July
July 12 – Sts. Louis Martin and Marie Azélie Guérin, Spouses | Optional Memorial
Louis Martin (1823 – 1894) was a watchmaker by trade, and quite a successful one. He also skillfully managed his wife’s lace business. But, as with so many men, Louis’ life had not turned out at all the way he had planned.
Born into a family of soldiers, Louis spent his early years at various French military posts. He absorbed the sense of order and discipline that army life engenders. His temperament, deeply influenced by the peculiar French connection between the mystical and the military, tended toward things of the spirit.
Eventually, Louis settled down in Alençon, a small city in France, and pursued his watchmaking trade. He loved Alençon. It was a quiet place and he was a quiet man. It even had a lovely trout stream nearby, offering him the opportunity to pursue his favorite recreation.
At twenty-two, young Louis sought to enter religious life at the monastery of the Augustinian Canons of the Great St. Bernard Hospice in the Alps. The blend of courage and charity the monks and their famous dogs manifested in rescuing travelers in Alpine snows appealed powerfully to Louis Martin.
Unfortunately, the Abbot insisted the young candidate learn Latin. Louis, whose bravery would have carried him to the heights of the Alps in search of a lost pilgrim, got himself lost among the peaks and valleys of Latin syntax and grammar. His most determined efforts failed. He became ill and dispirited, and abandoned his hopes for the monastic life.
Zelie Guerin (1831 – 1877) was one of Alençon’s more talented lace makers. Born into a military family, Zelie described her childhood and youth as “dismal.” Her mother and father showed her little affection.
As a young lady, she sought unsuccessfully to enter the religious order of the sisters of the Hotel-Dieu. Zelie then learned the Alençon lace-making technique and soon mastered this painstaking craft. Richly talented, creative, eager, and endowed with common sense, she started her own business and became quite successful.
Notable as these achievements were, Zelie was yet to reveal the depths of the strength, faith, and courage she possessed.
Louis Martin and Zelie Guerin eventually met in Alençon, and on July 13, 1858, Louis, 34, and Zelie, 26, married and began their remarkable voyage through life. Within the next fifteen years, Zelie bore nine children, seven girls and two boys. “We lived only for them,” Zelie wrote; “they were all our happiness.”
The Martins’ delight in their children turned to shock and sorrow as tragedy struck their little ones. Within three years, Zelie’s two baby boys, a five-year-old girl, and a six-and-a-half-week-old infant girl all died.
Zelie was left numb with sadness. “I haven’t a penny’s worth of courage,” she lamented. But her faith sustained her through these terrible ordeals.
The Martins’ last child was born January 2, 1873. She was weak and frail, and doctors feared for the infant’s life. The family, so used to death, was preparing for yet another blow. Zelie wrote of her three-month-old girl: “I have no hope of saving her. The poor little thing suffers horribly….It breaks your heart to see her.”
But the baby girl proved to be much tougher than anyone realized. She survived the illness. A year later she was a “big baby, browned by the sun.” “The baby,” Zelie noted, “is full of life, giggles a lot, and is sheer joy to everyone.”
The series of tragedies had intensified the love of Louis and Zelie Martin for each other. They poured out their affection on their five surviving daughters; Marie, 12, Pauline, 11, Leonie 9, Celine, 3, and their new-born. Louis and Zelie named their new-born; Marie-Francoise-Therese Martin. A century later people would know her simply as St. Therese and call her the “Little Flower.”
July 13 – St. Teresa of Jesus of “los Andes”, Virgin | Optional Memorial
Juanita Fernandez Solar was born in Santiago, Chile, on July 13, 1900. From her adolescence she was devoted to Christ. She entered the convent of the Discalced (Teresian) Carmelite nuns at Los Andes on May 7, 1919 where she was given the name of Teresa of Jesus. She died on April 12 the following year after having made her religious profession. She was beatified by John Paul II on April 3, 1987 in Santiago, Chile, and proposed as a model for young people. She is the first Chilean and first member of the Teresian Carmel in Latin America to be canonized.
July 16 – Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, Patroness and Head of Our Order | Solemnity
Mount Carmel is commemorated in Scripture for its beauty, and it was there that the prophet Elijah defended the purity of Israel’s faith in the living God. Towards the end of the twelfth century A.D., near a spring named after Elijah, a group of hermits established themselves on Mount Carmel and built an oratory in honor of Our Lady, whom they chose as their titular and patroness. They became known as the Brothers of Saint Mary of Mount Carmel. They regarded the Blessed Virgin as their Mother, and their model first of all in leading the contemplative life, and later in sharing the fruits of their contemplation with others. The Solemn Commemoration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was first celebrated in England in the fourteenth century, but was gradually adopted throughout the Order as an occasion of thanksgiving for the countless blessings which Our Lady had bestowed on the Carmelite family.
