In answer to His Excellency Bishop van Lierde’s request, a second meeting with Father Mélançon was held three weeks later. During the conversation, Bishop van Lierde asked him to be an attentive observer of the Work, following its evolution in his capacity of well-informed theologian.
Several weeks later, on his return from Rome, Marie-Paule received Father Mélançon and offered him her volumes of Life of Love, asking him to read them with a very critical eye, drawing to her attention all doctrinal errors as well as any imperfection of a practical or apostolic nature. Marie-Paule’s request coinciding with Bishop van Lierde’s, Father Mélançon accepted to read and analyze everything. After an in-depth study and a comparison of Marie-Paule’s mystical experience with such authors of ascetic and mystical theology as Saint John of the Cross, Saint Teresa of Avila and Garrigou-Lagrange, Father Mélançon told Marie-Paule to continue her work in peace, serenity and confidence, repeating to her what Bishop van Lierde had said, namely, that she should carefully preserve all her writings.
Afterwards, he continued his role of supervisor. After ten years of careful, assiduous observation of all Marie-Paule’s writings – books, brochures, articles for the paper –, he published a brochure entitled, Life of Love: I Read, I Believed!, declaring the following:
“Like most readers, I also raised questions here and there, not concerning dogmatic or moral doctrine but in the matter of more prosaic points of practice: whether or not she should have set down certain facts, certain acts of people known, certain opinions. My hesitation concerning these points faded away one after the other, my last doubt disappearing with the last page of volume XV. I thank God for having helped me to read the whole without prejudice and without being quick to condemn. I bow to the providence and wisdom of God who is free in the dispensation of His ways and His ‘voices’ ” (Life of Love: I Read, I Believed!, Father Lionel Mélançon, Quebec, Éditions Marie-Paule, Vie d’Amour Inc., p. 13).
When the occasion arises, he further completes his point of view and his impressions with regard to the Work and Marie-Paule’s writings through beautiful articles published in Le Royaume. In November 1996, a serious health problem forced him to limit his activities, although he remained deeply united to the Work and its Foundress.
On May 31, 1996, Marie-Paule wrote this testimonial after the last article he had written entitled, “My Soul Is Saddened to the Point of Death” (Le Royaume, no. 111, May-June 1996, p. 32 [English edition]).
“Attending assiduously his Holiness Pope Paul VI’s audiences and pontifical ceremonies, Father Mélançon was altogether suited to becoming interested in a Work noted for its devotion to the Triple White: the Eucharist, Mary and the Pope. Given the mandate by the Pope’s Vicar General to follow the development of the Army of Mary, Father Mélançon has been, over the last twenty-three years, of a remarkable fidelity in always reading all our writings very attentively and strictly, with a critical and analytical mind. We will never be able to thank him enough for his generous collaboration. Deeply rooted in God, his spirit of charity has been exercised in grandeur and nobility in the face of the blindness of our adversaries. However, in reading the long text entitled ‘The Hour of Truth’, he experienced a keen sorrow, to the point where he said to me, in tears: ‘My soul is saddened to the point of death.’ This sadness will change to joy at God’s Hour” (Marie-Paule, May 31, 1996).
Father Mélançon died on November 28, 2000, a few months after having had the joy of visiting Marie-Paule for one last time, where she resided at Spiri-Maria in Lac-Etchemin.
WELCOME
