St. Zélie Martin
Zélie Martin wrote almost everything down. That is why she is the rarest kind of saint: one whose marriage, work, money worries, grief and faith can be read in her own hand.
The Life and Witness of Zélie Martin.
Marie-Azélie Guérin, always called Zélie, was a Point d’Alençon lacemaker who employed a workshop of home workers, married a watchmaker at thirty-six hours’ notice of midnight, bore nine children in thirteen years, buried four of them, and died of breast cancer at forty-five. Her surviving correspondence is one of the fullest records anywhere of nineteenth-century Catholic family life from the inside.
She was born at Gandelain, in the commune of Saint-Denis-sur-Sarthon, on December 23, 1831, the second child of Isidore Guérin, a soldier turned gendarme, and Louise-Jeanne Macé. The family moved to Alençon in 1844 and took the house at what is now 50 rue Saint-Blaise. Her childhood was strict and she said so; her elder sister entered the Visitation at Le Mans, and Zélie asked to enter religious life herself and was refused. She turned instead to the town’s trade. By about 1853 she had set up as a manufacturer of Point d’Alençon lace, assembling the work of home lacemakers into finished pieces, and the business became the household’s living.
She met Louis Martin on a bridge over the Sarthe in the spring of 1858 and married him at midnight on July 13 that year, hours after the civil ceremony. Nine children were born between 1860 and 1873: Marie, Pauline, Léonie, Hélène, two boys both called Joseph, Céline, Mélanie-Thérèse, and Thérèse. Hélène died at five, both boys as infants, Mélanie-Thérèse at two months. Five daughters survived, and all five entered religious life. Zélie’s letters do not tidy any of this. They contain the money, the illnesses, the servants, the lace orders, the exhaustion, the children’s characters, the fear, and the faith, usually in the same paragraph.
She noticed a swelling in her breast years before she was willing to have it examined. By the end of 1876 the disease was diagnosed as incurable. She went to Lourdes with three of her daughters in June 1877 and was not cured, and she wrote about that too, without bitterness and without pretending. She died in the rue Saint-Blaise house on August 28, 1877, at forty-five. Thérèse was four and a half years old, and later described the day in some of the most restrained paragraphs of Story of a Soul. Zélie’s funeral was sung at Notre-Dame d’Alençon, the church where she had been married and where her youngest child had been baptized.
In November 1877 Louis moved the surviving daughters to Lisieux. Zélie never lived there; her relics arrived long after. Pope Benedict XVI beatified her with Louis at Lisieux on October 19, 2008, and Pope Francis canonized them together in Rome on October 18, 2015, during the Synod on the Family, the first married couple canonized together in modern times. Their memorial is July 12, the anniversary of the wedding at Alençon.
Zélie is a saint for people whose holiness has to be worked out around a business, a household budget and a sickbed. She is not remembered for a single heroic act. She is remembered because she left enough of herself on paper that no one can sentimentalise her.
A saint who knew this
The Church has never named Zélie Martin a patron of cancer, and this is not that claim. It is what that life actually met, set down here because people carrying the same thing come looking for someone who did.
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Cancer
She died of breast cancer at forty-five, after traveling to Lourdes and not being cured. This is companionship in suffering, not a claim that she is a patron of cancer.
A life, in years and approximate ages.
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December 23, 18310Birth at GandelainMarie-Azélie Guérin is born at Gandelain, in Saint-Denis-sur-Sarthon, the second child of a gendarme and his wife.
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184412The Guérins move to rue Saint-BlaiseThe family settles in Alençon, in the house she will one day bring her own children back to. She is educated at the convent of the Perpetual Adoration in the town.
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c. 1853about 21Refused for religious life, and a trade insteadShe asks to be admitted to religious life and is turned down; the sanctuary records the refusal without dating it. She learns Point d’Alençon lace instead, and by about 1853 has set up as a manufacturer, assembling the work of home lacemakers into finished pieces. The business becomes the household’s living.
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July 13, 185826Marriage to Louis MartinThree months after meeting him on a bridge over the Sarthe, Zélie marries Louis Martin. The civil ceremony is on the evening of July 12; the sacrament is celebrated at Notre-Dame d’Alençon at midnight on July 13.
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1860–187328–41Nine children in thirteen yearsMarie, Pauline, Léonie, Hélène, two sons both named Joseph, Céline, Mélanie-Thérèse and Thérèse are born. Hélène dies at five, both boys in infancy, Mélanie-Thérèse at two months. The five surviving daughters all enter religious life. Zélie runs the lace business throughout, and from 1871 her husband works in it with her.
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January 2, 187341The birth of ThérèseHer ninth and last child is born in the rue Saint-Blaise house and baptized two days later at Notre-Dame. Feeding difficulties force Zélie to place her with a wet nurse, Rose Taillé, at Semallé from March 1873 until April 1874.
