The three mystical experiences she claimed to have experienced, convinced her that Christ is to be found in all people, even those whom the world shunned because they did not conform to certain standards of piety. She would write that if people only looked for Christ in the "saints" they would not find him. She herself smoked and drank and had a sharp tongue. She returned to the Catholic Church in 1925 but her spiritual reading was founded almost entirely on the Gospels, rather than the Fathers of the Church or official Church documents. She met and fell in love with Sidney Reilly, famous spy and the model for Ian Flemings
"James Bond", but he left her broken-hearted when he married another woman. She would never marry.
Houselander was a prolific writer and contributed many pieces to religious magazines such as the "Messenger of the Sacred Heart" and "The Children's Messenger". Her first book,
"This War is the Passion", was published in 1941 and in it she placed the suffering of the individual and its meaning within the mystical body of Christ. For a time she became publishers Sheed & Ward's best selling writer drawing praise from people such as Ronald Knox:
"she seemed to see everything for the first time, and the driest of doctrinal considerations shone out like a restored picture when she had finished with it. And her writing was always natural; she seemed to find no difficulty in getting the right word; no, not merely the right word, the telling word, that left you gasping."
During the war doctors began sending patients to Houselander for counselling and therapy. Even though she lacked formal education in this area she seemed to have a natural empathy for people in mental anguish and the talent for helping them to rebuild their world. A visitor found her once alone on the floor, apparently in great pain, that she attributed to her willingness to accept on herself a great trial and temptation that was overwhelming another person.
The psychiatrist Dr. Eric Strauss, later President of the British Psychological Society, said of Houslander: "she loved them back to life"..."she was a divine eccentric".
She titled her autobiography
"A Rocking-Horse Catholic" to differentiate herself from those who described themselves as "cradle Catholics". She died of breast cancer in 1954 at the age of 53. Margot H. King is working on a biography for Peregrina Publishers, Toronto, Canada, that will update Maisie Ward's 1962 attempt.