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The Extraordinary Parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin
By Hélène Mongin
Translated by Marsha Daigle-Williamson, Ph.D.
Nihil Obstat
Paris, September 13, 2008
M. Dupuy
Imprimatur
Paris, September 13, 2008
M. Vidal
Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible—Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
© Éditions de l’Emmanuel, 2008, 2015
89 bd Auguste Blanqui, 75013 Paris
English-language copyright © Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division.
Published 2015.
20 19 18 4 5 6 7 8 9
All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts for critical reviews, no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without permission from the publisher.
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ISBN: 978-1-61278-964-4 (Inventory No. T1728)
eISBN: 978-1-61278-970-5
LCCN: 2015947317
Cover design: Lindsey Riesen
Cover art: © Office Central de Lisieux, Carmel de Lisieux, Lisieux sanctuary
Interior design: Dianne Nelson
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To Jean-Paul and Morina,Stéphane and Julie,Patrick and Joséphine,the Martins of tomorrow
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Youth or the Desire for God
Chapter 4: The Vocation of Parents
Chapter 5: The Martin Enterprise
Chapter 6: A Missionary Couple
Chapter 8: Zélie’s Suffering and Passion
Conclusion: Canonizing Saints as a Couple
We, the Ordinary People
God calls some people and sets them apart. But there are people he leaves in the crowd, those that he does not “withdraw from the world.”
These are people who do ordinary work, who have an ordinary family, or who are ordinary single people. These are people with ordinary sicknesses and ordinary sorrows. They live in ordinary houses and wear ordinary clothes. They are people with ordinary lives—people that we meet on any street….
As people on ordinary streets, we believe with our whole hearts that the street, the world that God has placed us in, is the place of our holiness.
It doesn’t matter what work we do, whether we are holding a broom or a pen, speaking or being silent, repairing things or giving a lecture, taking care of a sick person, or typing on a computer.
All of that is only the shell of a splendid reality—the encounter of the soul with God, renewed each moment, growing in grace each minute, always becoming lovelier for God.
Is the doorbell ringing? Quick, let’s open the door. God is coming to love us. Need information? Here it is…. God is coming to love us. Is it time to eat? Let’s sit down to eat because God is coming to love us.
Let’s let him do it.
Madeleine Delbrêl
We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (Nous autres, gens des rues [1971])
Abbreviations
CF Louis et Zélie Martin, Correspondance familiale, 1863-1885, Editions du Cerf, 2004.
HF Father Stéphane-Joseph Piat, O.F.M., Histoire d’une famille, Tequi, 1997.
LT Lettres de Thérèse de L’Enfant-Jésus
PN Poésies
