Born: 16 August 1905, Ireland
Died: 19 February 1998
Country most active: Belgium
Also known as: Louise Mary O’Brien
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Bridget Hourican. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
O’Brien, Veronica (Louise Mary) (1905–98), nun, catholic lay worker and spiritual adviser to King Baudouin and Cardinal Suenens of Belgium, was born Louise Mary O’Brien on 16 August 1905 in Midleton, Co. Cork, eleventh among thirteen children of Patrick O’Brien, physician, and Kathleen O’Brien (née Leahy). Mrs O’Brien was pious and backed up with family prayers the catholic instruction that ‘Lulu’ (as her family always called her) received from the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary in Midleton. Louise’s religious calling was strong; she fainted during her first holy communion (which was postponed), claiming later that her soul was suddenly opened to the mysteries of God. This was the first of numerous such incidents. Her faith was matched by an equally strong and independent will. She described herself as an unruly child who on one occasion almost drowned from swimming in forbidden waters. Later as a nun she had difficulty with the vow of obedience.
After secondary education with the Sisters of St Clothilde in Eltham, Kent, she worked for a short period as an au pair in Paris, and then presented herself in May 1924 at the Congregation of St Clothilde in Rue de Reuilly, Paris, where she admitted that she had no degree, did not enjoy study, could not sing or sew, and could not obey, but might learn to. They took her on as a novice and six months later she donned the habit and a new name, Veronica. Back at her old school in Eltham Park, she worked for her BA and a Cambridge teaching diploma, but did not find convent life easy. When she took her perpetual vows (11 August 1930) she ‘felt like a consenting prisoner, enclosed in a coffin which I myself had sealed’ (Suenens, 29). Her health was poor; she had chronic tonsillitis, frequently fainted, and slept badly. A new headmistress thought her mentally unbalanced; one psychiatrist concurred with this, another found her perfectly sane. She was transferred to a convent near Lausanne, Switzerland, where her advanced views – she thought nuns should be more involved in the wider community – alarmed her superiors. In September 1935 she was asked to leave the order. This caused her little concern, as she had had a vision the previous night of herself in lay clothing, passing a flame from hand to hand. However, she spent the next five years in hardship.
Back in London in December 1935 she moved in with her sister, Kitty, a doctor, and began (but never finished) an MA in education. Though the Vatican released her from her vows she continued to use the name ‘Veronica’. In 1937 she was briefly involved with the Messengers of Faith, a short-lived association devoted to converting England to Roman catholicism. Coming across a pamphlet on the Legion of Mary, she sought out its Irish founder, Frank Duff, and went to Dublin in November 1938 to study its aims. Duff was initially wary of her ideas, so her move to France in January 1939 was on her own initiative. She was to spend the rest of her life in France and Belgium.
In Paris she joined the order of Our Lady of Work and went with them to Normandy. However, this organisation’s chief aim was charitable where Veronica’s was spiritual, so she was once again asked to leave, and found herself alone and penniless in wartime France in October 1939. After several months queuing for soup with refugees, she received a letter from Duff asking her to promote the Legion of Mary in France. Her task proved difficult since she had no funds and the French church considered the Legion a threat to its own lay movement, Catholic Action. However, Mgr Patrice Flynn, bishop of Nevers and of Irish origin, allowed her to begin work in his diocese and within fifteen months he became the Legion’s champion in France. By 1945 it had been introduced into forty-five dioceses. That year Veronica moved with a number of helpers into 41–3, Rue Boileau, Paris, which became the Legion’s French headquarters. Among these helpers was Yvette Dubois, who devoted herself to Veronica and her mission. The two women lived together the rest of their lives and determined to be buried together. They were opposites – Dubois was self-effacing where Veronica was forceful and dynamic. Witty and glamorous, she wore pearls, and looked younger than her age. Once she wrote to a top Parisian couturier asking her to design a new habit for the Sisters of Nivelles ‘that will help them look neither countrified nor like little old maids’ (Suenens, 189).
Her most important influence was on the Belgian bishop Leon-Joseph Suenens. They met (7 July 1947) when Veronica was introducing the Legion to Belgium. Soon she wrote to ask him if he felt in his soul the mystical alliance between them. He replied in the affirmative and she became his closest spiritual adviser, persuading him that his mission was to guide the laity to spirituality. He helped organise the world congress of the laity in Rome in 1957, and his views later found favour with the reformist Pope John XXIII, who appointed him cardinal and entrusted him with preparatory work for the second Vatican council. Suenens always acknowledged his debt to Veronica. She was granted audiences with Pope Paul VI in 1972 and later with John Paul II, and was each time commended for her work. Despite having been dismissed from her religious order, she remained firmly Roman catholic and aware of the dangers presented to the unity of the church by unmonitored lay movements.
The other key figure that she spiritually advised was also Belgian: the king, Baudouin. In December 1958 she suffered a near-fatal car crash and afterwards decided to cut down on travel – she had spent the previous years in the thankless task of trying to introduce the Legion of Mary to Greece, Yugoslavia, and Turkey – and to move from France to Belgium in order to be closer to Suenens. On 18 March 1960 she met the king, then a nervous young man who craved spiritual guidance and lacked a wife. Suenens felt Veronica could supply both, and sent her to Spain to report on a prospective bride – Fabiola de Mora y Aragon. To preserve privacy she broke off links to the Legion without explanation, which caused them concern. Her report on Fabiola was positive and the Spaniard came to stay with her in Brussels, where the king began his tentative courtship. All four (Dubois included) then departed on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, and in July 1960 the royal engagement was announced. In his diary Baudouin thanked God for giving him Fabiola as his wife, and Veronica as his guardian angel. She remained so until the last; they corresponded under pen names, he addressing her as ‘Grace’ and signing himself ‘L’ for ‘Luigi’.
Veronica’s ties with the Legion loosened from this period; her restless energy seems always to have sought out new outlets. After becoming involved with the American charismatic renewal in the 1970s, she turned in the 1980s to another lay movement, FIAT (Family International Apostolic Team). She spent her last years with Dubois in a life of prayer in a house lent by FIAT in Brussels. She died 19 February 1998 in Wemmel, Belgium. Baudouin predeceased her, but Fabiola attended her funeral at Nevers.