Gabrielle Bossis (1874–1950)

Gabrielle Bossis was born on 26 february, 1874 to a Catholic laywoman, actress, playwright, and nurse from France. The youngest of four children of a wealthy family. She was taught on good etiquette from a very young age and grew up exhibiting grace and good manners but also possessing a strong desire for God and the things of the Spirit. She obtaining a nursing degree and enjoyed fine arts including sculpting, painting, and music and also discovered her passion for writing plays and acting. During World War I, she served as a nurse for four years. She started gaining some bit of success writing in 1923 with her play “czar” written at the request of her parish priest. From between 1923 and 1936, she wrote thirteen comedy plays and also directed and played leading roles in her them. She wrote other works and became famous, touring different countries in Europe, North Africa, North America and Canada until two years before her death.

Her best-known work is the mystic “Lui et Moi” that was published in an abridged English translation as He and I. In the book, she recounted her dialogues with Jesus, which came to her as an “inner voice” that she has heard for long but began in earnest at the age of 62, continuing until two weeks before her death on June 9, 1950. It is recorded in a series of journals from 1936 to shortly before her death in 1950. Some samples thoughts for the book include:

  1. Express your hope in me. Come out of yourself. Enter into Me.
  2. Do not fail to give me your sufferings. They help sinners.
  3. I asked you to wake up in the arms of the Father because each one of your mornings is a new creation.
  4. I asked you to fall asleep in the Holy Spirit because your last conscious breath should be in love.
  5. Try to understand my yearning for you, for all my children.
  6. You see that you can do nothing by yourself. Throw yourself into my arms every morning and ask me for strength to pay attention to the little details. Life is made up of little things, you know. Don’t count on yourself any more. Count on me.
  7. For some I am unknown. For others, a stranger, a severe master, or an accuser. Few people come to me as to one of a loved family. And yet my love is there, waiting for them. So tell them to come, to enter in, and to give themselves up to love just as they are… I’ll restore. I’ll transform them. And they will know a joy they have never known before. I alone can give that joy.”

During the publication of the word, her identity was kept a secret. The book became spiritual success and has been published in numerous languages becoming a source of inspiration for those that read it.