"I was blessed to have saints for parents."

"The good Lord gave me a father and a mother more worthy of heaven than of earth."

                                                              St Thérèse

"There was perfect understanding between our parents,

although they were known to differ on certain points of view."

                                                            Their daughter Celina

The married couple St Louis Martin (1823 – 1894) and St Marie-Zélie Guérin (1831 – 1877) are the first married couple in the history of the Catholic Church to be canonised together as saints. They are also the first parents of a canonised saint to be beatified. They were not declared saints because they had a saint for a daughter, St Thérèse, but because they themselves lived holy lives.

On the occasion of the beatification, the vice-postulator of the cause, Father Antonio Sangalli, told Vatican Radio the following: "They were a couple who lived out marriage and the holiness of the sacrament, and before their marriage each of them had longed for holiness. They passed on to their children the faith, a love of the missions, and taught them to pray and to live a sacramental life. Their faith, their love for the Church, and their fidelity to the Church’s teaching and commandments are truly admirable. St Thérèse speaks of her ‘incomparable parents’. They accepted life as a gift from God; they knew that children did not belong to them, but were given to them so that they might in turn give them to the Lord. They did not regard their children as possessions, something to which they should devote their own love in order to benefit from it in old age. They raised them to decide freely, with the greatest freedom and respect."

Louis Martin was born on 22 August 1823 in Bordeaux. His father was a soldier, so during his early years the family moved often. Eventually, his family settled in Alençon, where he attended school. In Rennes, Strasbourg and Paris he trained as a watchmaker and jeweller – a trade requiring patience and precision – and he was very successful in it. During this period he wished to devote his life to God as a religious. This plan was thwarted by difficulties in mastering Latin, so he eventually opened a watchmaking and jewellery workshop in Alençon. Although it would have brought him considerable profit, he never gave in to the temptation, nor to the urging of acquaintances, to keep his watchmaking and jewellery shop open on Sundays as well. His daughter later testified that he often quoted the Old Testament Book of Tobit: "Do not let the wages of any man who works for you stay with you overnight, but pay him at once." (Tob 4:14) By nature Louis was naturally refined and dignified, tidy, punctual, and inclined to reflection and reserve. He loved reading, singing and playing music, and fishing was his favourite hobby. In addition, he was part of a circle made up of twelve young Christians, and he also had a marked interest in social action and in church and political affairs.

Zélie Guérin was born on 23 December 1831, the second child in a family from which she received both religious tradition and military courage. Her father was a soldier who had witnessed the sacrileges committed during the French Revolution. He often risked his life to help priests, which was forbidden at the time. From her later letters we learn that her childhood and youth were filled with sorrow, since her mother, though good, was very strict and unsympathetic towards her, and because of this she suffered. Her sister, two years older, became a nun, while her brother Isidore, ten years younger, was a spoilt child. By nature Zélie was gentle yet energetic, enterprising and brave. She felt a calling to religious life, but the superior of the convent where she attended school turned her down, so she completed her training in lacemaking and became a skilled lacemaker. In the town of Alençon, where she lived, she opened and ran a highly successful and widely known lace workshop, in which she employed local women whom she treated as though they were part of her own family. She found inspiration for all her activity in the Bible. Zélie described herself, without realising it, when she wanted to advise her brother on the choice of a good wife: "The main thing is to look for a good woman who is domestic, who is not afraid to get her hands dirty while working, who does not waste time on her appearance except for what is necessary, and who knows how to raise children for work and for holiness."

Louis and Zélie met in the spring of 1858 on a bridge in the town of Alençon – the town in France where they lived. When Zélie caught sight of him, she heard within herself a voice: "This is the one I have prepared for you." This meeting was arranged by Louis’s mother, who attended the lacemaking school together with Zélie. Having seen up close the wonderful qualities of this young woman, she wished for Louis to start a family with her. To their mutual satisfaction, this is exactly what happened, since Louis, as a watchmaker, possessed no fewer virtues than she did. The wedding took place on 13 July 1858. Louis was then 35, and Zélie 27. For their wedding day, Louis made his wife a medallion bearing the Old Testament figures of Tobias and Sarah: "O Lord, I take not this my sister for lust, but with sincerity. Grant that I may find mercy and grow old together with her." (Tob 8:7) By this he wished to say that he saw this woman just as Tobias saw Sarah, whom the angel himself had found to be his wife.

On the very day of her wedding, she went for the first time to visit her sister in the convent: "I can say that on that day I cried out all my tears; I wept as I had never wept before in my life, nor will I ever weep like that again. My Pauline, you who love your father so much, do you think that I hurt him in this way, and that I spoiled the day of our wedding for him? But it was not so; he understood me and comforted me as best he could, because his own inclinations were similar to mine. I think this, in fact, encouraged the growth of our mutual love. Our feelings were always in harmony, and he was always my comfort and support in everything. But once we had children, our thinking did change a little. From then on we lived only for them. They were all the happiness we had, which we found nowhere else. In short, nothing was too hard for us, and the world was no longer a burden to us. For me, the children were a great comfort, so much so that I wanted to have many children whom I could raise for heaven."

