Carmelite wisdom to encourage & inspire
After St. Thérèse’s tearful encounter with Pope Leo XIII on 20 November 1887, her sister Céline wrote to Marie in the Lisieux Carmel to explain everything. Pauline then wrote to her father on 23 November: the Pope “saw the halo that already circles your forehead.”
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The Servant of God Léonie Martin shared her memories of Sts. Louis and Zélie as she shaing those recollections during Thérèse’s beatification process. She said her parents “kept a very fervent practice of the Christian life in their marriage.”
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Writing from Paris while on a sales trip for St. Zélie’s lacemaking business, St. Louis Martin has tender words for his wife and the entire family in this touching letter.
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord,” says St. Paul. St. Thérèse was a model of obedience to her father, St. Louis Martin. Speaking in the third person as she writes about their relationship, Thérèse reminds her father: “it was always your hand that guided her. O Papa! remember…”
In 1885 St. Louis Martin accompanied a priest on a pilgrimage to Constantinople, Athens, and Rome. While in Constantinople he wrote a newsy letter on this date to his daughter Marie, praising her for doing an excellent job of managing the household. He also described in some detail the sights that he had seen.
"Our age is not radically different from nineteenth-century France. The Martins would have been aware of the anti-Christian and anti-marriage ideas current in the France of their day. In the intervening 150 years, such attitudes have only hardened... In canonizing Zélie and Louis Martin the Church places before us the ideal of strong Christian family life."
Louis Martin was born in Bordeaux, on August 22, 1823. While he was master-watchmaker in Alençon, he met Marie Azelie (Zelie) Guerin, a lace maker, born in Gandelain (St-Denis-sur-Sarthon), on December 23, 1831. They were married on July 13, 1858,and had nine children, including the future Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus. Model spouses, devoted parents, workers, attentive to the poor, always nourishing a missionary spirit, they found their strength and hope in regular attendance at Holy Mass and in a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
Join us in this novena to Saints Louis and Zélie Martin
St. Louis Martin wrote to his wife, St. Zélie Martin to describe his happiness when he was able to visit the shrine of Notre-Dame des Victoires on a business trip to Paris: it "is like a little heaven on earth."
When St. Thérèse was still an infant on the farm with her wet nurse Rose, St. Zélie Martin describes one visit she made to the farm to visit little Thérèse. "She let out piercing screams when she didn't see the wet nurse anymore."
On this day in 1888, young Thérèse Martin entered the Carmel of Lisieux. Her sister Marie wrote that day to their father, St. Louis Martin: "O best of fathers, how accountable we would be if we didn’t become saints, and if we didn’t follow in the footsteps of your generosity… "
Saint Zélie Martin learns that her breast cancer has reached such an advanced stage that it is inoperable. She writes to her husband, "I'll go to Lourdes on the first pilgrimage, and I hope the Blessed Mother will cure me, if it's necessary. In the meantime let's stop worrying."
Pauline Martin explains that Thérèse "could have legitimately taken the Habit... before the end of October, but she in fact didn’t take the Habit until 10th January 1889."
I was delighted to hear that today all three of you are in the little House of the Blessed Virgin [At Loreto, on 12th–13th November 1887]… One must no longer feel outside one’s Homeland there. It’s the Homeland in exile.
How good of Him to have made this flower of Paradise bloom in our home! But our dear parents were worthy of possessing her.
Do as I did: pray, and you will not be carried away by the current.
What a joy to be able to send you my best wishes for the New Year from the Kingdom of Carmel
Our parents kept a very fervent practice of the Christian life in their marriage
Do as I did: pray, and you will not be carried away by the current.
Saints Louis and Zélie, pray for us!
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Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. ~ St. Teresa of Avila
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