{"id":489,"date":"2008-10-20T01:05:20","date_gmt":"2008-10-20T05:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/?p=489"},"modified":"2008-12-15T09:37:10","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T06:37:10","slug":"louis-and-zelie-martin-beatification-201008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/story\/louis-and-zelie-martin-beatification-201008\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis and Z\u00e9lie Martin Beatification-20\/10\/08"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Venerable Louis and Z\u00e9lie Martin, the parents of Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face, were beatified on Mission Sunday, October 19, in the basilica dedicated to their daughter at Lisieux in France. The first parents of a saint to be beatified, they are the first spouses in the history of the Church to be proposed for sainthood as a couple and the second to be beatified together.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Z\u00e9lie and Louis are an inspiration to the families of today. Each owned a small business and worked hard while raising a large family. In the 19th century this two-career couple faced the challenges we face in the 21st: finding good child care; achieving professional excellence; operating a profitable business; caring for aging parents; educating a special-needs child; forming their children in the faith; finding time to pray and to be active in their parish.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Devout Catholics, they saw Christ in the poor and worked for a just society. In 1877 Z\u00e9lie died of breast cancer, leaving Louis a single parent with five minor daughters to bring up. Later Louis was diagnosed with cerebral arteriosclerosis and spent three years in a psychiatric hospital.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like us, Louis and Z\u00e9lie could not control their circumstances. Life came at them unexpectedly, just as it comes at us. They could not prevent their tragedies: the Franco-Prussian war, when they had to house nine German soldiers; the infant deaths of four of their nine children, one from abuse by a wet-nurse; their painful diseases; Z\u00e9lie\u2019s premature death. Nor could they escape their responsibilities as business owners, caregivers, spouses, and parents. Their genius lay in how they accepted what happened to them: they accepted their own powerlessness, that God might be all-powerful in their lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They taught the same radical openness to their youngest daughter, Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, now a doctor of the Church. Z\u00e9lie and Louis were not declared \u201cblessed\u201d because of Th\u00e9r\u00e8se. She became a saint because of them. They created an environment that invited her to holiness, and she responded freely to the invitation they offered her.
\nThey offer the same invitation to us.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We know many \u201cmarried saints,\u201d but most canonized saints have not been married. In recognizing Louis and Z\u00e9lie as a blessed couple, the Church points to the mystery of the vocation of marriage, the way of life in which most people are called to reach the common goal of all Christians: sainthood. Engaged unreservedly in the responsibilities of daily life, Z\u00e9lie and Louis became saints in the fabric of their marriage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They epitomize the words of Pope John Paul II: \u201cHeroism must become daily, and the daily must become heroic.\u201d They are the heroes of the everyday.Jose Cardinal Saraiva Martins will preside at the Beatification Mass at the Basilica of Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se in Lisieux on Mission Sunday, October 19.<\/strong><\/p>\n

if you want to read more about them please follow this link:<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.thereseoflisieux.org<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Venerable Louis and Z\u00e9lie Martin, the parents of Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face, were beatified on Mission Sunday, October 19, in the basilica dedicated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[90],"tags":[204,15,580,126,91],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-story","tag-beatification","tag-christianism","tag-christianity","tag-saint-therese","tag-story-of-the-day"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}