Communion in June 1886[11].
Contrary to what her religious teachers expected, the young girl did not enter the convent when she left school: she chose to lead a lay life, remained single despite several marriage proposals, and became a tertiary of Saint Francis, a commitment in the Secular Third Order which testifies, from her youth, to an interior life directed towards God while remaining fully in the world[12][13]. This twofold fidelity (to the Gospel and to an active lay existence as artist and traveller) would remain the hallmark of her whole life, long before the interior dialogue that would make her famous began in 1936.
Between 1898 and 1912, Gabrielle's family was struck by a series of bereavements: her father died in 1898, her mother in 1908, then her sister Clémence in 1912[14]. The family inheritance allowed her, for a time, to develop an activity making liturgical ornaments for the missions[15], an early sign of a missionary concern that would run through her entire existence, long before she herself became, through theatre and then through writing, a messenger of the Gospel.
A Nurse in the Turmoil of the Great War
Armed with a nursing diploma, Gabrielle Bossis placed herself at the service of the wounded during the four years of the First World War, first in a hospital behind the lines and then, more gruellingly, near the Verdun front[16][17]. This period marked her deeply: her nephew, Jean Caron, died in combat, and this intimate loss, added to years spent in daily contact with suffering and death, shaped a soul already turned towards what is essential[18]. Nothing in the notebooks surviving from that time gives any advance hint of the mystical experience she would live through twenty years later, but the endurance, the attention to sufferers and the self-giving she learned there would be the same virtues she would later place at the service of youth through theatre, then at the service of Christ in the “conversation” of Lui et moi.
Theatre at the Service of the Gospel (1923-1936)
An Unexpected Vocation at Fifty
In 1923, when she was forty-nine, the parish priest of Fresne-sur-Loire, Abbé Olive, asked her to write a play for the girls of the local parish youth club[19][20]. Gabrielle composed Czar, which met with unexpected success[21]. Far from stopping there, she carried on: from 1923 to 1936, she wrote thirteen three-act comedies and some fifteen sketches and ballets (among them Le charme, Les illusions de madame Dupont and La marchande de larmes), all intended for parish youth clubs and designed to combine the gaiety of popular theatre with a demanding moral and religious foundation[22][23].
Gabrielle Bossis did not merely write: she directed, designed the costumes, devised the sets, financed the tours herself, and played the leading roles[24]. Recognisable by her silhouette dressed in white and crowned with a wide-brimmed hat, she criss-crossed France, then Europe, North Africa and North America on her theatrical tours[25][26]. This activity, which might seem purely worldly, was lived by her as a true spiritual asceticism: in a confessional in Vierzon, on 1 May (probably in 1937, when she was already keeping her journal), she noted for herself:
“To grow in Christ by every means, by my vagabond wanderings, by the influence of my plays, that influence on my neighbour and my neighbour's on me. To grow in Christ.” — Gabrielle Bossis, personal note, Lui et moi[27]
This sentence, written in her own hand and not reported as a word of Christ, reveals the profound unity of her life: for her, theatre was neither mere entertainment nor a career, but a place of spiritual growth and apostolate, exactly as her travels and her charitable commitment would later be. It was during one of these tours, on her way to Canada, that the event occurred which would change everything.
