By LOUISE KIRK
On Sunday, October 18, in the presence of the fathers gathered for the Family Synod in Rome, Pope Francis raised to the altars the first saints to be canonized as a married couple.
Saints Zélie and Louis Martin made a striking and homely image on the façade of St. Peter’s. How surprised Louis would have been to see himself there on the same building to which he looked up with the young St. Thérèse on their pilgrimage to Rome. Fittingly for a married couple who prayed ardently for religious vocations, Zélie and Louis were canonized alongside an Italian priest, St. Vincenzo Grossi (1845-1917) and a Spanish nun, St. Maria dell’Immacolata Concezione (1926-1998).
Some 50,000 people filled the square, with a large contingent from France and Spain joining the local Italians. There was a joyful air in the warm sun as cardinals and bishops processed into the square followed by the Holy Father.
In his sermon on the Sunday readings, Pope Francis drew on the theme of service exemplified by all four of the new saints. He emphasized that the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah’s prophecy (53:10-11) is depicted as a man of sorrows, despised and shunned, while all the time he was carrying out his mission through suffering.
Jesus is the Servant of the Lord, whose life and death are marked by this utter service through which He brought about our salvation. The disciples, James and John, had to be taught that Christians do not seek places of honor. “Ambition and careerism are incompatible with Christian discipleship.”
All true and fruitful authority is marked by quiet service, whether it is exercised in the Church, in society, or in the family.
Marriage as road to sanctity is again emphasized in Saints Zélie and Louis through the choice of their feast. Most unusually, this is on July 12, the anniversary of their wedding. In 2014, Lorenzo Cardinal Baldisseri, secretary-general of the Family Synod, went himself to celebrate it in the Church of Notre Dame at Alençon where they were married.
Their feast day reading is taken from the wedding feast of Cana. In his sermon there, the cardinal spoke of how love and service make of marriage a holy vocation: “Only the person can love, and only the person can be loved….The person must be loved, because only love corresponds to what the person is.”
Cardinal Baldisseri went on to say that this explains why Christ placed love at the very center of the Gospel “ethos.” Without this understanding of the primacy of love, it is impossible to understand the full dignity of woman and her vocation. “The dignity of woman is intimately linked to the love she receives by the very reason of her femininity, and, secondly, the love she gives in her turn.”
Labor of any kind, male and female, is primarily for humans, and not humans for the job.
Saints Zélie and Louis make history in another way. Theirs are the first relics to be held together in a family reliquary. Relics of the couple and of St. Thérèse are held in various places, but the world’s only family reliquary rests in the Carmelite Monastery of Philadelphia, from where it was brought forth for the recent World Meeting of Families.
The earthiness of giving honor to the physical remains of the saints continues to have a hold on people which surprises many. I can remember the queues that formed around St. Thérèse’s casket when she was brought to England a few years ago, and the astonishment on the face of a photographer for a secular newspaper. “No, I have never seen anything like this.”
Her parents are already having a similar appeal. One man I met had come all the way from America to give back honor to the saints before whose reliquary he had prayed in the U.S. Another young engaged couple from England also came to say thank you.
“Brenden proposed to me at Lisieux in front of their casket. It was such a surprise. His hand was trembling like a leaf and I had no idea why. Then he went down on one knee and asked me to marry him.” They had been praying to the Martins for blessings on their relationship, and now they are praying for grace in their future marriage.
I asked them why the Martins meant so much to them. For both it was because they exemplified through their marriage not only the service of love to which the Pope and Cardinal Baldisseri refer, but also complete trust in divine Providence.
Like the Martins, they are looking forward to having children. “I love every bit of Laura, including her fertility.” Brenden added that for him St. Louis is the role model of a gentle, involved father who knew how to be head of the household without losing his temper.
There was another witness there to the physical presence of the saints in our everyday. After having solemnly brought up the reliquary in procession to the Pope, the little girl walking between her two parents couldn’t help a skip. She was the girl whose miraculous cure had opened the way to the new canonization.
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