Saint Zélie Martin
Saint Zélie Martin (1831–1877), wife of Saint Louis Martin and mother of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, was a devoted Catholic, lace maker, and mother of nine children. Five of her children survived to adulthood and entered religious life. Zélie is remembered for her deep faith, her love for her family, and her holiness in the midst of everyday life.
Zélie endured immense suffering through the loss of four of her children in infancy or early childhood. Her first two sons, Joseph Louis and Joseph Jean-Baptiste, died at just five and eight months old, respectively. Her fourth child, Hélène, died at age five, and another infant, Mélanie Thérèse, died at two months. These heartbreaking losses profoundly shaped Zélie’s spiritual life, as she offered her grief to God with unwavering trust in His will. Her letters reveal both the agony of her maternal sorrow and her deep faith that her children were with God in heaven. Zélie’s courage, maternal love, and sanctity through suffering led to her canonization alongside her husband in 2015—the first married couple to be canonized together.
After their 4th child loss, Zélie wrote, “Tell me that we didn’t have misfortune! Finally, it is over, there is nothing else we can do. The best thing to do is to resign myself. My child is happy and that consoles me.”
Zélie experienced many of the things that all bereaved mothers do. She avoided painful reminders of her loss, refusing to walk on the street where Mélanie died. She would weep at the cemetery while visiting the graves of her children. And she felt the pain of a friend making the insensitive statement that “God surely sees that you could never cope with raising so many children, and he took four of them to Paradise.”
Zélie’s tragedies put her in a position to offer meaningful consolation to others who grieve. A day after receiving a letter from her brother telling her of the loss of his son, Paul, who was stillborn, Zélie replied in a letter to her brother and sister-in-law:
The tragedy you’ve just suffered saddens me deeply. You are truly being tested. This is one of your first sorrows, my poor sister! May God grant you resignation to his holy will. Your dear little baby is at his side. He sees you, he loves you, and you will see him again one day. That is a great consolation I have felt and still feel.
When I closed the eyes of my dear little children and when I buried them, I felt great pain, but it was always with resignation. I didn’t regret the sorrows and the problems that I had endured for them. Several people said to me, “It would be much better never to have had them.” I can’t bear that kind of talk. I don’t think the sorrows and problems could be wished against the eternal happiness of my children. So they weren’t lost forever. Life is short and full of misery. We will see them again in heaven.
Saint Zélie also teaches us that our little ones in heaven can and do intercede for us. When their daughter Helene was suffering from an earache, Zélie was inspired to ask for in the intercession of their son Joseph, who had died five weeks earlier. She told Helene to ask for her brother’s intercession and she was healed from her earache the following day.
Source: Nursery of Heaven, by Cassie Everts and Patrick O’Hearn