This Sunday, July 12, is the feast of Saints Louis and Marie-Azélie Martin, canonised together by Pope Francis in 2015. July 12th was chosen as their feast because it was on this day in 1858 that they married at the Notre Dame Basilica in Alencon, France and committed themselves together to living to the full the Sacrament of Marriage, and it’s two-fold call not just to human, but eternal love and life.
Their feast this year falls on a Sunday, so Sunday’s Mass for the 15th Sunday of Year A takes priority; and rightly so.
We as a parish wish to honour Saint Teresa’s saintly parents. Much has been written about the Martin family. Their story is truly remarkable and I encourage you to connect with them in the world of prayer. Our parish is blessed to have such spiritual connections with Heaven.
We see that very clearly in the life of the Martins. They were both already seeking holiness prior to their marriage: Louis had spent time in an Augustinian monastery but couldn’t master Latin and Zelie had sought to become a Sister of Charity, but because of respiratory difficulties and migraines, was not accepted. God had another holy vocation in mind for both of them.
Zelie prayed that God would bless her with many children who could become consecrated to God. God blessed them with nine; four of whom died soon after they were divinely consecrated in Baptism, while the other five discerned vocations to live out a more intimate form of consecration as religious sisters.
The most famous of their children is St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who spoke effusively about how she had been blessed with “incomparable parents” and how God had given her “a mother and father more worthy of Heaven than of earth.”
At holy Mass today, and in the days to come, think of your own Mum and Dad and thank God for them; not just for cooperating with God in giving you life and for their collaborating with God in leading you to Him, but also to the Church.
Married couples, like Louis and Zelie Martin, like your parents, like my parents Hugh and Mary, are also called by God to be Church builders. Blessings to your parents and to the day they got married. Today’s feast of the first married couple canonised together, is a chance to celebrate God’s power working through the Sacrament of Marriage to sanctify marriages and families, make them true domestic Churches and thereby build up the Church on earth and the communion of Saints in Heaven.
Their feast this year falls on a Sunday, so Sunday’s Mass for the 15th Sunday of Year A takes priority; and rightly so.
We as a parish wish to honour Saint Teresa’s saintly parents. Much has been written about the Martin family. Their story is truly remarkable and I encourage you to connect with them in the world of prayer. Our parish is blessed to have such spiritual connections with Heaven.
We see that very clearly in the life of the Martins. They were both already seeking holiness prior to their marriage: Louis had spent time in an Augustinian monastery but couldn’t master Latin and Zelie had sought to become a Sister of Charity, but because of respiratory difficulties and migraines, was not accepted. God had another holy vocation in mind for both of them.
Zelie prayed that God would bless her with many children who could become consecrated to God. God blessed them with nine; four of whom died soon after they were divinely consecrated in Baptism, while the other five discerned vocations to live out a more intimate form of consecration as religious sisters.
The most famous of their children is St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who spoke effusively about how she had been blessed with “incomparable parents” and how God had given her “a mother and father more worthy of Heaven than of earth.”
At holy Mass today, and in the days to come, think of your own Mum and Dad and thank God for them; not just for cooperating with God in giving you life and for their collaborating with God in leading you to Him, but also to the Church.
Married couples, like Louis and Zelie Martin, like your parents, like my parents Hugh and Mary, are also called by God to be Church builders. Blessings to your parents and to the day they got married. Today’s feast of the first married couple canonised together, is a chance to celebrate God’s power working through the Sacrament of Marriage to sanctify marriages and families, make them true domestic Churches and thereby build up the Church on earth and the communion of Saints in Heaven.
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