150 years ago with Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin: August 22, 1870: the birth of Zelie's niece and Louis's godchild, Marie Guerin

/
Marie guerin as a young child

Marie guerin as a young child

On August 22, 1870, six days after Zelie delivered her little Marie-Melanie-Therese, her brother’s wife, Celine Guerin (nee Fournet) gave birth to her second daughter, Marie-Louise-Helene Guerin (1870-1905) in Lisieux. This child, born at the height of the Franco-Prussian war, would be two and a half when her cousin, the future St. Therese, was born in 1873.

Marie’s father was Isidore Guerin, Zelie’s brother, born in 1841, ten years after his saintly sister. After studying in Paris to become a pharmacist, Isidore settled in Lisieux. His skill at his profession brought him respect in Lisieux, and his standing increased when he married Celine Fournet, the daughter of a prominent manufacturing family, on September 15, 1866 in St. Pierre’s Cathedral.

Their first daughter, Jeanne, was born in 1868. Marie was the baby sister. Isidore wrote to Zelie at once with the happy news. Because the mails, which were sent by train, were so fast, Zelie wrote the very next day to the happy new mother:

I just received a letter from my brother announcing the happy birth of your little girl. I would have wanted you to have a boy; you would have been happier. But if you’re like me, you’re not distressed by it, because I never had one moment of sadness over it.*

Read the full text of this letter on the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.

Zelie knew that Celine, who already had one daughter, had been hoping for a boy. But both families rejoiced heartily over this baby girl. Like her cousin Marie-Melanie-Therese, she was baptized privately on the very day she was born. The “complementary rites of baptism,” celebrated in the church, were put off until September. Her uncle, St. Louis Martin, whose birthday she shared, was to serve as her godfather. Because of her dark hair and eyes, he playfully called his little niece “the Greek.”

Although Marie’s paternal grandparents died before her birth, her mother’s father lived till she was about eight, and her mother’s mother until 1900, when Marie was about 30. When little Marie was seven years old, her uncle Louis lost his wife. With his five daughters, ranging in age from four to 17, he moved to Lisieux so that his daughters could have the company of their uncle, aunt, and cousins. Leonie, Celine, and Therese, like their Guerin cousins, attended the school run by the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of Notre Dame du Pre in Lisieux. Marie Guerin and Therese Martin became intimate friends. On September 24, 1890, when Marie was twenty years old, she witnessed Therese’s reception of the black veil at Carmel and understood that she, too, was called to become a Carmelite. On August 15, 1895, a week before her 25th birthday, Marie joined her cousins Therese, Celine, Pauline, and Marie in Carmel.

Among those who know the Martin family, Marie is known by what Therese writes about her in Story of a Soul. Her letters to her parents from Carmel in the summer of 1897, when Therese was dying, are an important historical record of Therese’s illness. But much about her own life and spirituality has been overlooked. To learn more about the child born 150 years ago who was the last of Therese’s novices to enter Carmel but the first to join her in heaven, please see the Website of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux. its highlights include:

My fervent thanks to the Carmelites of Lisieux and the Association of the Friends of St. Therese and of her Carmel for the information on their Web site, which gives us such insight into Marie Guerin’s history.

*from A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885, tr. Ann Connors Hess, edited Dr. Frances Renda. (Staten Island, New York: Society of St. Paul/Alba House, 2011), p. 69.