History and Significance of the Relics of Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin
Louis and Zélie were married on July 13, 1858, in the Church of Notre-Dame d’Alençon at midnight. Both wanted to live married life as religious, but their spiritual director advised them to serve God by having children. Louis and Zélie had seven daughters and two sons; four died in infancy. They wished the best for their children: to become saints. Prayer was embedded throughout their daily lives and the Eucharist was at the heart of their day. They went to early morning Mass each day with their children and were exemplary in generosity toward their children, employees, neighbors, and the poor. Every day Louis and Zélie submitted their marriage to God, living their motto, “God must be served first.” On October 18, 2015, they were canonized by Pope Francis — the first non-martyred spouses to be canonized together as a couple in the history of the Church.
History and Significance of the Relics of St. Thérèse
From an early age, it was Thérèse’s ambition to be a saint. Her early childhood was marked by the death of her mother when she was four and a half. When her elder sister Pauline entered the Carmelite monastery in Lisieux, Thérèse felt she had lost her second mother, and shortly afterward suffered a painful three-week illness with a high fever, feeling healed after her sisters placed a statue of the Virgin Mary at the foot of her bed. She felt a strong calling to enter Carmel at age 15; initially denied because of her young age (even after asking the Pope himself), she eventually joined her two sisters in the Carmel of Lisieux.
St. Thérèse gave us her “little way” of confidence and love — not doing great works but doing little things with the power of God’s love. She died at the age of 24 from tuberculosis. After her death, her writings were read and loved all over the world. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI on May 17, 1925, only 27 years after her death. On October 19, 1997, Pope St. John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Catholic Church — one of only four female saints among 37 doctors of the Church. Pope Pius X referred to her as “the greatest saint of modern times.”
The visit to the Archdiocese (October 4–15, 2023) of the relics of St. Thérèse and Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of St. Thérèse (1873), the 100th anniversary of her beatification (1923), and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Martin (1823).