Saint Who?
Saints Who Fostered Vocations to the Priesthood
Saints Louis and Zélie Martin
Married Couple († 1894, † 1877)July 12
Louis and Zélie Martin suffered many painful losses in their family. Three of their children died in infancy, another died suddenly at the age of five. The Martins accepted these crosses with supernatural peace, and prayed faithfully for their surviving children’s vocations.
They longed to give God “a great saint,” whom they had envisioned as a missionary priest like Saint Francis Xavier. (In fact, Louis was devoted to the missions so much he occasionally signed himself “Xavier.”) Louis, who raised his girls after their mother’s death from cancer, took great pains to help them in their discernment. He traveled with them so they could meet with spiritual directors and bishops, took them on pilgrimages, and offered his financial support.
God answered the Martins’ prayers for a priest-son through their daughter Thérèse. As a nun, she became spiritual sister to two priests, whom, she was sure, her good parents would welcome as their own sons. “I was told before my birth my parents were hoping that their great desire (to have a missionary son) was to be realized. If they had been able to penetrate the future, they would have seen that indeed it was through me their hopes would be accomplished.” Thérèse, called “the greatest saint of modern times” by Pope Pius X, was canonized in 1925. Soon after she was named patroness of missions, as well as patron of the Society of Saint Peter the Apostle, specially dedicated to funding seminaries.
Good Father, may families foster many holy vocations, consoled and inspired by the wonders you worked
in the lives of Saints Louis and Zélie Martin.
