from The Register:
After the death of his wife, Louis lived on to raise his daughters, moving them to Lisieux to be near relatives. He found refuge in the joys of his family life, while remembering the hours he spent holding his dying, suffering wife in his arms.
“Everything which I have seen is grand, but it is still the beauty of the earth, and one’s heart remains unsatisfied until it beholds the joy of the infinite beauty that is God. We shall soon have the joy of being together again. It is the beauty of family life that comes nearest to Heaven.” (Rev. Fr. Stéphane-Joseph Piat, O.F.M., Story of a Family, p. 315)
As a widower, Louis spent much of his day in prayer and reading in his room in the attic that overlooked the garden which he tended himself. He kept up his habit of daily Mass and frequent Communion, and loved his afternoon walk with Thérèse. In the evening, he would read aloud and discuss from spiritual works other writings with his daughters.
from the Irish Carmelites:
Death of Zélie
In December 1876, when Thérèse was three, Zélie Martin discovered that the ‘fibrous tumour’ in her breast was inoperable. Marie, Pauline and Léonie accompanied their ill mother to Lourdes the following June and Zélie died on August 28th 1877, at the age of 46. Having consulted his older daughters, Louis decided in November 1877 to move the family to Lisieux, in Normandy, in order to be near his brother-in-law, Isidore Guerin, who ran a pharmacy there. Thérèse became very attached to her father after her mother’s death, and it was through him that she first became aware of the Carmelites: “Each afternoon I went with him for a walk and made a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in one or other of the churches. It was in this way that I first saw the chapel of our Carmel: ‘Look, little Queen,’ my father said, ‘behind that grating there are holy nuns who are praying to Almighty God’ … those were supremely happy days when my dear ‘King’, as I called him, went fishing and took me with him. Sometimes I tried my hand with a small rod, but more often I preferred to sit on the grass at some little distance. My reflections would then become really deep and without knowing what meditation meant, my soul was absorbed in prayer … earth seemed a land of exile and I dreamed of heaven.”
Illness and Death of Louis
Thérèse entered the Carmel in Lisieux on April 9th 1888, at the age of 15. Her sister Marie made her final profession in that Carmel about six weeks later, on May 22nd and, about a month later, their father, Louis, went missing and was only found four days later in Le Havre, suffering from amnesia because of a cerebral arteriosclerosis. As her father’s mental health declined, Thérèse completed her postulancy, taking the same Carmelite habit as her elder sisters, Marie and Pauline, on January 10th 1889. A month after attending the first profession of Thérèse, Louis Martin, at the age of 65, was committed to the Bon-Sauveur private mental asylum in Caen, where he was to remain for over three years. When Louis left the asylum in Caen in May 1892, the lease on Les Buissonnets had expired and he went to live on the estate of his in-laws, the Guérins, at La Musse, near Evreux. He was paralyzed and had difficulty speaking and he died two years later, on July 29th 1894, at the age of 71.
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When a catastrophe shakes our lives and our surroundings, everything may seem disproportionate and unfair. But whatever happens, let us remain in the just judgment, the right state of soul. Always have an attitude of listening to the other. Let us keep intact our ability to give, to offer, even if God seems to take back what God seemed to give in a mysterious relationship of the heart. The offering of ourselves should be our ideal for life, supported by Charity, the great theological virtue. Louis and Zelie Martin gave everything. They offered everything without reservation, and sowed in the hope of reaping their harvest in the heavenly kingdom. Are we able to sow and harvest, to wait with patience and with humility? Agree to remain as a little child in the hand of the Father. Are you not already accepting His blessing? https://www.louisandzeliemartin.org/novena-to-martin-spouses-3
Let us not be tempted to escape, to retreat, to become bitter in a struggle against what appears to be unfair. Our pain should be shared with others, offered up at any time, but it is really beyond our earthly comprehension. For beyond all suffering emerges acceptance of grace, of recognizing ourselves as children of God in Jesus Christ, and, therefore, to be recognized as sons and daughters of God. If we cannot remember, let the tears come, because they are always nourishing and are the fruit of the Spirit. Any form of desire without suffering can be understood as an illusion of love. The suffering experienced and accepted by the great Saints is a school for everyone, but we never consider suffering as an end in itself. If our weakness is our strength, compassion at the foot of the cross no longer appears as a weakness, but as an expectation, a silent hope.https://www.louisandzeliemartin.org/novena-to-martin-spouses-5
https://www.louisandzeliemartin.org/a-novena-to-blessed-louis-and-zelie-martin
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