This month, we celebrate not one but TWO feast days of great Catholic parents!

Saints Joachim and Anne (July 26) probably had it pretty easy—after all, the Immaculate Conception isn’t about to argue about putting away her toys or doing her summer reading assignments, let alone grumble about saying her prayers (!).

But the couple we celebrate first this month are Saints Louis and Zelie Martin (July 12).  They raised five girls who ALL became nuns. The youngest is The Little Flower Saint Therese, and the cause for canonization of another, Leonie, is underway! Louis and Zelie became the first married couple to be canonized TOGETHER as a couple (on Oct 18, 2015).  Isn’t that wonderful?

But life on earth wasn’t always so wonderful for the blessed couple.  They had 9 children (7 girls and 2 boys), but read of their heartache in this excerpt from littleflower.org:

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.

In a letter to her sister-in-law who had lost an infant son, Zelie remembered: “When I closed the eyes of my dear little children and buried them, I felt sorrow through and through…People said to me, ‘It would have been better never to have had them.’ I couldn’t stand such language. My children were not lost forever; life is short and full of miseries, and we shall find our little ones again up above.”

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.”

YES: that little giggler became a Doctor of the Church, Saint Therese!

BUT: here’s one little thing that was dropped of the end of the quote from the letter to her sister-in-law–a couple extra lines which you should hold in your heart for contemplation and hope:

“Above all, it was on the death of my first child that I felt more deeply the happiness of having a child in Heaven, for God showed me in a noticeable way that He accepted my sacrifice. Through the intercession of my little angel, I received a very extraordinary grace.”

Yes: it is better to have a child in Heaven than on earth! Getting the whole family to Heaven is the goal!

[Psst: Read this blog post about the people you already know in Heaven

–from the teaching of the Church!]

Well, all parents can use practical help getting their children to Heaven, so here are some of the great resources we have found (and Holy Heroes families have loved!):

1. For the moms: Our newest Holy Heroes book–which has taken off in sales (on its second printing in less than 2 months!)–is Raising Chaste Catholic Men. Leila Miller shares “mom-to-mom” her 25 years of experience in raising eight children, six of them sons. This book addresses serious topics like answering the culture’s two BIG accusations, navigating pop culture, and “what to do when things go wrong” with good humor and a “no fear” approach to this sensitive parenting topic. Click to check out the book here (or get the KINDLE version here).

2. Jason Evert and Chris Stefanick teamed up to write Raising Pure Teens with 10 proven strategies for talking to your teenagers. This book has a blend of good humor while also taking a serious tone, real-life stories, and undeniable logic to help you as a parent prepare your teenager to resist the secular world’s aggressive misunderstanding of sexuality. Click to get the book ON SALE here.

3. And my dad’s FAVORITE book for parents, which he said I MUST include: Forming Character in Adolescents. It’s the ONLY psychology book we’ve ever seen with an Imprimatur, by Dr Rudolf Allers, who taught for decades at Catholic University of America and had a PhD in Philosophy in addition to his medical degree.  In his own words, the book was intended to “bring together reliable statements of psychology and the immutable principles of sound philosphy” as the “very best means of practical” advice for Catholic parents.  It’s also ON SALE when you click here.

OR—you can get dad’s book and a great book on dating for your older teens/college-aged kids as a set: Christian Dating in a Godless World (hey: maybe not all your kids will follow in the footsteps of the Martin girls into the convent!).  The priest who wrote this book was a late vocation, so he knows what he is talking about. He not only dated, but at a youth conference one of my sisters attended, he actually said he was ENGAGED twice! That got everyone’s attention!  A clear, no-holds-barred discussion of the modern world of relationships and how to be Catholic and find your spouse. Click here for the 2-book set or click here for just the dating book.

If you have any other suggested books, please share them with us!  And remember to celebrate these great “parent Feast Days” this month!