Transcript

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

"I want to become a saint, but it will not be easy at all." Words of Saint Zélie Martin, wife of Saint Louis Martin, the Mother of the Little Flower.

Before this saint's marriage to her saintly husband, Zélie Guérin, a successful lacemaker, earlier in her life, had tried to enter religious life, but was turned away, being told that she did not have a, a religious vocation.

This devastated her, while her younger sister, Louise, was accepted.

Her sister tried to convince her that she still might have a vocation to become a nun, but Zélie told her, "When we are impeded in achieving something good, God can and does make up to us a hundred-fold in some other way, which we, for the time being perhaps, we cannot see." How true this would prove to be, but her vocation would be to marriage.

It would be shortly after this discussion that Zélie decided to take a walk.

While, when reaching a bridge, she passed by a young man whom she considered to be very handsome.

Their first meeting was something like a fairytale.

As they passed each other, Zélie heard an interior voice saying, "This is he whom I have prepared for you." As she turned to look at him, she noticed that he turned back as well.

She knew then, this was the man she was going to marry.

The man that she had seen on the bridge was Louis Martin, a watchmaker, who also attempted to enter religious life, but was turned down by the Benedictine monks and was told that he did not have a religious vocation.

The couple was married on July 13th, 1858, only three months after they had met.

At first, Louis thought that they would have a Josephite marriage, modeled on the marriage of Saint Joseph and Our Lady, which they did for 10 months.

But as Zélie took counsel from their priest, he encouraged them to have many children.

Zélie wished to populate Heaven, and she would go on to have nine children.

These children would mark out the couple's path to sanctity, a path which, in her own words, "Would not be easy at all." In 1860, Zélie gave birth to their first child, Marie.

Pauline followed a year later, then Léonie.

Zélie was able to nurse all three, but when their fourth child, Hélène, arrived, she was not able to breastfeed.

She was forced to give her to a wet nurse.

Zélie and Louis would then have to wait an entire year for their child to come back to them.

During this time, she wrote to her brother saying that she had missed her daughter ter- terribly and that she could not stop thinking of her.

This would be the beginning of the couple's pain.

Their next two sons, Joseph and John, both died.

The first at five months old and the second at eight months.

The first, Zélie had been missing terribly and just wanted him for the New Year's Day.

And when she decided to bring him home for just a day, she took a long winter walk with her baby, happy to bring him home.

But shortly after, the child came down with an infection and died.

The whole town blamed her for his death, claiming that the child had died because she took him out in the cold too long.

Imagine the trauma of losing a child, now on top of that, being blamed by the who- whole town for it.

The pain was even more acute because Zélie had been dreaming of her son becoming a priest, and was in the process of u- using her lace-making skills to make him beautiful vestments for his future ordination.

Once again, her dreams were shattered.

The couple prayed for another son, and 10 months later, Jean was born, but was in danger from the start.

Zélie's labor pains were so bad that she said it was the most severe pain she ever had felt.

Even the baby was in pain, so much so that the wet nurse was afraid to take him, thinking that he may die.

He eventually developed bronchitis, and when Zélie picked him up from the wet nurse after five months, he had died.The couple vowed now to accept only whatever God would give them.

Imagine this mother's pain.

One can only imagine that by the time their seventh child was on the way, Zélie was fearful, and rightly so.

She wrote to her sister-in-law, "You can't imagine how frightened I am of the future, about this little person that I'm expecting.

It seems to me that the fate of the last two children will be his fate, and it is a never-ending nightmare for me.

I believe the dread is worse than the misfortune.

The fear for me is torture." Still, the saint responded in hope, continuing to go to mass daily.

She related that one morning at mass, "I have such dark thoughts that the best thing I could do is put everything into the hands of God and await the outcome in peace, and abandonment to his will." When the time came, her seventh child, Céline, would in fact live.

This time the couple chose a wet nurse closer to them with hopes that this would be easier on them.

But this wet nurse, Louis eventually discovered, was abandoning the baby while she went off and got drunk.

The couple was able to rescue her in time.

Céline survived the neglect of the wet nurse, but would still have lasting health problems.

Things would get much worse.

While she was pregnant with her eighth child, Mélanie, her other daughter, Hélène, became deathly ill.

