St. Thérèse of Lisieux has quickly become one of the Church’s most beloved Saints, so it’s no wonder people wanted to learn more about her parents.  Louis and  Zélie Martin raised five daughters to adulthood- and all five became nuns!  They faced many trials, from the loss of young children to  Zélie’s terminal cancer, but the Martins remained a strong, faithful couple through it all. They are our Holy Role-Models for July, their anniversary month.

Growing up

Louis Martin was born in Bordeaux, France, on August 22, 1823, to a devoted Catholic family.  They relocated to Alençon when he was a young boy.  Louis never attended secondary school, but he was very intelligent.  While he enjoyed quieter pursuits like French literature and painting, Louis was also a volunteer firefighter and even occasionally broke up knife fights in town! 

Azélie-Marie Guérin, always known just as Zélie, was born on December 23, 1831, just outside Alençon in Gandelain.  Zélie adored her much-younger brother, Isidore, and was especially close with her older sister, Marie-Louise (“Elise”), who later became a nun.  Despite good relationships with her siblings, Zélie did not have the happiest childhood.  The Guérin family was poor, Madame Guérin was severe with her daughters, and Zélie was often ill.  These circumstances probably contributed somewhat to Zelie’s lifelong struggles with depression and anxiety.  Still, she excelled in school and was deeply faithful.

As young adults, both Louis and Zélie prayed for and pursued vocations to the religious life.  This did not seem to be God’s plan, though: Louis was rejected by the monks at St. Bernard’s for not knowing Latin, and  Zélie was rejected by  the Daughters of Charity, possibly due to her poor health.  So it was back to the drawing board for the pair.  Louis returned to a watchmaking apprenticeship, and Zélie took up lacemaking, a popular trade in Alençon. While marriage did not appeal to Louis and he expected to remain single for life, Zélie had a new prayer to God. “I beg Thee…to send me many children, and grant that they may all be consecrated to Thee!” 

Starting a life together

While walking on the Saint-Léonard Bridge in spring 1858,  Zélie passed a tall, handsome man.  She heard an inner voice saying, “This is he whom I have prepared for you.”   Just a few days later, the two were formally introduced, and they hit it off quickly.  Louis and Zélie’s daughter, Céline, would testify that her parents had “different temperaments, but perfectly well-matched, each one completing, in perfect harmony, the deficiencies of the other, always corrected by virtue.”  He kept her positive; she kept him grounded. When they married that summer, Louis was 34 and Zélie was 26. 

One interesting note on the Martins is that they began their marriage with ten months of celibacy.  They wanted to imitate the Holy Family in a “Josephite marriage.” After briefly fostering a neighbor’s son and being advised to change course by a spiritual director, they were eventually persuaded to have children, but they did not regret these celibate months.  “I believe our mutual affection was even more increased through this,”  Zélie wrote.  As is often the case for couples practicing abstinence during fertile periods while using NFP, the Martins had to learn to show their love in other ways, and became more united spiritually.  Stay tuned for more on NFP (with some awesome guest content) next month!

Parenthood

The Martins dove right into parenthood.  They had  nine children, though, tragically, four died in early childhood.  The Martin children seemed to come in pairs.  Marie (born in 1860) and Pauline (1861) were the little mothers of the family.  Léonie (1863) lost her “pair,” the beautiful Hélène (1864), who died suddenly of a severe illness at age five.  Between this loss and some emotional abuse at the hands of a family maid during her childhood, it is no wonder Léonie became the most difficult of the Martin children.  Léonie was dismissed from several schools and programs for her behavior, and a frustrated Zélie even wrote, “I could lose my mind over this.”  (Side note… Léonie’s story does have a happy ending: she became a nun at her aunt’s convent, and her own beatification case opened in 2018!)  After the very early deaths of two sons (Joseph-Louis and Joseph-Jean-Baptiste) and a daughter (Mélanie-Thérèse), the last pair of daughters remained:  Céline (1869), and, finally, Louis’ “little queen,” Thérèse (1873).  

Zélie wanted her daughters to grow quickly in virtue, so she never left “the smallest fault unchecked.”  At the same time, she worked hard to show them the affection she had missed from her own mother.  Louis was a devoted father, taking his daughters fishing and on long walks.  In the evenings, after family prayer, he sang to them. 

