Perhaps the wide-spread affection for Louis and Zelie Martin comes from their being real persons with real struggles and real joys.
Both experienced rejection with their initial choice of Christian vocation. Louis first wanted to be a monk and was told he could not become one by religious superiors. Zelie dreamed of serving the sick as a nursing sister but was told she did not have a calling to religious life by the very sisters she longed to join.
While Louis and Zelie experienced failure and disappointment in this way, they came to discover joy, meaning and success through marriage and family. It was precisely as a married couple that Louis and Zelie became holy. They demonstrate how couples can carry each other to God.
They only had 19 years together before Zelie died of breast cancer at the age of 45. Louis remained a single parent the remainder of his life, raising the 5 girls, the youngest of whom was Therese (who only was four years of age when her mom died). All together Louis and Zelie brought 9 children into the world yet four infant children died in a stretch of a little less than four years time.
The genuis of their sanctity is seen splendidly in their radical acceptace of God’s providential care.
The faith was nourished in their home. They took it upon themselves as parents – and later Louis as a single parent – to prepare their children to receive the Holy Sacraments. They openly shared their own personal faith, hope and charity with their daughters. Even though they were very busy at home and in work outside of their home – Zelie was an accomplished lacemaker and Louis was a successful jeweler and watchmaker – they kept their sights set squarely on God wherever they were.
