Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin

Their story

Louis Martin, a watchmaker, and Zélie Guérin, a skilled maker of Alençon lace, each hoped as young adults to enter religious life, and each was turned away. They met in Alençon, France, and married in 1858. They soon discovered that marriage itself was their path to holiness. Louis and Zélie had nine children. Four died in infancy or early childhood, a sorrow they carried with deep faith. Zélie ran a successful lace business, and Louis eventually left watchmaking to help her. Their home was ordinary and busy, but it was built on prayer. They went to Mass early each morning, kept Sundays holy, cared for the poor, and taught their daughters by example to love God above all. In 1877 Zélie died of breast cancer at forty-five. Louis moved with his five daughters to Lisieux to be near family and raised them with tenderness. One by one, all five girls entered religious life. The youngest became St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who said that God had given her parents more worthy of heaven than of earth. In his last years Louis suffered a serious illness that affected his mind, a humiliating trial he offered to God. He died in 1894. In 2015 Pope Francis canonized Louis and Zélie together, the first married couple canonized as a couple.