“I cannot say how much I loved Papa… Everything in him caused me to admire him.”

st. Thérèse of lisieux on her father, st. Louis martin

Meanwhile, Louis had sold his watchmaking business to help Zélie with her more profitable lacemaking enterprise.  They employed as many as 15 local women and treated the workers like members of their family.  Zélie delegated work and oversaw the sewing; Louis did the bookkeeping and frequently travelled to make deliveries.   On busy days, the two sometimes worked from 4:30 to 11 p.m.  They could have lightened this load by doing some work on Sundays, but the Martins refused to work on the Lord’s Day.

Darker days

Times became tough for the Martin family in 1867.  They lost their two baby sons, as well as Zélie’s father, in 1867 and 1868.  In the next couple of years, five year old Hélène died unexpectedly, and their baby daughter Mélanie-Thérèse died of malnutrition because her wetnurse was irresponsible and inattentive.  Zélie had no choice but to use wetnurses, though- there was no formula then, and she was unable to breastfeed by this time because of medical issues that she would soon learn were due to terminal breast cancer.  The couple clung to their faith in God through all these tragedies.  Zélie wrote that, in her darkest moments, she was “sustained from on high”: sustained by Jesus, and by the intercessory prayers of her little saints in heaven.

“It is a great good to have a child in heaven, but it is not less painful for our human nature to lose the child; these are the great sorrows of our lives.”  

St. Zélie Martin to her grieving sister-in-law

In 1876, Zélie was diagnosed with malignant breast cancer and told there was nothing to be done for it.  As she grew more and more sick, Louis attended to his wife carefully and would even “at times… take [her] in his arms like a child.”  At age 46 and after 19 years of marriage, Zélie Martin passed away on August 28, 1877.  

A new chapter: Lisieux

After Zélie’s death, Louis decided to retire from lacemaking to focus on his daughters.  He also moved the family to Lisieux, leaving behind all his friends so his girls could be closer to family.  The Martins lived a quiet, happy life in the countryside.  Every afternoon, Louis went on long walks, often with his “Little Queen.”  

On one of these walks, they discovered the Carmelite chapel that would one day be the home of four of the five Martin girls.  Pauline headed there first in 1882 after Louis needed less help with the youngest girls; Marie followed in 1886.  In 1887, 14 year old Thérèse announced her desire to join her sisters there.  She was originally rejected for being too young, but Louis promised to help his daughter however he could.  They ended up travelling to Rome to seek permission from the Pope himself! The trip was successful, and Thérèse joined the Carmelite sisters in 1888.  This was an especially bittersweet parting for Louis.  “God alone can exact such a sacrifice,” he wrote to a friend, “but He helps me mightily so that in the midst of my tears my heart overflows with joy.”

Louis’ last years

In 1887, after asking God to send more trials to make him holier, Louis experienced multiple strokes, episodes of paralysis, hemorrhaging, memory loss and depression.  He spent several years in a fairly dismal mental institution, but he brought many people closer to God there.  He was able to return home in 1892 when he was too weak to be a flight risk, and he went to visit his daughters in the Lisieux Carmel one last time.  Louis could hardly speak, but simply pointed upwards and whispered, “In heaven!”  He eagerly anticipated the day the whole Martin family would be reunited there.

Louis died on July 28, 1894, at age 71.  Léonie had joined the Visitation convent by the time of his death, and Céline was accepted into the convent at Carmel six weeks later.  After St. Thérèse was canonized and her “little way” became popular, interest in the lives of her parents was piqued and their own causes were opened.  On October 18, 2015, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin became the first married couple to be canonized together (they were actually the second to be beatified together, though… learn more about the first, the Quattrocchis, here!).  All married people and parents, especially parents who have experienced child loss, respect and venerate this beautiful couple.  Their joint feast day is celebrated on their wedding anniversary, July 12.

Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, pray for us!

References:

“Biographical Profile of the Venerable Servants of God Louis Martin and Zélie Martin.” Thérèse of Lisieux. Last modified October 19, 2008. http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/143555/2021306/1224046373503/BIOGRAPHICAL+PROFILE+OF+THE+VENERABLE+SERVANTS+OF+GOD.pdf?token=PBHCNz5cgRelq7DXxyrkU%2FHUTX4%3D.

Dolan, Albert H. God Made the Violet, Too: The Life of Léonie, Sister of St. Thérèse. Chicago: Carmelite Press, 1948. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89081847527.

Mongin, Hélène. Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin: The Extraordinary Parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Paris: Editions de l’Emmanuel, 2008.

O’Riordan, Maureen. “Saints Louis and Zélie Martin.” http://www.louisandzeliemartin.org/.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Story of a Soul. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: Editions du Cerf and Desclée de Brouwer, 1972.