Lessons From St. Zélie Martin on Being a Catholic Business Owner and a Working Mother
“God gave me a father and a mother who were more worthy of heaven than of earth” (St. Thérèse of Lisieux).
I first met St. Zélie Guérin Martin in the pages of St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s autobiography, “Story of a Soul,” which I read in preparation for my Confirmation (Thérèse is my Confirmation saint). While Zélie died of breast cancer when Thérèse was only four, Thérèse had fond memories of her mother, and it’s clear that both of her parents had a profound impact on her development and her spirituality. In fact, it is arguably their vocations as spouses and parents that led to their own canonization, the first spouses with children to be canonized as a couple.
I never thought much more about Zélie, however, until recent years. She is very popular among Catholic businesswomen, wives, and mothers, and as I have taken on each of these roles, I’ve found in Zélie an inspiration and a model. In fact, I read “A Call to a Deeper Love,” the collected letters of Zélie and her husband Louis (mostly Zélie, though, as she was the letter writer of the two), in preparation for my marriage last year. And, I prayed for her intercession during my pregnancy. Now, as the mother of my own little girl, learning to balance motherhood and my freelance work, I’m calling on her as a guide and spiritual friend even more.
Zélie’s Life
Zélie originally felt called to religious life but was unable to enter the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul due to her health. In hindsight, it’s easy to see God at work, bringing her to her true vocation as a wife and mother: Her husband Louis also originally felt called to religious life but was rejected from a monastery, and one day, when she passed Louis on a bridge, Zélie heard a voice say, “That is he whom I have prepared for you.” While the two of them originally planned on having a Josephite marriage and lived “as brother and sister” for the first 10 months of their marriage, after speaking with their confessor, “they both agreed in desiring to have many children in order to offer them to God,” according to their daughter Celine Martin’s book “The Mother of the Little Flower.” Indeed, they did; all five of their surviving children became nuns, four of them Carmelites and one (Servant of God Léonie Martin) a member of the Visitation Sisters.
Zélie was also a successful businesswoman who is to this day famous as a leading lace-maker in Alençon, France (Wikipedia’s entry on Alençon lace even mentions her). Again, it was through her receptivity that she discovered this calling: “Having begged the Blessed Virgin Mary to show her how she could provide financially for her future, it happened that on December 8, 1851, in the midst of an absorbing occupation, she distinctly heard, as it were, an interior voice saying to her: Undertake the making of Point d’Alençon lace,” writes Celine Martin. Her business ultimately became so successful that Louis closed his watch-making business to work with her.
Zélie and Louis had nine children, though four of them died as infants or young children. In her letters, Zélie writes of the heartbreak of losing a child, her great trust in God’s providence even in the face of that tragedy, the great love she has for her husband and children, and the challenges of balancing her work with her vocation as a mother. In fact, she often wishes she were less successful in business so she could spend more time with her daughters.
Zélie died of breast cancer in 1877 at age 45, leaving her husband and her five daughters, who ranged in age from four to 17. Her letters show that throughout her illness, she maintained hope that she would survive to stay with her family (even going on a pilgrimage to Lourdes seeking a cure) while accepting God’s will for her life, whatever it was.
4 Lessons For Catholic Businesswomen
There are many lessons we can learn from Zélie’s life, but four themes rise to the surface:
1. Staying Grounded in Faith
Zélie and Louis were great spiritual leaders for their family, putting their faith at the heart of everything they did. They observed all of the Church’s fasting requirements and guidelines, went to daily Mass at 5:30 a.m., received the Eucharist as often as they could, filled their days with prayer, spent a lot of time in spiritual reading, and had a great devotion to Our Lady (even naming each of their children after her) and St. Joseph. The statue of Mary they had in their home was an important part of their life and is now, thanks to a miraculous healing Thérèse experienced as a child, famous as “Our Lady of the Smile.” Zélie was also a Third Order Franciscan and involved in many other religious groups.
2. Balancing Vocation and Work
While she was a successful entrepreneur, it’s clear from her letters that Zélie took seriously her vocation as a wife and mother, and she was devoted to her family. The way she writes about her husband is beautiful, and her love for her children leaps off the page. (“I’m crazy about children,” she wrote. “I was born to have them.”) Zélie frequently complained about the amount of work she had to do because it took her away from her family (and exhausted her), but she also was committed to doing her work well — not for the sake of success or wealth but to support both her workers and her family:
“It’s not the desire to amass a great fortune that drives me because I have more than I ever wanted. But I think it would be foolish of me to leave this business having five children to provide for. I must go all the way for them, and I see myself in a dilemma. I have workers, and I have no work to give them while other companies are doing very well.”
She cared very much for her employees, both the workers in her lace business and the people she hired to help in the home. “Her first concern,” wrote Celine of the latter, “was to do them some spiritual good, helping them to accept and understand religious truths, and better appreciate the love of God.” She visited her workers when they were ill and always made sure she paid them fairly.
3. Generosity and Charity
Zélie and Louis were philanthropists in their own small way, performing many acts of mercy in their community through financial, spiritual, and other types of support. “She was naturally compassionate, particularly for those who suffer,” wrote Celine Martin. “She preferred to exercise charity in the most direct, immediate way; that is, to give daily help to those who seemed to be in need around her.” Her letters are full of examples of these often small but powerful acts of charity, and a footnote in “A Call to a Deeper Love” reports that their family account book shows a “generous amount set aside” for missions, which Louis labeled “God’s Portion.”
4. Hope and a Sense of Humor
Many of Zélie’s letters are difficult to read. She suffered a lot during her life, and there are times when she almost seems close to despair. But she always comes back to hope and her great trust in God. Zélie’s letters also show a delightful sense of humor; I often laughed out loud while reading them. It is, perhaps, her great hope and her great sense of humor that helped her get through the struggles of her life and become a saint.
As busy women, we can learn from Zélie’s example of prioritizing her relationship with Christ and her love of her family above all else. We can also relate to her struggles: “I, also, would like to become a saint, but I don’t know where to begin. There’s so much to do that I limit myself to the desire. I often say during the day, ‘My God, how I would like to be a saint!’ Then, I don’t do the work!”
In a letter to her brother, Zélie counsels him on the type of woman he should marry, providing us with a description of her own idea of what a woman should be:
“You know all that glitters is not gold. The main thing is to look for a woman whose interests center on the home, who is not afraid of dirtying her hands with work, who devotes time to her appearance only as much as she has to, and who knows how to raise children to work and be holy. A woman like that would scare you; she would not be brilliant enough in the eyes of the world. But sensible people would love her better even if she had nothing, rather than another woman with a dowry of fifty thousand francs and who lacked these qualities.”
May we all aspire to be such a woman!
Taryn Oesch DeLong is a wife and mother in Raleigh, NC. In between changing diapers, reading stories, and singing lullabies, she is also a freelance editor and writer. Passionate about supporting women in work, in life, and in health, she is the managing editor of Catholic Women in Business, a contributor at Natural Womanhood and Live Today Well Co., and a fertility awareness advocate and FEMM instructor. In her free time, Taryn enjoys relaxing with a cup of Earl Grey and a Jane Austen novel. She also volunteers with the pro-life ministry at her parish and plays the piano and the flute. Taryn’s favorite saints are Sts. Joseph, Zélie, Thérèse, and Teresa of Calcutta. Follow Taryn on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or read her blog, Everyday Roses.