Hélène would die in her arms, her head falling gently on her mother's shoulder.

When Louis entered the room, he yelled out with a loud cry, "My little Hélène, my little Hélène." They both offered her up to God together.

After spending the whole night bedside with their daughter, Zélie dressed her and laid her in the coffin.

She said, "I thought I should die myself.

Sometimes I imagine myself slipping away very gently, like my little Hélène.

I assure you, I scarcely cling to life since I lost this child." Becoming a saint is not easy, but as always, Zélie responded with faith.

She said, "We must accept gratefully what the good God gives us, for he knows better than we what is best for us." Zélie's sib- sister comforted her and encouraged her, telling her that one day she will see all her children again.

Her sister told her, "Your crown will be beautiful, very beautiful.

Just now your heart is broken, but by your submitting in all that God wills, there will come a fragrance that will delight the heart of God." Her sister went on to prophesy that the arrival of the great saint that Zélie had longed for, saying, "One day your faith and trust that never flinch will have a magnificent reward.

Be sure God will bless you, and that the measure of your sorrows will be that of the consolations reserved for you.

For after all, if God is pleased with you and wills to give you the great saint you have de- so desired for his glory, will you not be well repaid?" But more thorns would have to come before the little flower.

Given the near death of Céline, and now the death of Hélène, Zélie tried best to breastfeed their eighth child, Mélanie, but was again ordered by the doctor to find a wet nurse immediately.

But as it seems that things could not get much worse, they did.

This wet nurse would also neglect the baby and refuse to feed her, and tragic- tragically, Mélanie was starved to death and died at only seven weeks old.

At this point, only six months after the death of Hélène, a devastated Zélie said, "Oh, I would like to die too." In her memoirs we read, "I often think of mothers who have had the joy of feeding their children themselves.

As for me, I have seen them all die, one after the other." Given this series of deaths, one might think of giving up, of not being able to bear the pain of another loss.

And although deaths of children were not entirely uncommon at this time-The death of their five-year-old, Helene, followed by the neglect and death of Melanie caused Zélie herself to get sick with headaches and fever.

Helene's death especially hit Zélie so hard that she said, "I assure you that I can barely care for my own life.

Ever since I lost this child, I feel a burning desire to see her again." Still, she called these children a source of extraordinary grace.

Having been baptized, they prayed constantly for her and her children who were still on Earth.

She told her sister, "It is a very good thing to have little angels in heaven, but it's no less pain losing them." All the while, her children who were living were not without sickness.

Zélie was always fearful that they would die as well.

Léonie nearly died of measles, Marie from typhoid fever.

We can imagine how emotionally drained this father and mother must've been, pulled in two directions of fear and grief.

With this faith, she and her husband, Louis, continued to bring new life into this world, all for God's glory, all to populate heaven.

When her brother's business was destroyed by fire, she wrote, "One must have a great deal of faith and resignation to accept this setback without complaint and with submission to God's will.

Life is not a bed of roses.

God wills this to detach us from the world and raise our thoughts towards heaven." Soon, her little flower would be born on January 2nd, 1873.

This was the child that would rain rose petals down from heaven.

Thérèse was baptized two days later in their parish church of Notre Dame.

Her older sisters hovered over her as she lay in her beautiful lace baptismal dress, which Zélie had labored many weeks to make.

Zélie tried to hold onto her.

She tried to ignore the incessant pain in her breast while she was trying to nurse Thérèse.

But even Thérèse would become deathly ill and have to be taken away from her mother after only two months.

Yet, another hurdle would occur.

Thérèse bonded to the wet nurse as is natural process, and when Thérèse returned home a little over a year, she cried out, wanting only the wet nurse.

Time and again, Zélie had to call for this woman to gently rock her own daughter to sleep.

How horrible this pain must've been for her to have her child sick, almost die, be given away, and then when her child returns, to feel a sense of rejection because your child has bonded to another woman.

But this would pass, and eventually, Thérèse bonded with Zélie, but Zélie would not be able to enjoy her for long.

Soon, she would come down with cancer.

In just four years, after the birth of Thérèse, Zélie would die.

Thérèse would be her last child.

She held on until then.

On her deathbed, with her husband and all her daughters, at the highest point of her pain, this saintly mother exclaimed, "I must not lose a minute of time that still remains." These days are the days of grace which shall never return.