The “Conversation”: Fourteen Years of Interior Dialogue (1936-1950)
22 August 1936, aboard the Île-de-France
On 22 August 1936, Gabrielle Bossis, then sixty-two years old, boarded the ocean liner Île-de-France for a theatrical tour in Canada. During a classical concert given aboard, she interiorly offered Christ “in sheaves the sounds and the sweetness that came forth”, and heard, with a clarity that overwhelmed her, a gentle inner voice telling her:
“My little Daughter.” — interior word received by Gabrielle Bossis, 22 August 1936, aboard the Île-de-France[28]
She noted at once, with a precision showing that this was not an absolutely first occurrence, that the same voice had already made itself heard “once [at Le Fresne]”, without her having then measured its significance[29]. From that August day in 1936, the “conversation” (the term Gabrielle herself used for these interior exchanges) never ceased. In the days that followed, on the same liner and then throughout her Canadian tour (Saskatchewan, Montreal, Quebec), the interior words multiplied, always marked by the same tenderness:
“Smile at everyone. I shall attach a Grace to your smile.” — word received in Montreal, 24 September 1936[30]
“When you do not recollect yourself, it is Me whom you deprive.” — word received near Quebec, 4 October 1936[31]
Back in France, in December 1936, Gabrielle Bossis was in Nantes for the closing of a novena to Notre-Dame-Immaculée, presided over by her bishop, Bishop Villepelet, the very man to whom she would entrust her notebooks eight years later:
“[During the procession, He told me again:] My little daughter.” — 13 December 1936, Nantes, closing of the novena presided over by Bishop Villepelet[32]
Thirteen Notebooks, a Thousand Pages
For nearly fourteen years, from 22 August 1936 to 25 May 1950 (two weeks before her death), Gabrielle Bossis faithfully transcribed, almost every day, the words she believed she received. The result fills thirteen handwritten notebooks, some a thousand pages of spiritual dialogue[33]. The style, remarkably consistent despite the timespan, blends very concrete notations of daily life (a train journey, a Mass, a garden, a conversation) with words of lofty theological elevation on love, redemptive suffering and the Eucharist. The contemporary editor of the work rightly notes that this style recalls that of Saint Gertrude of Helfta, the thirteenth-century mystic nun, but “a lay Gertrude”[34], continuing outside the cloister a mystical tradition thought to be reserved for religious life.
The journal runs uninterrupted through the darkest years of French history: during the German Occupation, from 1940, Gabrielle withdrew to Curzon, in the Vendée[35]; in 1943, her house in Nantes was destroyed by the Allied bombing raids that ravaged the city[36]. Neither war nor material hardship interrupted the “conversation”: the exchanges continued, often marked by pressing prayer for peace, for priests, for souls led astray by the conflict.
A Work Submitted to the Judgment of the Church
Presented to Bishop Villepelet (1944)
Gabrielle Bossis never intended to publish her notebooks for the glory of a personal work: it was out of obedience and concern for discernment that she submitted them, in 1944, to her bishop, Bishop Jean-Joseph-Léonce Villepelet, and to the Jesuit theologian Jules Lebreton, then dean of the Faculty of Theology in Paris[37]. This step (handing an intimate spiritual journal to the episcopal authority and to a recognised theologian before any distribution) corresponds exactly to what Catholic tradition expects of an authentic mystical charism: voluntary submission to the discernment of the Church, rather than the claim of a personal authority.
Imprimatur, Nihil Obstat and First Prefaces (1948)
The first volume, gathering a selection of these pages, appeared anonymously in 1948 from Beauchesne, with the imprimatur and the nihil obstat required by canon law for any work dealing with religious matter: the guarantee that its content contradicts Catholic doctrine in nothing concerning faith and morals[38]. The volume was introduced by two authoritative prefaces: one by Father Jules Lebreton, a renowned Jesuit theologian, and one by the Catholic writer Daniel-Rops, then one of the most widely read pens of contemporary French apologetics[39]. Only after Gabrielle Bossis's death, in 1950, was the author's identity revealed and the six following volumes published in succession, by the same publisher, until 1957[40][41].
