Sr. Milada of the Savior of the World, OCD
Terminal Illness
Zelie Martin knew for a long time that a deadly illness was consuming her from within. Therefore, she often prepared her thoughts for death: “Now I must finish, for I want to go to Vespers and pray for the deceased. I want to ensure that they pray for me after my death... I strive to become a saint, but it is not that simple. It would have been better if I had tried earlier; it would have been easier and lighter. Yet: better late than never.”1 Her longings for heaven grew within her, but at the same time, a great responsibility for her family remained. She addressed everything with surrender to God's will: “How I long to be with my four deceased children in heaven, but I willingly want to give that up, for I know they no longer need me; it is different with my other children... I always tell myself: as God wills!”2
In October 1876, her health deteriorated. The tumor on her breast grew, causing her pain and discomfort. At that time, the doctor deemed her condition hopeless and no longer recommended surgery, stating it would only hasten the end. Zelie therefore decided to prepare her relatives for her imminent departure. She wrote to Lisieux asking her brother and sister-in-law to care for her family after her death. This caused quite an upheaval in Lisieux. At home, a serious scene unfolded following this announcement. “Everyone wept, poor Leonie cried out loud.”3
In January 1877, Madame Martin traveled for the last time to visit her sister at the Visitation Convent in Le Mans. Until then, she had not written about her serious health condition. Sister Dositea was also gravely ill, and her death was anticipated. By the time Madame Martin arrived, she had already received the sacrament. We do not know what the two sisters, each standing at the threshold of eternity, talked about during those days. Sister Dositea died a month later, on February 24, 1877, at the age of 49. For Zelie, the death of her sister was a heavy suffering. But her own illness continued to progress. In May, she informed her relatives: “My health condition remains almost the same. Although I do not suffer much, I feel the disease progressing incessantly within me. I hope that the Holy Mother will heal me; and if not entirely, at least keep me here long enough to raise my children.”4
Way of the Cross
With her three older daughters, Zelie decided that in June they would make a pilgrimage to Lourdes. But the journey by train was unbearable; she suffered greatly. The pilgrimage did not bring her healing; on the contrary, it caused her condition to worsen. She began to experience severe throat pain resulting from metastasis to the cervical vertebrae. “The illness worsens day and night. I can no longer dress or undress myself. The shoulder of my painful arm denies any assistance, yet the hand is still able to hold a needle! Nevertheless, general malaise, body aches, and constant fevers have taken hold of me for 14 days. I can no longer stand; I only sit. During the day, it is still manageable, but at night, attacks come again and again. I have surrendered to my fate and try to do everything as befits a dying person. I must not waste a single moment of this short time I have left. These are the days of salvation that will never return. Help me pray for patience and surrender.”5
At this time, her brother predicted she had one month to live. In his presence, Zelie sought support in her last days, as the suffering intensified: “Yesterday I was almost screaming for you because I thought only you could provide me with relief. During the past 24 hours, I have suffered more than in my entire life. I lamented and screamed. I called upon all the saints, but none answered me. Finally, I begged to at least spend the night in bed. In the afternoon, I could not lie down at all. It was terrible. I could not rest my head on anything; I tried everything, but even then I could not move to drink. My throat felt constricted, so that the slightest movement caused me the greatest pain. I lamented all night. Louis, Marie, and the servant were always by my side. Poor Louis! From time to time, he would take me in his arms like a small child. I can no longer write; I can barely see and am incredibly weak.”6
On July 22, Zelie got up at five in the morning to attend the Holy Mass. Marie wanted to stop her, but was unsuccessful. “(Mom) had to use all her strength, for it was an indescribable effort for her to come to church. With each step she took, she felt a sting in her throat. She always had to stop occasionally.” Her last attendance at Mass was on August 3. “Since it was the first Friday, she insisted on going to church. Father led her,” Marie told her relatives, “otherwise it would not have been possible at all.”7
The last letter sent to her brother read: “I can no longer keep myself on my feet. It takes great effort just to move from my bed to the chair and from there back to bed. I have endured two dreadful nights. My strength is at an end. If Dear Mother God does not heal me, my time is over, and dear God wishes me to rest elsewhere than here on earth.” Marie added: “She can no longer endure even a quarter of an hour in bed; she suffers so dreadfully. The slightest noise causes her to have a horrendous crisis. We only speak in whispers and walk in our stockings, but she hears everything. We do not want to disturb her, but her sleep is too fragile.”8
On August 26, Zelie Martin received the anointing of the sick in the presence of the entire family. The struggle for her life ended on the night of August 28, 1877. She was not quite 46 years old. The funeral took place the very next day.
