Sts. Louis & Zélie Novena 2025, Day 9: Hope Beyond Death
READING
Above all, courage and confidence! Pray faithfully to our merciful Mother, who’ll come to our aid with the kindness and gentleness of the most loving mother.
Saint Zélie Martin
Letter CF 210 to Pauline, 25 June 1877
REFLECTION
In one of her last letters to Pauline, Zélie returns to the deep trust that has emerged throughout this novena. After warning against expecting too much from earthly joys, she closes her letter with “courage et confiance”—not confidence in outcomes, but trust that abandons everything to the Virgin Mary’s maternal care.
Her appeal to the “Mère des Miséricordes” echoes the Salve Regina’s ancient cry: “Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope.” Just two months before her death, Zélie anchors her hope not in earthly healing but in the Blessed Virgin’s merciful motherhood. This is hope beyond death itself—trust that when all earthly expectations fail, we can still turn to the one whom the Church has always known as Mater misericordiae. True hope finds its ultimate rest not in this world’s gifts, but in the Mother of Mercy’s unfailing tenderness.
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.
