#josephjeanbaptistemartin — Public Fediverse posts

Sts. Louis & Zélie Novena 2025, Day 3: Hope in the Midst of Loss

READING

My dear little Joseph died this morning at 7 o’clock. I was alone with him. He had a night of cruel suffering, and tearfully I asked for his deliverance. My heart was relieved when I saw him utter his last sigh.

Saint Zélie Martin
Letter CF 36 to Isidore, 24 August 1868

REFLECTION

Between Day 2’s “I can’t imagine that God will not leave my dear little boy with me” and this stark reality lies a profound shift. Zélie’s abandonment was threefold: she abandoned little Joseph to God’s arms, abandoned herself to tearful prayer, and abandoned herself even to relief when his suffering ended.

Yet this surrender was never cold resignation but love-filled release. According to her daughter Céline’s later recollections, Zélie placed “a crown of white roses on his head” and stayed “close to his tiny coffin up to the last moment.” Even as she sighed, “My God, how hard it is to put him into the grave, but since You will it so, may Your holy will be done,” her maternal tenderness remained intact. The same hands that crowned her child with roses also released him to God’s care.

From this complete surrender—both anguished and loving—purified hope could emerge. No longer hope based on her expectations, but hope grounded in God’s goodness beyond understanding. The confident hope of Day 2 may have died with little Joseph, but something deeper was born: hope that could endure when God’s answers looked nothing like her prayers.

PRAYER

Saints Louis and Zélie,
you who in your life as a couple and as parents
have borne witness to an exemplary Christian life,
by putting God first,
by fulfilling the duties of your state in life
and practicing the evangelical virtues,
we turn to you:

Help us to have unshakable trust in God
and to abandon ourselves to His Will,
as you did through the joys,
as well as the trials, grief, and suffering
that marked your lives.

Help us to love God with all our hearts,
to persevere through our daily difficulties,
and to abide in the joy and hope
that a living faith in Christ gives us.

Intercede for us

(Mention your intentions here)

that we may obtain the graces we need
today and every day of our lives.

Our Father…

Glory be…

Saints Louis and Zélie, pray for us.

Martin, Z & Martin, L 2011, A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885, trans. Hess, AC, ed. Renda, F, Society of St. Paul, New York.

All scripture references are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Joseph, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Edith Stein.

Let us unite in prayer

#hope #JosephJeanBaptisteMartin #novena #prayer #StZélieMartin

Quote of the day, 2 May: St. Zélie Martin

I was very pleased to hear the good news about your little Jeanne. You must be happy to have such a lovely little girl; I was also very happy when I raised my first [Marie], she was so healthy. I was too proud; the good Lord didn’t want it to last; all the other children I had afterward were difficult to bring up and gave me a lot of trouble.

The youngest, little Joseph is still among them, he is still sick. For three months now he has been suffering from bronchitis which has left him in a sad state; last week we thought he was going to die. The doctor put a vesicant between his shoulders and left it on him for several days.

Just think how much this poor little boy must have suffered! And with that, a continuous cough and a tightening of the chest that was choking him. I went to see him twice a day; in the morning, I left at five o’clock, and in the evening at eight o’clock, and I always came back with a heavy heart.

He has been better since Saturday, he is beginning to take a little food and coughs less, but he is far from being cured, I am sure that your little one is much more resistant than him because he is reduced to nothing and has no strength. I would have been very happy to have a strong little boy, but I can’t be pleased now, maybe that’s for later, I console myself with that hope.

I am happy that you have decided to come to Alençon this year; it is about time after not having seen you here for two years! Since I will have the pleasure of having you here, I will not go to Lisieux, as I had thought. If you only knew how valuable I am here and how difficult it is for me to be absent. I cannot trust my father’s servant, I can only compare her to the one I sent you, they are not more serious than each other and are only good for watching passers-by and giving a bad example to children.

I am glad that your business is doing well, it reassures me, mine is going badly, quite badly, it could not be worse. I believe positively that I am at the end of my reign; however, it is against my will, because I would have liked to work until the end for my children. We already have five of them, without counting those who may arrive, because I do not despair of having three or four more!

My father has been ill for several days, he was sick yesterday, he complained a lot about every part of his body, he thinks he is going to die. I am very sad to see him like this. He doesn’t want to see a doctor, but if this continues, I will go and get one.

Saint Zélie Martin

Letter CF 32 to her sister-in-law Céline Guérin
May 1868

Note: Poor little Joseph Jean-Baptiste Martin (19 December 1867 – 24 August 1868) suffered nearly four months more after his bronchitis, followed by gastrointestinal problems. Vesicant therapy was used to create a blister on the skin near the diseased organ so as to extract or draw to the surface of the body all that may be harmful to the preservation of health, such as Joseph’s life-threatening respiratory infection (cf. D’Alembert 1751).

On the day he died, St. Zélie wrote to her brother Isidore Guérin, “My dear little Joseph died this morning at 7:00. I was alone with him. He had a night of cruel suffering, and I begged with tears for his deliverance. My heart was relieved when I saw him breathe his last” (cf. CF 36).

In the oil painting Le sommeil de l’Enfant Jésus, Céline depicts a grouping of cherubs that feature the faces of her four deceased siblings, Hélène, Joseph-Louis, Joseph Jean-Baptiste (mentioned in St. Zélie’s letter above), Mélanie-Thérèse, and cousin Paul Guérin.

We always refer to the website of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux for the vast majority of our quotes concerning Saint Thérèse, Saint Zélie, and Saint Louis Martin. If you would like to purchase English translations for the collected works of St. Thérèse, please visit the website of our Discalced Carmelite friars at ICS Publications. 

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

#business #CélineGuérin #familyLife #illness #JosephJeanBaptisteMartin #medicine #StZélieMartin #suffering