Louis Martin, fifty-four years old, deeply wounded by the departure of his wife, decided to move with his daughters to relatives in Lisieux. He withdraws into rest. He indulges his desire for solitude—reading, reflecting, and meditating. He begins to fish again and often travels—to Alençon, where he left his aging mother,9 to Paris, Germany, Italy, the Balkans, and Turkey. However, a “royal path of the cross” is prepared for him that deeply affects his daughters and aligns him with his beloved Savior...
Therese's Relationship with Her Parents
“God gave me a father and mother who were more worthy of heaven than of earth.”10 Thus, Therese viewed her beloved parents throughout her life. Her family was for her a “holy land, suffused with a virginal fragrance” (cf. AS 18), an image of heaven. Therese was born into a world of holiness, seeing nothing but beauty in it. She felt that the whole environment had been created by the good God to nourish and protect the “precious and delicate plants” that grew there.
The central figure of the family was the father. A father who was humanly respected, loved, and almost adored, who represented a harmonious unity of love and authority in Therese's eyes. In her relationship with her father—she was never afraid of him—she learned to understand what the authority of the good God is. She looked at her father while he was always looking at God, and thus she learned to see God through her father. Therese was still little when her father took her to church with him. During the sermon, he leaned towards her and said: “‘Listen well, my little princess; they are speaking about your holy patroness.’ I truly listened well, but I looked more often at my father than at the preacher. His beautiful face said so much to me!... Sometimes his eyes were filled with tears as he tried to hold them back. It seemed as if he were no longer on earth; his soul was so lovingly immersed in eternal truths...” (AS 44).
Even during evening prayers, Therese had a place beside her father. It was enough for her to just look, “to see how the saints pray” (AS 45-46). That her father was a saint, Therese was convinced of this throughout her life (cf. DT 51, 58). Both fathers are bound in her mind in such a close and intimate way that Therese dared to write after her father's move to the Good Savior Institute: “Jesus... took from us the one we loved with such tenderness, (...) but is it not so that we can sincerely say: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven?’ (Matt 6:9) ”11
Later, during his illness, Therese began to see in her father's figure not just an image of God the Father, but of the Son as well. His fate became a parallel to the divine mysteries for her. “Like the venerated face of Jesus, which was veiled during his suffering, so too the face of his faithful servant was to be veiled in the days of his pains—so that it might shine in the heavenly homeland before his Lord, the eternal Word!...“ (AS 50). Her father's illness-marked face clarified all the mysteries of Jesus' suffering face.
Mother, on the other hand, represented an atmosphere of love, safety, and trust, an atmosphere of prayer for Therese: “I loved God very much and often entrusted my heart to Him with a little formula that my mother taught me” (AS 41). During a visit to Madame Leriche, she and Celine said: “It’s not like Mama. She always led us to pray!...“ (AS 33). Even though her mother died when Therese was only four and a half years old, the features of this beloved person were inscribed into her heart and later helped her understand the maternal aspect of God's love: “How delicate is a mother’s heart! How it expresses its tenderness with a thousand careful concerns that no one would think of!” (AS 24).
That Therese's intuition regarding her parents was correct was confirmed by Pope John Paul II when on March 26, 1994, he confirmed the heroic virtues of Zelie and Louis Martin and allowed them to be called venerable. The official process of their beatification was concluded after the acknowledgment of the required miracle (about which we would also like to write something in our magazine), and both parents were declared blessed on October 19, 2008, in Lisieux.
