Mgr Habert with volunteers of the Shrine of Alençon outside the chapel of the Visitation at Caen

An historic pilgrimage in the footsteps of Léonie Martin and of her father, Blessed Louis Martin, took place in France today.  The volunteers of the newly organized shrine at Alencon, who welcome pilgrims who want to walk in the footsteps of the Martin family in and near Alencon, in the diocese of Séez, where Louis and Zélie Martin met, married, and spent their married life, and where Thérèse was born, made a pilgrimage as a group to Caen to visit the Monastery of the Visitation, where Léonie Martin lived from 1899 until her death in 1941, and the Bon Sauveur Hospital, where Blessed Louis Martin was confined from February 12, 1889 through May 10, 1892.

Mgr Habert, bishop of SeezThey were accompanied by Mgr Jacques Habert, bishop of the diocese of Seéz.  Father Thierry Hénault-Morel in the Visitation chapelFather Thierry Hénault-Morel, the rector of the basilica of Notre-Dame at Alençon, was their guide.

The Shrine at Alençon has already posted 94 photos of the pilgrimage.  [Note of 2/12/17: I'm so sorry; the Shrine appears to have removed these photos from their site].  Although the captions are still in French, it is a wonderful chance to see photos of the Visitation chapel and  the crypt,  Léonie's souvenirs and her tomb, and almost the first contemporary photos of the interior of the chapel at the Bon Sauveur where Louis Martin worshipped. 

Enjoy the Holy Father's reflection about his favorite saint, Therese of Lisieux,

and what her life means for us.

On the morning of Saturday, June 23, 1888, there was panic at Les Buissonnets, the little villa where Blessed Louis Martin, the father of St. Therese of Lisieux, was living with his daughters Celine and Leonie.  Louis had suddenly disappeared without notifying anyone.

Louis was then sixty-four years old.  This photograph had been taken about three years before. In the months of May and June 1888 he had made several business trips to Paris, where he invested (and lost) 50,000 francs on the Panama Canal.

Louis had recently experienced many losses.  A widower, he had given his second daughter, Pauline, to God as a Carmelite nun in 1882.  In 1886 his oldest daughter, Marie, followed Pauline.  On Monday, April 9, 1888, Louis escorted his youngest, Therese, his "little Queen," to the Carmel.   Six weeks later, on Tuesday, May 22, Marie made her vows.  The next day, on Wednesday, May 23, Louis assisted in the public ceremony at the Carmel chapel in which Marie received the black veil of the professed Carmelite choir nun.  Father Almire Pichon, the Jesuit "spiritual director of the Martin family," preached the sermon.

At this time, despite his losses, Louis was experiencing consolation in prayer.  Therese speaks of his eyes being flooded with tears after he received communion.  Referring to an incident in May 1888, a passage inserted into Story of a Soul by Pauline reads: 

"O Mother, do you remember the day and the visit when he said to us "Children, I returned from Alencon where I received in Notre-Dame Church such great graces, such consolations that I made this prayer:  My God, it is too much! yes, I am too happy. it isn't possible to go to heaven this way!  I want to suffer something for you!  I offer myself . . . . the word 'victim' died on his lips; he didn't dare pronounce it before us, but we had understood."1

Sometime in 1888 Louis sent this note to his Carmelite daughters:

I want to tell you, my dear children, that I have urgent desire to thank God and to make you thank God because I feel that our family, although very humble, has the honor of being among the privileged of our adorable Creator.2

This privilege did not come cheap.  On Friday, June 15, Celine told her father that she also had a vocation to Carmel.  She writes: 

"June 15.  I announced to Papa my vocation for Carmel, and these were the circumstances.  I was showing my dear father a painting I had just completed; he was in the belvedere, seated at his little work table, and he seemed to be meditating.  He turned to me, and he studied my canvas with joy and suggested that he take me to Paris to have me pursue a course in painting.  I immediately answered that I would prefer to give up this art completely rather than expose my soul to any danger, that, having given my heart to Jesus a long time ago, I wanted to keep it pure . . . ." (Sister Genevieve, CMG IV, pp. 183-184).3

Louis readily gave his consent.  "You can all leave.  I will be happy to give you to God before I die.  In my old age, a cell will be enough for me."4  In fact, Celine planned to become a Carmelite only after the death of her father.  Deeply moved, Louis pressed Celine to his heart and said, "Come, let us go together to the Blessed Sacrament to thank the Lord for the graces He has bestowed on our family and for the honor He gave me of choosing His spouses in my home.  Yes, if I possessed anything better,  I would hasten to offer it to Him."5

We leave his family searching for him and the Carmelites praying for his safety.  Please return for the rest of this little adventure, which ends on June 26.  

1 Story of a Soul, tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 2005, p. 237.

2A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885.  Tr. Ann Connors Hess, ed. Dr. Frances Renda.  Staten Island, N.Y.: Society of St. Paul, 2011, p. 365.

3Letters of Saint Therese of Lisieux, Volume I (1877-1890), tr. John Clarke, O.C.D.  Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1982, p. 435 (LT 53, footnote 3). 

 4Celine, soeur et temoin de Sainte Therese de l'Enfant Jesus, by Stephane-Joseph Piat.  Office Central de Lisieux, 1964, p. 37 (my translation).

4Story of a Soul, op. cit., p. 239.

The Last Years of Saint Therese: Doubt and Darkness, 1895-1897, Thomas Nevin's long-awaited second book about St. Therese, has been released early by Oxford University Press!  It is available today.   

   If you did not pre-order, please purchase it above.  See my entry about "The Last Years of Saint Therese: Doubt and Darkness."

If you have not read Dr. Nevin's first book about Therese, Therese of Lisieux, God's Gentle Warrior, learn more about it or order it here.

The "Sanctuaire d'Alencon" (the Shrine of Alencon) launched its new Web site today in French.  Later on it will launch in English and in other languages.  Since the beatification of Louis and Zelie Martin in 2008 and the reopening of the "Martin family house" (formerly known as the birthplace of St. Therese), a pilgrimage office has been established at Alencon to help the pilgrims find the sites associated with the Martin family and to walk in their footsteps.  The site offers photos and information about the sites associated with the life of the Martin family in Alencon; practical information for arranging individual or group pilgrimages; news about special occasions and events; reflections on the spirituality of the Martin family; and more.  This will make it easy for pilgrims tracing the footsteps of the Martin family to begin at Alencon, where Zelie and Louis spent their whole married life.  Please visit the French site.  As soon as the site opens in English, I will post it.  

The Martin home on Rue Pont-Neuf in Alencon

To give you a small taste of what is to come, I reproduce at left, courtesy of the Sanctuaire, a rare old photograph that shows the area in back of the house and watch-shop on Rue Pont-Neuf, where Louis and Zelie lived from their marriage in 1858 until 1871.  (Louis bought this house in 1850.  Before his marriage he had lived here with his parents and his young nephew, Adolphe Leriche).  Louis and Zelie spent most of their married life here, and all their children except Therese were born in this house.  It is much less well-known than the house on Rue Saint-Blaise, where Zelie had lived as a girl, but where Louis and Zelie and their children lived for only six years).  Today an insurance agency occupies the ground-floor space where Louis's watch shop was located on Rue Pont-Neuf.   After the Franco-Prussian war,  Louis sold the jeweler-watchmaker shop to Adolphe Leriche and devoted himself to handling the business end of Zelie's lacemaking work, and the family moved to Zelie's childhood home on rue Saint-Blaise.