When Louis Martin and Zélie Guérin, devout Catholics both, got married in 1858, they didn’t have sex. Nope. Not for 10 long months, until Zélie (God bless her) dragged her new husband to an old priest who straightened him out on the church’s view on holy sex and the sanctity of procreation. Good thing. Zélie bore nine children, five of whom joined religious orders. The youngest, Thérèse, became known as the “Little Flower,” and you likely know the rest…
Well, her parents were beatified yesterday (the last step before canonization) in the basilica of Lisieux, in France. Father Jim Martin, an editor at America magazine and a prolific author whose book, “My Life With the Saints” is a must read, has the whole story of this holy couple, via The Wall Street Journal article, “His Wife’s a Saint, So Is Her Husband”…
The Lisieux ceremony follows the Vatican’s approval, in July, of the required miracle — the healing of a man with a malformation of the lung. But the beatification raises questions about the models of life being presented to Catholics. What can a man and woman who planned to live celibately say to married couples today?
posted October 20, 2008 at 10:29 am
I think Louis and Zélie as saints have a lot to say to young married people today. (I say this as someone who’s four months away from becoming one – a young married, not a saint.) For instance, a wife who straightens out her husband’s crazy ideas about marital celibacy is a great model of female strength in place of submissiveness: too many people still believe that the Bible advocates women agreeing to whatever their husbands demand. From all accounts, their home was a living example of love. And I’d be glad to emulate them if it produced a daughter as wise and sensible and loving as St. Therese! (To say nothing about their other children, which is probably unfair to them, but I’m short on time and space.)
I also like the idea that, in spite of struggling with mental illness after Zélie’s death, Louis is a candidate for sainthood. That’s meaningful to people who, while fighting their own mental illnesses, feel that heaven is out of their reach. I think it will be helpful to people who have a mental illness to hear that, through God, they can be saintly, too.
posted October 20, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I always thought that mental illness was one of the qualifications for sainthood.
posted October 20, 2008 at 11:05 pm
A great and hopeful story! And, a loving testament to how Saints are molded by loving families. Therese knew love growing up and then freely shared with others. I’m sure she is continuing to do that, interceding and allowing a spiritual shower of roses to fall upon Mr. Comisano, whether he likes it or not!