So if you are keeping track of saint stories (and I'm not sure if I can even keep up), I think I am still behind by one. Today I will give you two to make up the difference.
Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin are the only married couple to be canonized together. Louis Martin was a watch maker by trade. He had wanted to enter a Monastery, but he did not have the required education in the humanities. When he tried to make up the lack, an illness forced him to give up his studies, so he returned to watch making.
Maria Azelia (Zelie) also had a desire to enter religious life. However, when she applied to enter join the Daughters of Charity, the superior said that it was not the will of God that she enter the congregation. After this disappointment, Zelie studied lace making so that she would not be a burden on her parents.
As Zelie was walking one day, her path of a young man whose appearance and deportment made a great impression on her. She heard an interior voice say, "This is the husband I have destined for you." The two became acquainted and three months later they were married. The two originally planned to have a celibate marriage, living as brother and sister. After 10 months of living in a pure, chaste Josephite marriage, a good confessor convinced them to change their way of life. What a gift to the world this advice was!
The couple's marital mutual self-giving love gave life to 9 children, 5 of whom lived to adulthood. Four of their daughters (including St. Terese of the Child Jesus) became Carmelite Nuns. Their third daughter, Leonie, became a Visitation Nun.
Their joint feast day is July 12.
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