The Martin family is known for its simple holiness. From St. Therese’s Little Way to Sts. Zelie and Louis being the first married couple canonized together a sort of everday holiness pervades the family from Lisieux. The heart of this family, Marie Azelia “Zelie” Martin is a faithful example of living out one’s vocation with heroic virtue.
Love Your Children with Real Affection
When they began their married life, Zelie and Louis did not intend to have children but had decided to live total abstinence. However, they switched course at the advice of their confessors and became determined to have many children they could offer to God.
In a letter to her second eldest daughter, Pauline, Zelie speaks of the sincere affection she and Louis had for their children.
We lived only for them; they were all our happiness and outside of them we desired no other.
This did not however, mean Zelie spoiled her children. The accounts of her daughters show the dedication she had to rooting out vice and fostering virtue in the young souls God had given her. During St. Therese’s beatification process, the two eldest sisters attested that
Mother watched very carefully over the souls of her children…. It was a kind and loving education, but always vigilant and careful.
In her book, The Mother of the Little Flower Celine Martin describes her mother’s method for teaching her children virtue “wherein severity was enveloped in tenderness”. She recalls
though Mother corrected us for the least sign of defects, she also liked to see us cheerful and full of life. She even willingly played with us, at the risk of having her own day’s work prolonged to midnight or after.
Zelie’s care for her children’s souls was balanced and sweetened by her affectionate disposition towards them. Even as the breast cancer that would take her life progressed, she was focused on her children’s happiness and needs. Her eldest daughter Marie recorded Zelie’s self-forgetful love in a letter to family. She recalls her mother saying
My poor children. I can no longer take you for a walk, although I have been so anxious to make you happy.
Desire Sainthood for Your Children
Zelie did not just want her children to be happy and loved, she wanted them to be saints.
In 1875, when Therese was almost 3, Zelie wrote to Pauline that she would be lighting a candle on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception as was her custom saying that this year her prayer to Our Lady would be
that those [daughters] she has given me may all become saints, and that I may follow them closely; but they must be much better than I.
This was not a passing sentiment. It was a constant prayer, a mother’s anxiety, and a goal she was willing to sacrifice all for. Though Zelie, of course was concerned with all her children, Celine relates that “it was especially with Leonie that Mamma had the greatest difficulty”. In another letter, worrying over this daughter as her own illness progressed, Zelie says:
It is Leonie’s future which worries me most. I ask myself: ‘what will become of her when I am gone?’ It frightens me! If the sacrifice of my life were necessary to make a saint of her, I would gladly offer it.
Zelie understood that sanctity and ultimately Heaven were the true goal for each of her children. When each baby was born she would pray that
nothing may tarnish the purity of [the baby’s] soul. If ever it would be lost, I prefer that You should take it without delay.
Of the nine children Zelie gave birth to, only five survived to adulthood.
In addition to their moral formation and sanctity, Zelie also considered her children’s path to holiness, their vocations. She saw signs that her eldest, Marie, might have a religious vocation. Zelie wrote:
truly I desire it only if it be the Will of God for her. Provided that she follow the vocation that He will give her, I shall be happy.
It would seem Zelie’s hopes and prayers for her daughters were answered. All five entered religious life, one is a canonized Saint and Doctor of the Church, while another has her cause for canonization open.
Trust in God
Above all, Zelie had a firm faith and a deep trust in God. This shaped all her interactions, including those with her children. This trust in God is seen in another letter to her sister-in-law when both women were pregnant. By this time, Zelie had lost two sons.
I am delighted at the thought that next August we shall each have a baby boy – at least, I hope so. But little boy or girl, we must gratefully accept what God sends us, for He knows better than we what we need most.
Celine recalls that her mother would often say “the good God who is a Father never sends His children more than they can bear.” Indeed, Zelie bore much. After losing four young children, she suffered intensely with breast cancer before succumbing to the disease. When her sister-in-law lost a child at birth, Zelie wrote to her with great empathy expressing why she had hope in the midst of her own losses.
Many persons said to me: ‘it would have been better for you if you had never had them.’ I could not bear that kind of talk. I do not think that the sorrows and the troubles endured could possibly be compared with the eternal happiness of my children with God. Besides, they are not lost to me forever; life is short and filled with crosses, and we shall find them again in Heaven.
Because of her faith, Zelie knew that the sufferings of this life are temporary. As her illness grew worse, she travelled to Lourdes, France praying for a miracle. Yet, she remained resigned and sober in the truth that a miracle might not be God’s will. She spoke plainly of this in a letter to her daughter, Pauline, then a teenager.
We must prepare ourselves to be ready to accept generously the will of God, whatever it may be. It will always be what is best for us.
After losing multiple children, after changing her life’s direction multiple times, Zelie could still trust that God’s plan was for our good. Though she died when her youngest, Therese, was only four, Zelie left a lasting impact on her family and the world as she continues to be a holy example of Catholic motherhood.
All quotations taken from The Mother of the Little Flower by Celine Martin.