Drawing by me. You can see my artwork and commission me here.
I have long loved how the communion of saints defies the weakness of earthly labels— ethnicity, gender, class, ability, age, talent, place in history—and shimmers with the promise of eternal fulfillment. The stories of these holy men, women, and children convey real hope of sanctity for you and me. We're beginning a new weekly series that will feature stories of the saints, loosely correlated to publish near or on their feast days.
Today, we're featuring Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St Thérèse of Lisieux, who are saints in their own right. Their feast is July 12, which is associated with their wedding anniversary. I'm featuring them a smidge early because there's another awesome saint whose feast will fall next week (come back for her story!).
How do you raise a saint? By being a saint yourself.
The Little Flower did not materialize from nothing, but grew up and grew holy within a particular family. Although canonized together as a married couple, Louis and Zélie Martin are one particular man and one particular woman who each gave a particular yes to God.
This particular woman, Zélie Guérin, endured a childhood devoid of her own mother’s affirmation and warmth. She suffered from this so deeply that she called it ‘abuse.’ She might have protected herself against more pain by becoming bitter, closed, wary, suspicious. She might have become jealous of her brother, whom their mother adored as much as she ignored Zélie. She might have tried to fill the ache with approval and worldly acclaim. She might have chased after emotional satisfaction instead of commitment. She might have allowed her faith in God to fade to just going through the motions.
And who would have blamed her? Many today would have even encouraged her, “You just do you” or “It’s okay to be selfish” or “You gotta make yourself happy.”
But Zélie Guérin had a tenacious heart, and a clear intellect, and a determined will, and she ran after something deeper and more beautiful than defense or comfort.
She prayed, discerned her vocation to the best of her ability, took action to pursue it, and, when doors closed, she refused to believe that God had forgotten or ignored her. She very practically prayed again and kept watch for the door that would open.
Zélie knew the truth: Intimacy comes only from vulnerability. Joy comes only from the present moment. The meaning of life comes only from self-gift.
They met through Louis' mother, a customer of Zélie's lace business playing matchmaker for her bachelor son. (You can read the full story of their meet-cute in our book Connected.) They married at midnight on July 12/13, 1858.
As a couple, Louis and Zélie experienced profound joy in their marriage and in parenthood, but also severe suffering. They lost four of their nine children. In 1876, Zélie was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer; less than one year later, she died at home as Louis knelt weeping and praying by her side. Louis lovingly and faithfully raised their surviving daughters to adulthood (all five became nuns, including their youngest, future Doctor of the Church Thérèse). Soon after Thérèse had entered religious life, Louis suffered a series of damaging strokes. For a few years, he was hospitalized in a mental care facility. He died at home in 1894.
Louis and Zélie’s love of God was the source of their deep love, and they gave themselves wholly to God by giving themselves wholly to each other and their children. Once while away from Zélie on a business trip, Louis wrote to his wife, “Soon we will have the intimate happiness of the family, and it’s this beauty that draws us closer to Him.”
How do you raise a saint? By being a saint yourself. Thérèse first learned her famous confidence in love and little way from her parents. From a particular woman who had every excuse to be stifled and frozen, but who resolved first to believe in love and then to choose it. From a particular man who refused the cynicism of disappointment and chose hope and humility.
The Church owes a happy, happy debt to this marriage.
Making a pilgrimage to Sts Louis and Zélie
You can visit the tombs of Louis and Zélie Martin in Lisieux, France, which is an easy a two-hour train ride from Paris (shorter by car). Their tomb is located in the crypt of the Basilique Sainte-Thérèse de Lisieux (Thérèse's tomb is nearby in the convent where she died). Lisieux is a small, compact town. You can visit the sites associated with the Martin family in a few hours, then be back in Paris for dinner. Along with their tomb, these sites include Les Buissonets, their family home, their parish church, and the Carmelite monastery where four of their five daughters entered religious life. Zélie never actually lived in Lisieux, however; Louis moved the family there after her death in order to be closer to the family of her brother, Isidore Guérin.
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