Pope Francis formally approved the decrees necessary for Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin –the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux – to be declared saints later this year.
The two blessed will be the first spouses in the history of the Church to be canonized as a couple at the same ceremony, which will be held on Oct. 18, 2015, in the Vatican. The event will take place fewer than three weeks after the Oct. 1 feast of their daughter, and doctor of the Church, St. Therese of the Child Jesus.
The canonizations of the married couple will coincide with the Synod on the Family, to be held on Oct. 4-25. The three-week gathering of bishops will be the second and larger of two such gatherings to take place in the course of a year. The focus of the 2015 Synod of Bishops will be the family, with the theme: “The vocation and mission of the family in the church and the modern world.”
The Watchmaker Louis Martin (1823-1894)
Born into a family of soldiers, Louis spent his early years at various French military posts. He absorbed the sense of order and discipline that army life engenders. His temperament, deeply influenced by the peculiar French connection between the mystical and the military, tended toward things of the spirit.
At 22, young Louis sought to enter an Augustinian monastery in Switzerland, but the Canons Regular at Grand-St. Bernard refused him entrance because he did not know Latin. During the next 10 months, Louis took more than 100 Latin lessons from a priest in Alençon. In the end, though, he ended these studies and moved 120 miles away to Paris, where he apprenticed as a clock and watchmaker. At 27, Louis completed his apprenticeship, returned to Alençon and opened a successful business. A lover of silence and solitude, he “diligently fulfilled his religious duties and cultivated union with God, prayer and meditation, for which he showed a special propensity,” in the words of the 1994 Vatican decree on his heroic virtues.
The Lace Maker Zelie Guerin (1831-1877)
Zelie Guerin was one of Alencon’s more talented lace makers. Born into a military family, Zelie described her childhood and youth as “dismal.” Her mother and father showed her little affection. As a young lady, she sought to enter the Daughters of Charity in Alençon but was refused admission for reasons that are no longer known. The following year, while praying to the Blessed Mother about her future, she heard an interior voice tell her to “see to the making of Alençon lace,” an aristocratic style of lace. Zelie then learned the Alencon lace-making technique and soon mastered this painstaking craft. Richly talented, creative, eager, and endowed with common sense, she started her own business and became quite successful. Notable as these achievements were, Zelie was yet to reveal the depths of the strength, faith, and courage she possessed.
To Be Continued….