Father Martin Writes About Late Wife’s Journey

When put through the crucible” in life, the “deep down” things in their hearts, minds and souls surface. 

For Jennie Martin her courage, faith and love shone all the brighter as her life faded away from terminal cancer. 

Her husband Father Eddie Martin, who was a deacon at the time of Jennie’s passing and who upon her urging became a priest for the Diocese of Baton Rouge in 2016, wrote about her journey in “The Last Dance.” The book honors Jennie and encourages readers to embrace the most difficult times in life with faith and trust.

Father Martin recalled the time Jennie approached him with tears in her eyes. Two children in the neighborhood were at the end of their driveway with suitcases and were crying. 

Their parents had divorced and were arguing over who would “be stuck with them.” The mother kicked out the children, saying they would have to live with their father.

The children spent the night outside “as mosquito bait” and when Jennie called the children’s father, he said he didn’t want to raise them and if she did not want to take them in to find someone else who would. 

Offering all the assistance she could for the children, Jennie, a convert to Catholicism, asked Father Martin to pray with her to consecrate their own family to the Holy Family. The Martins had endured several miscarriages, but they prayed in order to “somehow stop this train wreck of marriage and divorce in America.” They became involved in pre-marital ministry.

When Father Martin was ordained, he consecrated his priesthood to the Holy Family. He is currently pastor of St. Anne Church in Napoleonville, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Plattenville and St. Philomena Church in Labadieville.

Father Martin said one of the reasons he wrote the book is to provide a message of hope for families in the midst of trials and suffering. 

“There’s so many people who have been raised in broken homes. They don’t believe in marriage anymore.  We have a crisis in our society so I’m hoping God will use this in some small way to at least to show people what a wholesome, good, healthy marriage looks like,” said Father Martin.
Although centered around Jennie’s battle with cancer, Father Martin said the book offers a message of hope for people struck by a moment that “rocks their world.”

“You have so many moments that seem to be totally meaningless and suddenly this one instant occurs and everything in the rest of your life is forever redefined,” said Father Martin.

Through the book Father Martin shows the incredible power of God’s love and fidelity in the midst of “the fire.” It also looks at, in the deepest sense, “why bad things happen to good people,” according to Father Martin.

“I actually wrote that (book) with some of my nephews and nieces in mind. I wanted them to see what a great God we have,” said Father Martin.

And that’s the story of Jennie’s life, according to Father Martin. He pointed out when doctors gave Jennie and him the news that she only had a couple of years to live, he asked her what she would like to do with the time she had left. 

Instead of wanting to “jet away” in order to forget everything for a while, she instead wanted to go on a mission trip to Honduras that they had already scheduled.

“Everybody says ‘let go and let God.’ Jennie lived it and there was no false bravado to it. It was the core of who she was,” said Father Martin.   

He mused that when Jennie discovered she only had months to live she made arrangements for the house to be remodeled. When he asked her why she was remodeling the house she told him that he was going to be a priest and in order to do that the house needed to be remodeled so it could be sold.

“She put the collar around my neck,” said Father Martin, who had thoughts of becoming a priest since early in life. “I like to tell people she showed me what true love is all about. I experienced the love of Christ in a way few people do. Not like St. Teresa of Avila and have any mystic out of the body experiences or anything like the great saints. But I lived it in real life. I have beheld the face of God.”

“She (Jennie) made me the priest I am today,” he added.

Father Martin’s book can be found on Catholic Arts and Gifts and St. Mary’s Books and Gifts both in Baton Rouge and Christian Books and Gifts in Gonzales, and at Acadian Graphics in Prairieville.

Online book vendors and others book stores in Baton Rouge. Proceeds from the book will go to ministries that Jennie and Father Martin supported.