The parents of the saints is a thought that has been on my heart lately, especially with the canonization of Carlo Acutis. The image of his mother standing in St. Peters’ square, watching as her son was declared a saint, is the ultimate “I did it”—greater than an Olympic gold medal or winning an award at the Emmys. She has accomplished what all parents are called to do and lived to see it so. Her son made it to heaven; she could breathe a sigh of relief. The Lord is going to pat her on the back someday and say, “Well done.”
Over the last few months, I read a book about the mother of St. Therese, written by one of her sisters, with excerpts of letters from Zelie to family members. The more I read, the more I could see how this amazing, simple woman had been the mother of the Little Flower, and how St. Therese grew up to be the kind of person that she became. When describing the “little way” of St. Therese, her sister said that Therese was merely an “apostle of the little way,” learning it all from her mother, Zelie. One of the greatest saints of our time was not walking blindly on her own figuring out life but shaped her devotion to our Lord by watching her mother. Her sister defined her mother in this way: “In a word always active, always devoted, always smiling. Our own mother never seemed to do anything extraordinary, but with remarkable simplicity and humility, she tirelessly spent herself on others and lived always for the good God.”
Every morning since the first time I read these words, I come back to them again and again, reflecting on this beautiful, simple, incredibly humble woman who was a mother to one of the most well-known saints of all time. There was no building of a church, traveling to a foreign land to cure lepers, or escaping from savage natives while preaching the Gospel. In her own home she lived this simple and humble way, and by her example her girls went on to become nuns and saints. Reading the words of Zelie over and over, as a mother, I will aspire to live for the Lord as she did and to raise my children as apostles of the Little Way.