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1876–187745Incurable cancer, and LourdesThe breast tumour she had lived with for years is diagnosed as incurable at the end of 1876. In June 1877 she travels to Lourdes with three of her daughters and is not cured. Her letters from this period record the illness plainly and without despair.
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August 28, 187745Death at 50 rue Saint-BlaiseZélie dies in the family house at forty-five, with her husband and her brother beside her. Her funeral is sung at Notre-Dame d’Alençon. Thérèse is four. In November Louis takes the five daughters to Lisieux.
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October 19, 2008After deathBeatification at LisieuxLouis and Zélie Martin are beatified together in the Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse at Lisieux.
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October 18, 2015After deathCanonization in RomePope Francis canonizes Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin in Saint Peter’s Square during the Synod on the Family, the first married couple canonized together in modern times. Their memorial is kept on July 12.
Dates are approximate where the surviving record is traditional or incomplete.
3 places where this witness remains visible.
Maison Martin, Alençon
The house at 50 rue Saint-Blaise, the Guérin family home she lived in from 1844 until her marriage and the Martin family home from 1871. Thérèse was born here in January 1873 and Zélie died here in August 1877. The chapel built against it in 1928 holds relics of Louis, Zélie and Thérèse.
Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse, Lisieux
The pilgrimage basilica raised over Lisieux after her youngest daughter’s canonization. Zélie died in 1877 and never saw the town; the reliquaries of Louis and Zélie are venerated in the crypt.
Basilique Notre-Dame d’Alençon
The parish church of central Alençon, raised to a minor basilica in 2009. Zélie was married here at midnight on July 13, 1858, her youngest daughter was baptized here in January 1873, and her funeral was sung here in August 1877.
Alençon is hers. Lisieux holds her relics.
Zélie lived in Alençon from the age of twelve until she died there at forty-five. She never saw Lisieux as home, and the family moved there three months after her funeral.
She lived here as a girl from 1844, came back to it as a married woman in 1871, and died in it in August 1877. It is the principal site of the Alençon sanctuary.
Married here at midnight in July 1858, her youngest daughter baptized here in January 1873, her funeral sung here in August 1877.
Her relics are venerated in the crypt of the Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse. It is worth knowing, standing there, that she never set foot in the town.
Died at Alençon, venerated at Lisieux.
Zélie died and was buried from Alençon. Her relics and Louis’s are now venerated together in the crypt of the Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse at Lisieux, a town she never lived in, and a further reliquary of the three canonized Martins is kept in the chapel beside the Alençon house.
A principal relic site is named, with other fragments or reliquaries noted separately.
Maison Martin, Alençon
The house at 50 rue Saint-Blaise, the Guérin family home she lived in from 1844 until her marriage and the Martin family home from 1871. Thérèse was born here in January 1873 and Zélie died here in August 1877. The chapel built against it in 1928 holds relics of Louis, Zélie and Thérèse.
- Relics of Saints Louis and Zélie Martin and of Saint Thérèse, in the Sainte-Thérèse chapel
This is the one building in the world that was hers for most of her life. Give it more time than the basilica.
Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse, Lisieux
The pilgrimage basilica raised over Lisieux after her youngest daughter’s canonization. Zélie died in 1877 and never saw the town; the reliquaries of Louis and Zélie are venerated in the crypt.
- The reliquaries of Saints Louis and Zélie Martin, in the crypt
The crypt closes about a quarter of an hour before the basilica does.
Saints Connected to Zélie Martin
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Saint Louis Martin
Her husband, canonized with her in 2015, who gave up his own trade to work in her business. -
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
Her ninth child, born in the Alençon house and four years old when Zélie died. -
Saint Monica
The other canonized mother whose sanctity is inseparable from her children.
Kept on July 12.
Louis and Zélie Martin share a memorial on July 12, the anniversary of their wedding at Alençon in 1858. It is a rare thing in the Roman calendar: a memorial kept for a husband and wife together.
Alençon is Zélie’s town in a way Lisieux is not: she lived there from twelve until her death and never lived at Lisieux at all. Her relics, however, are at Lisieux, in the basilica crypt.
Photo credits
- Saint page. Unidentified photographer, c. 1875. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. Public Domain.
- Maison Martin, Alençon. Maison natale de Sainte Thérèse, maison de Louis et Zélie Martin. Photo: Pierre-Yves Emile, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse, Lisieux. Photo: Scryb, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Basilique Notre-Dame d’Alençon. Alençon (Orne) - Basilique Notre-Dame - Porche. Photo: Patrick Monchicourt (Morio60), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. CC BY-SA 2.0.