Saints Who Married Saints: Louis Martin & Marie-Azélie “Zélie” Guérin
Patronage: marriage, illness, Catholic creators
Feast day: July 12
Happy October, y’all! This month, I’m really excited to tell you about a couple who you might not realize you know! I opened this Married Saints series with blesseds Luigi & Maria Beltrame Quattrocchis who were the first couple to be beatified together. October’s couple was also beatified together, 7 years after Luigi and Maria, but they hold the distinction of being the first spouses to be canonized together. Prior to meeting each other, Louis Martin pursued becoming a monk and Marie-Azélie “Zélie” Guérin wanted to become a nun but they were both rejected from the religious life, Louis for his failing to learn Latin and Zélie for recurring health issues. They both became Catholic creators, as Louis studied watchmaking and Zélie manufactured Alençon lace (a needle lace sometimes referred to as the “Queen of lace”). After three months of dating, Louis and Zélie married on July 12, 1858.
As an aside, Zélie’s lace making business would become so successful that Louis sold his watchmaking business to partner with Zélie. I love this example of husband supporting his entrepreneur wife.
They had found the perfect match in one another. Their hearts were already aligned in their pursuit of religious life, and they seemingly tried to create their own religious vocation within their married life as they lived celibately for the first 10 months of their marriage. But their spiritual director encouraged them to consummate their marriage, and this trust in their spiritual director led to nine children, including five daughters who would survive infancy, all of whom became Catholic nuns.
Have you figured out how you know about Sts. Louis and Zélie yet? Their youngest daughter was born on January 2, 1873, and was not expected to survive long outside the womb. After their four loses already, Zélie and Louis prepared for the worst. Zélie wrote, “I have no hope of saving her. The poor little thing suffers horribly … It breaks your heart to see her.”1 But this little girl grew stronger and became a Carmelite nun named Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face — or Thérèse of Lisieux. Louis was a lover of nature and gardening, and is credited for sharing his love of flowers and meadows with her.
After only 19 years of marriage, Zélie passed away from breast cancer in 1877. Her funeral was held in the same church as she had married Louis. After her death, Louis sold the lace making business and moved to Lisieux. Twelve years later, Louis suffered from two paralyzing strokes and was temporarily hospitalized before returning to Lisieux. He passed away in 1894.
I think this is a really beautiful example of two faithful Catholics, in love with God and their Church, running after the same amazing goal, but ultimately finding God’s greater plan instead. Their story also highlights that marriage is a vocation just as important as religious life. While this story might, at first glance, make marriage seem like a backup plan to a religious vocation, I believe that the fruits of their marriage (their constant devotion to one another, their beautiful daughters, and their ultimate canonization) shows that this was their calling all along.
The couple was declared venerable by St. Pope John Paul II in 1994 and beatified in 2008 in the Basilica of Saint Thérèse in Lisieux by Pope Benedict XVI. I can’t even imagine how incredible it would be to not only be beatified along with my spouse, but to have such an occasion take place in a church devoted to my daughter. It is such an amazing life story — both their first life and the next — that truly illustrates how God can make such masterpieces through our lives. Pope Francis canonized Louis and Zélie in 2015.