An Immediate Success That Has Never Faltered
The success of the first volume surprised even Gabrielle herself. In January 1950, a few months before her death, she marvelled in prayer before Christ at “the extraordinary speed with which the first edition of Lui et moi had sold out”. The answer she received sums up the entire meaning she gave to her work:
“Attribute it to My will, aided by that of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother. And do you know what we are doing in writing these pages? We are removing this prejudice that the soul's intimacy was possible only for the religious in his cloister, whereas My secret and tender Love is in reality for every soul living in this world.” — word received on 12 January 1950, Holy Hour[42]
Editorial history has proved this intuition right: more than fifty French editions followed one another until 1967, the work was translated into many languages (including English, under the title He and I, still reprinted today[43]) and a complete chronological edition, bringing together for the first time the seven volumes in the true order of the journal entries, appeared in 2021 from Rassemblement à Son Image[44]. Few spiritual works written by a twentieth-century French laywoman have enjoyed such lasting diffusion.
A Spirituality of Intimacy with Christ
“My Little Daughter”: Divine Tenderness for the Ordinary Soul
What strikes the reader of Lui et moi from the outset is the constant register of tenderness. The Christ who addresses Gabrielle Bossis almost never speaks as a demanding master: he speaks as a friend, a spouse, a father attentive to the smallest details of an ordinary life: a flowering garden, a metro ride, the fatigue of a theatrical tour. This closeness finds expression in formulas of disarming simplicity:
“Am I not your Friend? Then why do you not speak to Me with joy?” — word received on 5 February 1950, in the Paris metro[45]
“Today, what is new?” — “God.” — dialogue received in Paris, on waking, February 1950[46]
This tenderness has nothing of facile sentimentality: it is rooted in the most classical doctrine of God's love for his creatures, as Scripture presents it and as so many Catholic mystics lived it before her, from Saint Thérèse of Lisieux to Marthe Robin. Gabrielle Bossis adds, however, a very personal insistence on spiritual childhood: Christ calls her “little daughter”, reminds her of the gestures of his earthly childhood, and constantly invites her to recover, in her relationship with God, the spontaneous trust of a child before her father.
The Present Moment and “Little Things”
A second theme runs through the whole journal: the constant invitation to live the present moment, offered entirely to God, rather than dispersing oneself in regret for the past or anxiety about the future. It is a theme Gabrielle Bossis shares with the whole spiritual tradition of abandonment, the tradition which the Ignispedia article How to Grow in Abandonment to God explores more broadly:
“Offer, with all the strength of your love, the present moment, this little moment which does not even fit in your hand.” — word received on 6 May 1950, during her illness[47]
This theology of the instant goes hand in hand with a constant valuing of little things (those of domestic life, work, ordinary relationships) as the privileged place of holiness, in a tone which echoes the “little way” of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux while keeping its own timbre, closer to daily conversation than to spiritual aphorism.
Joy, the Sign of True Love
A third striking feature: the insistence on joy as both fruit and proof of authentic love. Gabrielle Bossis, who all her life was a woman of theatre and laughter, hears Christ repeat to her unceasingly that sadness is not the mark of virtue:
“May joy never leave you; it is the lustre of mortification. It is the intimate sweetness of love.” — word received on 26 January 1950, during the Forty Hours[48]
This theology of joy does not exclude suffering; quite the contrary, it assumes and transfigures it. Facing the illness already advancing in that late winter of 1950, the dialogue continues to unite, without opposing them, cross and joy, suffering offered up and filial trust:
“The more you suffer, the more you serve.” — word received on 28 January 1950, a few months before Gabrielle Bossis's death[49]
Illness and Death (1949-1950)
The Cancer and the Last Spring
In August 1949, Gabrielle Bossis underwent surgery for breast cancer[50]. The illness progressed rapidly: by March 1950, it had spread to her airways[51]. The journal, far from stopping, then became the moving witness of an agony lived in the same intimacy as the fourteen preceding years. Bedridden, suffocated by the illness, Gabrielle continued to note down the words she received, now centred on preparation for the great passage:
“Lay your courage upon My courage. […] Come often to invite Me to attend your life […]. Remember well this word: ‘Together.’” — word received on 4 May 1950, “seventh week of illness”[52]
On 11 May 1950, receiving the Last Rites, she asked whether this was her last Holy Hour on earth. The answer she transcribed sums up the entire sacramental theology of the Christian end of life:
“May all your hours henceforth be Holy Hours. There are so few before the last. You are all whitened by Extreme Unction, the plenary indulgence. […] Regret, regret, regret your sins and love, love, love ever more strongly Him who is called Love.” — word received on 11 May 1950, during the Last Rites[53]
“It Will Be Me, It Will Always Be Me”: the Last Page
The journal stops on 25 May 1950, two weeks before Gabrielle Bossis's death, on a final question asked in extreme weakness and on an answer of heart-rending sobriety:
“Have I reached the end of my life?… Is it now that I celebrate my first and last Mass? Where are You, loving Presence?… And afterwards, what will it be?” — “It will be Me. It will always be Me.” — last entry of the journal, 25 May 1950[54]
Gabrielle Bossis died in Nantes on 9 June 1950, at the age of seventy-six[55][56]. In keeping with her membership in the Franciscan Third Order and her attachment to the family estate, she was buried in the cemetery of Fresne-sur-Loire, where, fourteen years earlier, a first interior word (left without sequel at the time) had shortly preceded the decisive one heard aboard the Île-de-France[57][58].
