The Marriage Medallion St. Louis Martin Gave Zélie as a Wedding Gift

The Catholic Church celebrates Saints Louis and Zélie Martin as the first married couple to be canonized together. They are honored for living out the vocation of marriage and family life with exemplary fidelity and holiness. Their feast day is commemorated on July 12th, the date of their wedding anniversary. What many people do not know is that Louis gave Zélie a very special gift during their exchange of vows—a sacred artwork that paints a biblical backdrop to their own love story.

The Marriage Medallion

In honor of their wedding, Louis Martin commissioned a unique marriage medallion for Zélie. He intended to surprise her with the gift during the ceremony. The front of the marriage medallion featured a depiction of the biblical couple Tobias and Sarah, making it a beautiful example of sacred art. On the back, Louis had his initials engraved alongside Zélie’s, with their wedding date underneath.

The Marriage Medallion of Saints Louis and Zelie Martin

The day of the wedding finally arrived—or rather the night of the wedding, since Louis and Zélie married at midnight between July 12th and 13th. A priest witnessed the exchange of their vows at the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Alençon, France. After the priest blessed the medallion, Louis slipped a wedding ring on Zélie’s right hand and placed his gift in her left hand. He said, “Receive the symbol of our wedding promises.”

The Story of Tobias and Sarah

“Receive the symbol of our wedding promises.” What symbol was Louis referring to? The front of the medallion holds the answer. Like all sacred art, the depiction of Tobias and Sarah was meant to communicate a deeper spiritual reality. The story of Tobias and Sarah centers on marriage. The Book of Tobit is a divinely inspired work, and its contents are traditionally associated with the vocation of marriage, particularly its role in human and salvation history.

The Book of Tobit is about a Jewish family living in Nineveh during the Assyrian exile in the eighth century B.C. Since the book can easily be read in one sitting, it’s only necessary to include the relevant details here. Tobias leaves on a journey to find a cure for his father Tobit’s blindness. He is accompanied by the archangel Raphael, who keeps his true identity a secret.

Tobias and the Angel by Filippo Tarchiani (Italian, 1576-1645), Public Domain

During their travels, Raphael instructs Tobias to take his kinswoman Sarah as his wife. This appalls Tobias, who knows that Sarah’s previous attempts at marriage hadn’t gone too well. Sarah was afflicted by a demon who killed her husband on their wedding night. This had happened not once or twice, but seven times. Tobias didn’t want to be the eighth husband to meet the same fate.

However, Raphael commands Tobias to take parts of a recently caught fish and burn them in the bridal chamber. The angel also tells him that he and Sarah must beg God for mercy as their first act as a newly-married couple.

The Wedding Prayer

Showing great faith, Tobias complies with Raphael’s instructions regarding his marriage to Sarah. The plan works. On their wedding night, Tobias and Sarah pray to God for mercy. Their words hold the key to understanding St. Louis Martin’s statement about the medallion. Together, they say the following prayer:

“Blessed are you, O God of our ancestors;

    blessed be your name forever and ever!

Let the heavens and all your creation bless you forever.

   You made Adam, and you made his wife Eve

    to be his helper and support;

    and from these two the human race has come.

You said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone;

    let us make him a helper like himself.’

   Now, not with lust,

    but with fidelity I take this kinswoman as my wife.

Send down your mercy on me and on her,

    and grant that we may grow old together.

Bless us with children.” (NABRE, Tobit 8:4-7)

The wedding prayer of Tobias and Sarah indicates that they understand the true dignity and purpose of marriage. They recognize its roots in the creation of the first man and woman, whom God made out of and for love, intending them to make a gift of self to each other. As Pope St. John Paul II pointed out in his Theology of the Body audiences, marriage is the primordial sacrament. It has a special place within salvation history as a living sign (or sacrament) of God’s own love for mankind.

John Paul II actually dedicated several of his Theology of the Body audiences to the wedding prayer of Tobias and Sarah. He emphasized that conjugal love is more than a physical reality. Sacramental marriage also involves a spiritual dimension, one which Tobias and Sarah acknowledge and strengthen through prayer. John Paul II even described prayer within marriage as a “language of the liturgy,” referencing the ability of a married couple to participate in and communicate a great divine mystery: God’s covenantal love for humanity.

Painting of Tobias and Sarah by Francesco Antonibon di Venezia, c. 1840, Belvedere

A Holy Marriage

According to St. Louis Martin, the marriage medallion symbolized his wedding vows with Zélie. Their marriage was ultimately a living expression of the wedding prayer of Tobias and Sarah, who were depicted on the medallion. Like the biblical couple, the Martins faced life-and-death situations together that required them to rely on God. They lost four children in infancy and early childhood. After suffering from breast cancer for twelve years, Zélie passed away when their youngest child was four and a half years old.

Only a deep love could carry a husband and wife through such storms. Thankfully, the Martins had something that Tobias and Sarah did not—Louis and Zélie had access to the Sacraments. Christ had elevated marriage itself into a Sacrament, enabling a married couple to receive special graces through their union. The Martins also drew strength from Confession and the Eucharist. They attended Mass every day and received the Eucharist several times a week, which was an unusual practice for the time. Through the Sacraments, the Martins rooted their conjugal love in the love of God Himself.

A line from John Paul II’s audiences on the Book of Tobit adequately summarizes Louis and Zélie’s approach to marriage: “They see with eyes of faith the holiness of this vocation, in which…they must respond to the call of God himself, contained in the mystery of the ‘beginning’” (TOB 116:4). Louis and Zélie understood the meaning of marriage in the context of salvation history. Their lives contained an echo of the prayer of Tobias and Sarah, glorifying God by living out a holy marriage with fidelity and trust in the mercy of God.