Saints Louis and Zélie Martin

Saints Louis and Zélie Martin were a French married couple from Alençon and the parents of nine children, among them Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. They are the first married couple to be canonized together. The Church commemorates them on July 12, the anniversary of their wedding.

Louis was born in Bordeaux on August 22, 1823. As a young man he thought of religious life at the hospice on the Great Saint Bernard Pass, but, discouraged by the difficult study of Latin, he gave up the plan. He became a watchmaker and settled in Alençon. Zélie Guérin was born on December 23, 1831, in Gandelain near Saint-Denis-sur-Sarthon. She too longed for religious life, but poor health and the negative judgment of the superior of the Daughters of Charity in Alençon closed that path to her. She learned to make the famous Alençon lace and ran her own workshop, where she employed many workers.

In 1858 they met on the Saint-Léonard bridge in Alençon, and a few months later they married: on the evening of July 12 they contracted the civil marriage, and at midnight, already July 13, they were united in the sacrament of marriage in the church of Notre-Dame. In the course of thirteen years nine children were born to them, four of whom died in early childhood. They took part in Mass every day, were generous to the poor, supported the missions and were involved in the life of the parish. Their motto was “Dieu premier servi,” that is, “God first served.”

Zélie wrote many letters to her family. The surviving correspondence shows the daily life of the Martin home: work, prayer, joy at the birth of children and grief at their loss. Zélie fell ill with breast cancer and died in Alençon on August 28, 1877. To secure a better future for his five daughters, Louis moved with them to Lisieux, where their uncle and aunt Guérin lived.

All the daughters chose religious life: Marie, Pauline, Céline and Thérèse entered the Carmel of Lisieux, and Léonie the Visitation nuns in Caen. Louis welcomed their vocations as a special gift to the family. In the last years of his life he suffered from cerebral arteriosclerosis and spent three years in the Bon Sauveur hospital in Caen. He died on July 29, 1894, at La Musse near Évreux, on the property of the Guérin family.

In the apostolic letter for their beatification Benedict XVI wrote that, by the power of the sacrament of marriage and following the example of the Holy Family of Nazareth, they bore witness to their love for God, the Virgin Mary, the poor and the missions. Cardinal José Saraiva Martins beatified them on behalf of the pope on October 19, 2008, in Lisieux, after a miracle attributed to their intercession had been recognized. Pope Francis canonized them on October 18, 2015, in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome, during the Synod of Bishops devoted to the family. In the same year the cause of beatification of their daughter Léonie was opened.