July 17 – Bl. Teresa of St. Augustine and Companions, Virgins and Martyrs | Optional Memorial
As soon as the French Revolution became a serious threat to religion the sixteen Discalced Carmelite nuns of Compiegne offered themselves to God as victims of his justice for the peace of the Church. They were imprisoned in June 24 1794, and they inspired their fellow prisoners by their joy and abandonment to God. They were condemned to death for their refusal to betray the Church and their religious vocation, and for their devotion to the sacred hearts of Jesus and Mary. Having renewed their profession in the hands of their prioress, Teresa of St Augustine, they went to the scaffold, singing hymns, on July 17 1794.
July 20 – St. Elijah, Our Father, Prophet | Feast
Scripture presents the prophet Elijah as a man of God, walking continually in Gods presence and fiercely defending the worship of the one true God. He stood up for Gods rights in a solemn contest on Mount Carmel. Later on Mount Horeb he was granted an intimate experience of the living God. The hermits who instituted a form of monastic life in honor of Our Lady on Mount Carmel in the twelfth century, followed monastic tradition in turning also to Elijah as their model.
July 23 – Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Divine Grace | Memorial
The Blessed Virgin Mary was eternally predestined, in the context of the incarnation of the divine Word, to be Mother of God. As decreed by divine Providence, she served on earth as the loving Mother of the divine Redeemer, his associate, uniquely generous, and the Lords humble servant. She conceived, bore, and nourished Christ; presented him to the Father in the Temple; and was united with him in his suffering as he died on the cross. In a completely unparalleled way she cooperated, by her obedience, faith, hope and burning charity, with our Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason she is Mother to us all in the order of grace (Lumen gentium 61)
July 24 – Bl. Maria Pilar of St. Francis Borgia; Bl. Maria Sagrario of St. Aloysius Gonzaga and Companions, Virgins and Martyrs | Optional Memorial
Mary Pilar of St Francis Borgia (born in Tarazona December 30, 1877); Teresa of the Child Jesus and of St John of the Cross (born in Mochales March 5, 1909); and Maria Angeles of St Joseph (born in Getafe March 6, 1905), Discalced Carmelite nuns from the convent of Guadalajara, Spain, were martyred on July 24, 1936, after witnessing to their faith in Christ the King, offering their lives for the Church. They were the first fruits of the countless martyrs of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 and were beatified by John Paul II on March 29, 1987.
July 24 – Mercedes Prat | Optional Memorial
Mercedes Prat was born on March 6, 1880, in Barcelona, Spain. From her childhood she gave herself completely to God. She displayed a great love for her neighbor and tried to foster this kind of love in others. She entered the novitiate of the Society of St Teresa of Jesus in 1904, in Tortosa, and made her profession in 1907. She was a religious according to the heart of God: prudent and truthful, calm and gentle, but firm in character. God was her one love. In 1920 she was assigned to Barcelona. From there the path to martyrdom began on July 9, 1936, when the community was forced to give up its school and flee. On July 23, because she was a religious, Sr Mercedes was arrested and shot; she died on July 24.
July 27 – Bl. Titus Brandsma, Priest and Martyr | Optional Memorial
Born in Bolsward (The Netherlands) in 1881, Blessed Titus Brandsma joined the Carmelite Order as a young man. Ordained a priest in 1905, he earned a doctorate in philosophy in Rome. He then taught in various schools in Holland and was named professor of philosophy and of the history of mysticism in the Catholic University of Nijmegen, where he also served as Rector Magnificus. He was noted for his constant availability to everyone. He was a professional journalist, and in 1935 was appointed ecclesiastical advisor to Catholic journalists. Both before and during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, remaining faithful to the Gospel, he fought against the spread of Nazi ideology, and for the freedom of Catholic education and the Catholic press. For this he was arrested and sent to a succession of prisons and concentration camps where he brought comfort and peace to his fellow prisoners and did good even to his tormentors; in 1942, after much suffering and humiliation, he was killed in Dachau, Germany. He was beatified by John Paul II on November 3, 1985.
July 28 – Bl. John Soreth, Priest | Optional Memorial
John Soreth was born at Caen in Normandy (France) in 1394. He entered Carmel in his youth, and in due course took the degree of Master in Theology at Paris, where he became Regent of Studies. He later became Provincial. He was Prior General of the Order from 1451 until his death at Angers (France) in 1471. He restored an encouraged religious observance, wrote a well-known commentary on the Rule, issued revised Constitutions in 1462, and supported and promoted the foundation of communities of nuns in the Order.