Towards Ecclesial Recognition?
A File Being Compiled, Not Yet an Opened Cause
It matters, for accuracy and out of respect for the law of the Church, to state the true state of Gabrielle Bossis's cause without ambiguity. The canonical title of “Servant of God” can only be attributed after the official opening of a cause for beatification by the bishop of the competent diocese, at the request of a recognised postulator and following a careful preliminary examination. This is not yet the case for Gabrielle Bossis.
At present, Father Pierre Descouvemont (author of several works devoted to her spirituality, notably Les messages d'amour de Jésus à Gabrielle Bossis, une disciple de Thérèse) and Jean-Luc Moens have launched, with the Association Gabrielle Bossis, a solemn appeal to the faithful to gather testimonies: conversions, graces obtained, vocations prompted by reading Lui et moi or by Gabrielle Bossis's intercession[59]. The aim of this undertaking is to compile a documented file to submit to the Bishop of Nantes, alone competent to decide, should the case arise, to open a diocesan inquiry, the first step, itself prior to any recognition of the title of Servant of God[60].
Ignispedia wishes to distinguish these two realities precisely:
| What is already established | What remains to come |
|---|---|
| Ecclesial approval of the text: imprimatur and nihil obstat of Bishop Villepelet (1948) | Official opening of a diocesan cause by the Bishop of Nantes |
| Spiritual reading spread and recommended for more than seventy-five years | Canonical recognition of the title of Servant of God |
| Gathering of testimonies of graces, conversions and vocations by the Association Gabrielle Bossis | Diocesan inquiry into the life, virtues and reputation for holiness |
| Works of theological discernment (notably by Fr. Descouvemont) | Decree on the heroicity of virtues (title of Venerable) |
The use of the term “Servant of God” sometimes found, informally, on certain sites or publications devoted to Gabrielle Bossis thus anticipates a canonical process that has not yet officially begun. This clarification takes nothing away from the recognised spiritual value of her testimony (approved, published and read by the Church since 1948) but it is owed to the truth and to the rigour which the Church herself demands in discerning causes of sainthood.
What Opening a Cause Would Entail
If the file assembled by the Association Gabrielle Bossis were to lead to an official petition, the Bishop of Nantes would have, under the normal procedure of canon law in force since the constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister (1983), to examine the subject's reputation for holiness, verify the absence of premature public cult, and appoint a postulator before being able to open the diocesan inquiry formally. This inquiry would cover her life, virtues, writings (of which Lui et moi would naturally be the centrepiece) and her reputation for holiness and for graces obtained through her intercession. Only at the end of this inquiry, transmitted to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in Rome, could the title of Servant of God be officially recognised, should the case arise.
