Translating a World on the Edge

Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin

Twice now, I’ve addressed The Daughters of Mary at St. Ignatius Church in Mobile, Alabama. This group of beautiful women, founded by my longtime friend, Deborah Madonia, is special.  Their purpose is a renewal of faith and family. Believe me–they do it well!

This post, about the first married couple to be proposed for canonization, is written by Mary Ann McConnell, one of the members of The Daughters of Mary, and was sent out in a newsletter to its members. I think it’s wonderful, very interesting, and I know you will, too. So, here it is. Thank you, Mary Ann!

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Zelie and Louis Martin: These are the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux or St. Therese of the Little Flower of Jesus. This couple were the first parents of a saint to be beatified and the first married couple to be proposed for canonization. The canonization should take place during the world synod of bishops on the family in October 2015. I was amazed when I heard Father announce this in church a few weeks ago. My thoughts were “They raised a saint and now they are going to be canonized saints too!” What role models for us! Isn’t that what we want to do – raise our children to be holy – but to be saints? Wow! What did they do? I wanted to know.

I researched the web and one article stated, “They were not saintly because they raised a saint; they raised a saint because they were saintly.” What do married saints look or act like?

Both Zelie Guerin and Louis Martin came from prosperous French families. They each were masters of crafts: Zelie was a maker of point d’Alencon lace and started her own business. Louis learned clock making and eventually opened his own watch-making and jewelry business. As each were growing up they were blessed with a strong faith. Each hoped to become a religious and had very close relationships with religious but this was not to be. Zelie and Louis met in Alencon and were married in 1858. Each of their businesses prospered and attained financial stability. Within the next 15 years had nine children – 2 Boys and 7 girls. Zelie wrote; “We lived for them, they were all our happiness.” Within three years the two baby boys, a five year old girl and and a six-and-a half week old infant girl died. Zelie and Louis were numb with sadness but their faith sustained them through these tragedies. Their last daughter was born weak and frail. They feared she too would die but she survived the illness and became strong. This was daughter was Marie Francois Therese later know as St. Therese of the Little Flower.

Zelie died of breast cancer in 1877 at the age of 45, when Therese was only 4 years old and leaving Louis to raise their 5 daughters. The first 3 daughters entered the convent before Louis’ death in 1894 and the other 2 joined after his death. So the question of qualities of saintliness do Zelie and Louis Martin possess? Fr. Antonio Sangalli, vice-postulator of the cause for canonization of the Martins, on the significance of their lives, miracles and canonization states “They give witness that the conjugal and marital experience is not an obstacle to holiness, but rather that two spouses who love each other can become saints….

The example they show us today is: The Martin family have faced all under God’s gaze, placing Jesus Christ in the first place of every situation, both of joy and anguish, always certain of this great embrace of the Lord and with His help they would be able to do anything and overcome any difficulty. Bishop O’Toole stated, “Life came at them unexpectedly, just as it comes at us. Their genius lay in how they accepted what happened to them.” In her autobiography, Therese conveyed the goodness of her parents and the sense of prayerfulness and care for others which was instilled in her home. She wrote God gave me a father and mother more worthy of Heaven than of earth.

Pope Francis has a special devotion to St. Therese. The pope used to keep a photo of her on his library shelf when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. He has said that when he has a problem, he asks St. Therese “not to solve it, but to take it in her hands and help me accept it.” As a sign that she’s heard his request, he said, “I almost always receive a white rose.”

May God bless you,

Mary Ann McConnell

The following is a video by my friend, Fr. James Kubicki, Apostleship of Prayer

By TheBrassGlass, 2014, MorgueFile.com

A couple of years ago, I posted a blog about war in the Middle East. Since then, our government may have brought soldiers home, but in the process lost the country/countries that many of our soldiers died to free. A big, short-sighted mistake.

And now, looking at cities in civil unrest like St. Louis, Baltimore, and others, it looks as if we are at war in our own country, with our own countrymen. Americans are killing other Americans.

Are we paying attention??

The danger of not paying attention, or caring about what happens enough to put a stop to it, is HUGE.

We need to see, and remember.

I recently saw a video where a large percentage of Pennsylvania college students couldn’t even answer questions about The Holocaust of World War II. Some didn’t even know who Adolf Hitler was, or what country he led in the War. They’d never even heard of Concentration Camps, and certainly couldn’t name one! Some students in another questionnaire thought George Washington was president during the Civil War. And if you can believe it, another thought the American Revolution was fought against Spain!

What’s happened to once-required American History classes? If they are taught at all, they are sometimes revised to favor the politically correct. These are things that should be remembered, and remembered correctly.

If we don’t study our past, and the generation involved in a particular war dies off, so do the memories and the lessons learned. The past should have been considered in the wars and holocausts that are happening today. Yes, today!

Today, we ought to be considering the courage, of our American soldiers who fought in past wars, as well as the loss and grief of their families. But how many really do that?

However, there is one past war that is, at least, remembered by many Southerners. No matter the side your ancestors may have fought on in the tragic Civil War, Americans actually killed other Americans on their own soil. They suffered the same feelings of fear, and sorrow as soldiers experience today. But the devastation left in the South in order to bring it to its knees was abominable. Think of the burning of Atlanta, and Sherman’s march to the sea, destroying all in his path–including the farms and homes and livestock and possessions of my own relatives. Oh, did they have stories to pass down to us!!

I think this video is a good example of what war really is, an intensely personal tragedy. This goes for past wars, and war in the Middle East today.

By Pippalou, 2015, MorgueFile.ocm

I am going to a funeral today, a Mass of Christian Burial. I am going to celebrate a life lived in a marriage that lasted over seven decades.

I am going to share in the rhythm of Mass, its recitation of prayers and rituals that echo back through the years to a little white church made of bricks, much smaller, much closer than today.

I am going with memories sliding through my thoughts like the moon passing behind the branches of pines.

I am going to a burial ground that is sacred, a spot where those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith, await resurrection.

I am going to a hill where I’ll step near my own parents, grandparents, other relatives and friends.

I am going to the inevitable closing of life on earth to the opening of life everlasting.

I am going to a funeral today.

Be at rest once more, O my soul,

for the LORD has been good to you.

— Psalm 116:7

By Taliespin, MorgueFile.com

In the life of each of us, there are a few people we can count on. For some of us it’s our spouse, or children. For others it’s a good friend.

What is it that causes us to set those people apart from others?

Is it that we are certain they have our best interests at heart? That at a given time, they put us ahead of their own self-interests?

Some people are users; they like us because they need something from us. Mostly, we’re able to see that, but sometimes, not. Sometimes, we’re fooled—and often disappointed.

Turn it around. Do we hang around some people only because we need/want something from them?

This is a test of character. Character that is, or isn’t, LOVE in action. Because we all know that LOVE means action, not words. There are people who can “tickle our ears” with what they think we want to hear; but they are not people who will stand by us, regardless. Let the first wind come–a wind that requires them to step forward and actually stand up for us–and they are nowhere to be seen.

Who will stand up for you?

Video pics by Stawberrypatch1