We have learned that there is in fact a married couple already beatified together as example of holiness achieved through their "ordinary", married love and family life. Here is what John Paul II had to say on the occasion of the beatification of Luigi and Maria Beltrami Quattrocchi in October 2001:
"This couple lived married love and service to life in the light of the Gospel and with great human intensity. With full responsibility they assumed the task of collaborating with God in procreation, dedicating themselves generously to their children, to teach them, guide them and direct them to discovering his plan of love. From this fertile spiritual terrain sprang vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life, which shows how, with their common roots in the spousal love of the Lord, marriage and virginity may be closely connected and reciprocally enlightening.
Drawing on the word of God and the witness of the saints, the blessed couple lived an ordinary life in an extraordinary way. Among the joys and anxieties of a normal family, they knew how to live an extraordinarily rich spiritual life. At the centre of their life was the daily Eucharist as well as devotion to the Virgin Mary, to whom they prayed every evening with the Rosary, and consultation with wise spiritual directors. In this way they could accompany their children in vocational discernment, training them to appreciate everything "from the roof up", as they often, charmingly, liked to say.
3. The riches of faith and love of the husband and wife Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, are a living proof of what the Second Vatican Council said about the call of all the faithful to holiness, indicating that spouses should pursue this goal, "propriam viam sequentes", "following their own way" (Lumen gentium, n. 41). Today the aspiration of the Council is fulfilled with the first beatification of a married couple: their fidelity to the Gospel and their heroic virtues were verified in their life as spouses and parents."
( From the Homily of John Paul II on the occasion of the beatification of Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi October 21, 2001 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/2001/documents/hf_jp-... )
The joyful side of the beatification of the Quattrocchi’s is that the Church officially recognized that living the "ordinary" married life is a way to sainthood. The negative side is that this event is extremely rare and after two thousand years of Church history we arrive just now to the first beatification of a couple. Further negative aspect might be what the article of the NCR pointed out: "Despite the couple’s apparent accessibility, Jan Arcieri, co-director of Family Life Ministry in Worcester, Mass., and 38 years married, contends the pope’s "modern" example of holiness in marriage still reinforces the church’s age-old view of two-tiered sanctity. Is a couple’s holiness contingent upon their ability to raise priests and nuns? she said. Arcieri pointed to the recent beatification of eight Catholics, which occurred shortly after the Quattrocchi commemoration. All are priests, nuns or bishops. "It’s discouraging," she said. "The hidden vocations that are out doing tons of work for the church go unnoticed. Pull away those people from the church, however, and you have no church."" (Models of holiness and married life, by Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2001d/122801/122801a.htm )
Photos of Luigi and Maria Quattrocchi and other link on their life can be accessed at the "Wordwide Marriage Encounter, Massachusetts" website: http://www.wwmema.org/LuigiMaria
On 26 March 1994 Pope John Paul II declared Louis Martin and Thérèse's mother, Zélie Martin, "Venerable" (the first step toward canonization) and now we are getting near to their beatification – maybe this year (http://www.carmesdechaux.com/vernoticia.php?Id=1106 ) - and so also their example of married life will "officially" witness to the fact that conjugal love is a way to holiness - and a source of miracles as the Carmelitan Antonio Sangalli declared in an article of the Italian Jesuit’s magazine "Gesuiti in Italia": "Luigi Martin e Zélie Guerin sono la prova che "anche l’amore coniugale può compiere miracoli", come ha ricordato padre Antonio Sangalli agli amici riuniti nel giardino di casa Schilirò" ("Verso gli altari i genitori di S. Teresa di Lisieux" by Ricardo Cascioli, http://www.gesuiti.it/moscati/Ital3/Louis_Zelie.html ) Here are some letters from Louis: http://www.ewtn.com/therese/letters/Letters5.htm and from Zelie: http://www.ewtn.com/therese/readings/readng7.htm