Posterity and Influence
An Uninterrupted International Diffusion
The influence of Lui et moi extends far beyond the circle of French readers. The American edition, He and I, has seen many reprintings since the 1960s[61]; the work has also been translated into Spanish, Italian and several other languages. The Association Gabrielle Bossis, which keeps her memory alive today, gathers on its website many testimonies from readers for whom reading the journal occasioned a profound spiritual turning-point (conversions, returns to prayer, consolation in trial), a sign that the “conversation” begun in 1936 continues, eighty years later, to bear concrete spiritual fruit[62].
The Living Memory at Fresne-sur-Loire
In the parish of Fresne-sur-Loire, where Gabrielle Bossis received the spiritual direction of Abbé Olive, wrote her first plays and rests today, the memory of her presence remains alive: monthly prayer meetings, nourished by extracts from her journal, continue to gather the faithful around her memory, notably in the neighbouring parishes of the Diocese of Angers[63]. This local fidelity, discreet but continuous for more than seventy years, is precisely the kind of “reputation for holiness” which the Church examines when considering the opening of a cause.
A Place among the Great French Lay Mystics of the Twentieth Century
By the form of her testimony (a daily dialogue with Christ, held by a woman who remained fully engaged in the world, in art and in the service of others) Gabrielle Bossis occupies a singular place in the constellation of great twentieth-century French lay spiritual figures. Like Venerable Madeleine Delbrêl, she shows that a life “in the world” can be as profoundly mystical as a cloistered life. Like Venerable Marthe Robin, she received, without learned theological training, a spiritual teaching of great doctrinal coherence, submitted from the outset to the discernment of the Church. And like Servant of God Léonie Martin, sister of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, she recalls that holiness does not reserve its finest fruits for extraordinary paths, but often nestles in a seemingly ordinary existence, crossed by a fidelity of every instant.
To Go Further
- Read How to Grow in Abandonment to God: the theology of the present moment and of offering, which Gabrielle Bossis lived and transmitted on every page of Lui et moi.
- Discover Venerable Madeleine Delbrêl: another great twentieth-century French lay mystic, whose “spirituality of the street” joins, by another path, the daily intimacy with Christ lived by Gabrielle Bossis.
- Discover Venerable Marthe Robin: a contemporary whose mystical charism, likewise submitted very early to ecclesial discernment, gave birth to a work recognised by the Church.
- Compare with Servant of God Léonie Martin, sister of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: another French woman whose discreet holiness unfolded far from extraordinary paths.
- Explore Saint Thérèse of Lisieux in greater depth, whose “little way” of trust and spiritual childhood sheds particular light on the filial tenderness running through Lui et moi.
- Remember the essential: Gabrielle Bossis (1874-1950), a laywoman from Nantes, nurse during the Great War then playwright for Catholic youth, heard on 22 August 1936, at sixty-two, an interior voice she attributed to Christ. For nearly fourteen years, she recorded this dialogue in thirteen notebooks, published with the Church's approval under the title Lui et moi (1948-1957). No cause for beatification is officially opened today; a file of testimonies is being compiled by the Association Gabrielle Bossis with a view to a petition to the Bishop of Nantes.
Notes and References
Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, Plouisy, 2021, ISBN 978-2-36463-665-1 — back-cover text and introductory editorial note (title page and pages 5-6, 623-624 of the complete edition, consulted directly). Source for civil status (born 26 February 1874 in Nantes, “youngest of a well-to-do family”), education at the Faithful Companions of Jesus school, refusal to enter the convent and life as a Franciscan tertiary, four years of nursing service during the First World War, start of theatrical activity in 1923 at the request of the priest of her summer residence, first experience of the interior voice on 22 August 1936 aboard the liner bound for Canada, transcription in thirteen notebooks over fourteen years until two weeks before her death, first anonymous publication in 1948 with imprimatur and nihil obstat, death in Nantes on 9 June 1950, as well as the explicit mention of a style recalling “the great Gertrude, thirteenth-century nun”, preface to the complete edition.