Their daughter Celina writes of her parents: "There was perfect understanding between our parents, although they were known to differ on certain points of view. As much as our mother admired our father, she also loved him just as much; she allowed him to take on the entire authority in the household, his role was a patriarchal one. My sisters could confirm many times over that their unity was never clouded by any misunderstanding. One need only read my mother’s letters to see how great a desire my father carried in his heart to be with her in all her anxieties, whether it meant setting out at four o’clock in the morning to find a wet nurse for their sick baby, or accompanying her on an icy night on a journey six miles from Alençon, all the way to the cradle of their dying little Joseph."

When their confessor called on them to set a time to end their abstinence and open themselves to having children, they were ready to accept this. The arrival of children strengthened them even further in their vocation: "Once we had children, our ideas changed a little; we lived only for them; they were all our joy, and we never found our joy anywhere but in them. Nothing was too hard for us to do for them; the world was no longer a burden." She, who would exclaim that she was "made to have children", retained, as did her husband, great respect for religious life, but she did not regret her choice. "Oh! I do not regret having married," she told her brother.

Louis and Zélie spent nineteen years in a marriage that was happy and full of love, but in which they also passed through very stressful, tragic and painful periods. In the first thirteen years of their married life, nine children were born to them. Zélie consecrated each child to God immediately after birth, praying this prayer: ‘God, grant me the grace that this child may be consecrated to you, and that nothing may tarnish the beauty of its soul.’ Celina wrote of her father: ‘He was strict with himself, but always kind to us. His heart was immeasurably tender towards us. He lived only for us. Not even a mother’s heart could surpass his.’ One of the ways in which St Louis showed his love for his children was through the use of affectionate nicknames. He called Marie his ‘diamond’, Pauline his ‘pearl’, Celina ‘the fearless one’, Léonie ‘good-hearted’, and Thérèse his ‘little queen’ or ‘little flower’." Louis also played with the children, made toys for them, invented various games and sang with them.

And of her mother, Celina writes: "Our mother was the living embodiment of work. She was constantly occupied with lacemaking, kept the house, worked for her children and dealt with correspondence. Our father always tried as much as he could to lighten her workload, urging her to employ people to help her in the house. Yet she never thought of herself – she forgot herself entirely. She was always willing to play with us, even if, because of it, her household chores stretched on past midnight." She would prepare a hearty breakfast for everyone, while she herself was content to gulp down a little soup on the go (Louis’s maidservant).

Three children died in infancy (Marie-Joseph-Louis at five months old, Marie-Joseph-Jean-Baptiste at eight months old, and Marie-Mélanie-Thérèse at seven weeks old), while Marie-Hélène died at the age of five years and four months. The remaining five daughters, too, came close to death either in infancy or later in childhood (Marie, Pauline, Léonie, Celina and Thérèse). Zélie suffered greatly through the deaths of her four young children, and others would say to her at the time: "Would it not have been better if you had never given birth to them?" Zélie reveals that she knew how to accept and make sense of life’s difficult moments, and would answer them: "I have not lost my children forever. Life is short and full of suffering, and one day we shall find in heaven those we love…" When her daughter Léonie hovered between life and death for more than a year, this mother, from whom death had so many times taken away her beloved children, found the strength to utter to God this bold prayer: "Lord, if she is one day to become a saint, heal her."

After five years of marriage, Zélie wrote: "I am still very happy with him; he makes life very pleasant. My husband is a holy man, and I wish every woman had a husband like him." Whenever Zélie spoke to anyone about her husband, she could not help but always add the same epithet, "my good Louis."

The letters they wrote to one another, especially during his business travels, revealed the full vitality of a love full of tenderness: "I long to be near you, my dear Louis. I love you with all my heart, and my love for you grows because I am deprived of your presence; it would be impossible for me to live apart from you... I embrace you and I love you. I embrace you with all my heart; today I am so happy at the thought of seeing you again that I cannot work. Your wife, who loves you more than her own life."

He replies to her: "My dear friend, I cannot return to Alençon until Monday. Time seems long to me, and I can hardly wait to be near you again. I need hardly tell you that your letter gave me great pleasure, except that I see you are wearing yourself out too much. I therefore urge calm and moderation, especially in business. I have a few orders from the Lyons company. Once again, do not worry so much. In the end, with God’s help, we shall have a nice little business. I was happy to receive Communion at Notre-Dame des Victoires, which is like a small paradise on earth. There I also lit a candle for the whole family. I embrace you with all my heart as I await the joy of being reunited with you. I hope Marie and Pauline are being very good! Your husband and true friend, who loves you for his whole life."

 To be continued…