I desire to profit by them.

A few days later, she died at the age of 46, greeted in heaven by the four children she had lost.

Her mission was complete.

At any moment, Zélie and Louis could've given up.

In the face of so much trauma, so much pain, they could've said, "I just can't take it anymore." Hit after hit, just one of these instances is enough to break the strongest mother.

But Zélie understood her mission was the mission of every Catholic mother, to populate heaven, to give the world saints, to never frustrate God's plan for souls.

But so many people today do so for far less serious r- reasons than Louis and Zélie had.

How many families and Catholic families abuse the rhythm method, natural family planning, which should only be used for serious reasons?How many contracept?

Catholics do this at the same rate as everyone else.

And how many abort when other means fail, or they slip up, as they say?

All for something as trivial as convenience.

Saint Jacinta of Fatima, her words ring true for our time.

She said, "There are many marriages that do not please God." In his encyclical, Casti connubii, Pope Pius XI said, "Among the blessings of marriage, the child holds the first place.

And indeed, the creator of the human race Himself, who in His goodness wishes to use man as His helpers in the propagation of life, taught this when instituting marriage in paradise.

He said to our first parents, and through them to all future spouses, 'Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.'" So what if Louis and Zélie ceased to trust God's plan, which was given from the beginning of creation?

The world would not have nine souls, five of which became religious, one of which is a servant of God, and of course, the last, a saint, the greatest saint of modern times.

Now we can see why Louis and Zélie's own attempts for a religious vocation were denied.

Now we can see why they would receive such an extraordinary grace at their meeting on the bridge, when in Zélie heard that interior voice assuring her of marriage.

This was a source of assurance of God's will that would sustain them throughout the extraordinary trials to come.

We listen to the words of Zélie herself on the matter of trusting in God's plan for children.

One day, a very important exchange took place between her and a neighbor, right after the death of Helene.

Her neighbor said to her, "You know, it's really sad to learn about how all your children keep dying in this way.

Perhaps it would've been better if you have never had them." Zélie was amazed at how this woman could even suggest about the number of children she would have in her life, that it would be better for them had they not been born.

Zélie responded with all the zeal of a true Catholic mother, saying, "Be careful never to say such a thing to me again in your life.

Remember, people can marry and hope for children, but only God can create them and give them to parents.

And who are you to pose your questionable theories between God and His deeds of creation?

Who are you to question or disparage God's wisdom where the destiny of immortal souls is at stake?" The woman then added, "I'm only trying to say that it's a shame you had to suffer for nothing." Zélie replied, "For nothing, you say?" The woman said, "Yes.

Since they are gone, you suffered for nothing." Zélie exclaimed with the words only a saint can say, "Madam, you are more mistaken than ever.

My sufferings were not for nothing.

The fact is that a few temporary anxieties and pains which I endured can never be compared to the eternal happiness of my little ones in heaven." And that's what it's all about.

A parent's primary duty is to populate heaven by producing saints.

And what parents did a better job at this than Louis and Zélie?

All of their living children entered religious life.

All pursued sanctity.

And this is what the devil cannot stand.

He will do anything to stop it.

Venerable Sister Lucía dos Santos said, "The final battle will be over marriage and the family." Is it any wonder the devil tried to stop Zélie from having many children?

Zélie related to her oldest daughter that before Thérèse was born, she experienced a violent attack from the enemy that she never experienced before in her life.

The attack only ceased after calling on Our Lady.

Zélie suspected this occurred because Thérèse was meant for something very special, and she certainly was.

How many souls would be in hell right now had Saint Thérèse not been born?

So many souls would be lost because there wasn't Thérèse there to give them hope and a little way to sanctity.

Countless souls have been saved solely because they fell in love with Thérèse, and she guided them home.

She was their lifeline to heaven.

Zélie's life was like the stem of the rose, covered in thorns.

Her children were the flowers.

On the nine flowers that budded, the littlest flower would be the greatest, the last rose to bloom from the stem of her mother's love.

Thérèse would later say, "The good God gave me a father and mother more worthy of heaven than earth." Zélie's life had not been a bed of roses, but if all parents loved with this love, the world would be a rose garden of saints.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.