1 3 5 9 12 33 34 38 39 41 44 55Wikipedia (EN), “Gabrielle Bossis”: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_Bossis. Source for: death of her father in 1898, of her mother in 1908, of her sister Clémence in 1912, liturgical-ornament-making activity for the missions thanks to the family inheritance, nursing diploma, first play Czar written in 1923 at the request of the priest of Fresne-sur-Loire, thirteen three-act comedies written between 1923 and 1936, staging, costume and set design, tour financing and performance of the leading roles by Gabrielle Bossis herself, silhouette dressed in white with a wide hat, tours in France, Europe, North Africa and North America, ten to thirteen notebooks depending on the count, publishing success with more than fifty French editions in 1967, English translation He and I still reprinted. Accessed 25 August 2026.
2 6 14 15 17 19 21 24 25 43 61Wikipedia (FR), “Gabrielle Bossis”: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_Bossis. Entry used to cross-check dates and biographical facts: full name Gabrielle-Rose Bossis, youngest of four children, First Communion in June 1886, nursing service near Verdun and death of her nephew Jean Caron in combat, presentation of the notebooks to Bishop Villepelet and the theologian Jules Lebreton in 1944, withdrawal to Curzon (Vendée) during the Occupation from 1940, destruction of her Nantes house in the 1943 bombings, breast-cancer surgery in August 1949, spread to the airways in March 1950, death on 9 June 1950, publication of the seven volumes between 1948 and 1957. Accessed 25 August 2026.
4 8 11 16 18 22 26 35 36 37 40 50 51 56Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1824 [V, 74], pp. 604-605: « 12 janvier [1950]. Heure sainte. Comme je m'étonnais de la rapidité extraordinaire avec laquelle la première édition de Lui et moi s'était épuisée. — "Attribue-le à Ma volonté, secondée par celle du Cœur Douloureux et Immaculé de Ma Mère. Et, sais-tu ce que nous faisons en écrivant ces pages ? Nous enlevons ce préjugé que l'intimité de l'âme n'était possible que pour le religieux dans son cloître, tandis que Mon Amour secret et tendre est en réalité pour toute âme vivant en ce monde." » Text read directly in the complete edition.
7 42Diocese of Angers, Saint-Pierre-en-Val-de-Loire parish, “Gabrielle Bossis”: stpierreenvaldeloire.diocese49.org/mouvements-deglise/gabrielle-bossis. Source for the local roots at Fresne-sur-Loire (family manor, spiritual direction of Abbé Olive, burial in the Fresne-sur-Loire cemetery, membership in the Franciscan Third Order) and for the monthly prayer meetings perpetuating her memory in the neighbouring parishes. Accessed 25 August 2026.
10 13 20 23 57 63Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 111 [VI, 26], p. 19: « 1er mai, au confessionnal de Vierzon : Croître dans le Christ par tous moyens, par mes courses de vagabonde, par l'influence de mes pièces, celle sur le prochain et celle du prochain sur moi. Croître dans le Christ. » Text read directly in the complete edition; this is a personal note by Gabrielle Bossis here, not a reported word of Christ.
27Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1 [I, 1], p. 7: « 22 août. Sur le paquebot. — Pendant le concert classique, je Lui offrais en gerbes les sons et la douceur qui en sortait. Il m'a dit tout doucement, comme une fois [au Fresne] : "Ma petite Fille." » Text read directly in the complete edition. Used for the date, place and exact content of the first interior word of 22 August 1936.
28 29 58Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 4 [I, 4], p. 7: « 24 septembre. Canada. — La chapelle est à la porte de ma chambre, à chaque fois que je passe, je Lui souris. Il m'a dit : "Souris à tous. J'attacherai une Grâce à ton sourire." » Text read directly in the complete edition.
30Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 6 [I, 6], p. 7: « 4 octobre. Montréal. — Lui : "Quand tu ne te recueilles pas, c'est Moi que tu prives" [d'une voix si délicate]. » Text read directly in the complete edition.
31Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 13 [VI, 3], p. 8: « 13 décembre. En France, Nantes. — Clôture de la neuvaine à N.-D. Immaculée, sous la présidence de Mgr Villepelet. Pendant la procession, Il m'a dit de nouveau : "Ma petite fille." » Text read directly in the complete edition. Used to establish the documentary link between Gabrielle Bossis and Bishop Villepelet as early as December 1936, eight years before she entrusted him with her notebooks.
32Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1832 [V, 80], p. 609: « 5 février [1950]. Paris, dans le métro. — "Est-ce que Je ne suis pas ton Ami ? Alors, pourquoi ne Me parles-tu pas avec joie ?" » Text read directly in the complete edition.
45Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1833 [V, 81], p. 610: « Paris, au réveil. — "Aujourd'hui, quoi de nouveau ?" — "Dieu." » Text read directly in the complete edition.
46Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1856 [V, 99], pp. 619-620: « 6 mai [1950]. Étouffements. — "[…] Offre, avec toutes les forces de ton amour, l'instant présent, ce petit instant qui ne tient même pas dans ta main." » Text read directly in the complete edition.
47Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1828 [V, 77], pp. 606-607: « 26 janvier [1950]. Heure sainte. — […] "Que la joie ne t'abandonne jamais, c'est le lustre de la mortification. C'est la douceur intime de l'amour." » Text read directly in the complete edition.
48Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1829 [V, 78], p. 607: « 28 janvier [1950]. Dans le grand salon des X… — "Plus tu souffres, plus tu sers." » Text read directly in the complete edition.
49Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1854 [V, 97], p. 619: « 4 mai [1950]. Septième semaine de maladie. — "Allonge ton courage sur Mon courage. […] Viens souvent M'inviter à assister à ta vie […]. Rappelle-toi bien ce mot : 'Ensemble.'" » Text read directly in the complete edition.
52Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1857 [V, 101], p. 620: « 11 mai [1950]. — "Seigneur, est-ce ma dernière heure sainte sur la terre ?" — "Que toutes tes heures soient désormais des heures saintes. […] Tu es toute blanchie par l'Extrême-Onction, l'indulgence plénière. […] regrette, regrette, regrette tes péchés et aime, aime, aime toujours plus fort Celui qui s'appelle l'Amour." » Text read directly in the complete edition.
53Gabrielle Bossis, Lui et moi — Œuvre complète en ordre chronologique, Rassemblement à Son Image, 2021, entry no. 1866 [V, 109], pp. 621-622 (last entry of the journal): « 25 mai [1950]. — "Suis-je arrivée au bout de ma vie ?… Est-ce que maintenant, je ne célèbre pas ma première et dernière Messe ? Où es-tu, amoureuse Présence ?… Et après, qu'est-ce que ce sera ?" — "Ce sera Moi. Ce sera toujours Moi." » Text read directly in the complete edition; last page of the journal before Gabrielle Bossis's death on 9 June 1950.
54Marie de Nazareth, “Gabrielle Bossis: appel à témoignages pour un procès de béatification”: mariedenazareth.com/actualites/gabrielle-bossis-appel-a-temoignages-pour-un-proces-de-beatification. Source for the current state of the file: testimony file being compiled at the initiative of Father Pierre Descouvemont and Jean-Luc Moens, with a view to submission to the Bishop of Nantes for the possible opening of a diocesan inquiry — a step prior to any recognition of the title of Servant of God, not yet taken to this day. Accessed 25 August 2026.
59 60Association Gabrielle Bossis, “Témoignages” page: gabriellebossis.fr/lassociation/temoignages. Source for the association's current activity (gathering testimonies of conversions, graces and vocations attributed to reading Lui et moi or to Gabrielle Bossis's intercession) and for the persistence of her spiritual influence several decades after her death. Accessed 25 August 2026.
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