Marie-Eugène de l'Enfant-Jésus

Henri Grialou, later known in religion as Marie-Eugène de l'Enfant-Jésus, was born on 2 December 1894 in the mining locality of Le Gua, in the commune of Aubin in the Aveyron department of southern France. His father worked in the mines and died in an accident while Henri was still a child, after which his mother raised the family in modest circumstances. From youth he discerned a vocation to the priesthood and studied in the seminaries of the Diocese of Rodez. The First World War interrupted that formation; he served in the French army and afterwards resumed his studies. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Rodez on 4 February 1922.

A deepening attraction to Carmelite spirituality, especially the writings of Saint John of the Cross and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, led him to seek admission to the Discalced Carmelites. He entered the novitiate at Avon in 1924 and received the name Marie-Eugène de l'Enfant-Jésus. After profession he served as a preacher, retreat master, and spiritual director. In 1932, together with Marie Pila, he began the work that became the Institut Notre-Dame de Vie, a secular institute whose members—lay men and women as well as priests—live the contemplative dimension of the Carmelite charism while remaining in ordinary professional and social life. The institute later established its principal house at Venasque in the Vaucluse.

In 1937 he was elected Definitor General of the Discalced Carmelite Order and took up residence in Rome; he later served as Vicar General. During nearly two decades at the order's generalate he visited communities in many countries and encouraged a return to the Teresian and Sanjuanist sources. He wrote extensively on prayer and the interior life. His principal book, Je veux voir Dieu (I Want to See God), became a widely used synthesis of Carmelite mystical theology for both religious and laity. After his Roman service ended he returned to France and devoted his remaining years to the formation and government of Notre-Dame de Vie.

Marie-Eugène de l'Enfant-Jésus died at Venasque on 27 March 1967. He was beatified on 19 November 2016 in Avignon, at a ceremony presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato on behalf of Pope Francis. His remains are kept at the institute he founded in Venasque. He is remembered as a twentieth-century teacher of contemplative prayer who sought to make the Carmelite heritage available to people living ordinary lives in the modern world, and as a pioneer of secular institutes in the Catholic Church.