(Louis: 1823-1894, Zelie: 1831-1877) Saint Louis Martin, a French watchmaker, and Saint Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin, a lacemaker, had nine children. The five who survived to adulthood all became nuns. The most famous of these children is Saint Therese of Lisieux. Saint Zelie died from breast cancer when the kids were still young. Saint Louis, Therese’s model of holiness, suffered a mental collapse after two strokes and was committed to a sanitarium shortly after she joined the Carmelites.

“As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live” (Pope Saint John Paul II). When the ideal is actualized, family is a source of great grace. When mixed with the fallen world, it can be a source of great trauma. Most of the time, family contains both grace and trauma. Family life is often the microcosm that gives the opportunity to put what we learn in recovery into practice.

“The holy spouses Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin practised Christian service in the family, creating day by day an environment of faith and love, which nurtured the vocations of their daughters, among whom was Saint Therese of the Child Jesus” (Pope Francis, canonization homily on October 18th, 2015).

Reflection by Brad Farmer