Saint Marianne Cope
My Dear Parishioners,
Last week I wrote about our 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope. Visits to the Shrines of the Saints is something that we are all encouraged to do throughout this year. Shrines are not parishes and are not the center of our Faith life. Our parishes are the everyday center of our Faith Life and our Sacramental Life. Moreover, journeys to Shrines are not vacations or sight-seeing tours. A journey to a Shrine is a pilgrimage and a special opportunity to reflect on God’s Goodness, seek healing and special favors, and be refreshed in His Love.
Thankfully, as I noted last week, we are so blessed to have many Shrines to the Saints in our own Archdiocese. Thankfully, there are other Shrines that are not too far away. One of those shrines that isn’t too far away is the Shrine of St. Marianne Cope, whose Feast we celebrate on Thursday.
Franciscan Media (www.franciscanmedia.org) provides us with a very nice biography of Saint Marianne Cope.
Though leprosy scared off most people in 19th-century Hawaii, that disease sparked great generosity in the woman who came to be known as Mother Marianne of Molokai. Her courage helped tremendously to improve the lives of its victims in Hawaii, a territory annexed to the United States during her lifetime (1898).
Mother Marianne’s generosity and courage were celebrated at her May 14, 2005, beatification in Rome. She was a woman who spoke “the language of truth and love” to the world, said Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes. Cardinal Martins, who presided at the beatification Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, called her life “a wonderful work of divine grace.” Speaking of her special love for persons suffering from leprosy, he said, “She saw in them the suffering face of Jesus. Like the Good Samaritan, she became their mother.”
On January 23, 1838, a daughter was born to Peter and Barbara Cope of Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany. The girl was named after her mother. Two years later the Cope family emigrated to the United States and settled in Utica, New York. Young Barbara worked in a factory until August 1862, when she went to the Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Syracuse, New York. After profession in November of the next year, she began teaching at Assumption parish school.
Marianne held the post of superior in several places and was twice the novice mistress of her congregation. A natural leader, three different times she was superior of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, where she learned much that would be useful during her years in Hawaii.
Elected provincial in 1877, Mother Marianne was unanimously re-elected in 1881. Two years later the Hawaiian government was searching for someone to run the Kakaako Receiving Station for people suspected of having leprosy. More than 50 religious communities in the United States and Canada were asked. When the request was put to the Syracuse sisters, 35 of them volunteered immediately. On October 22, 1883, Mother Marianne and six other sisters left for Hawaii where they took charge of the Kakaako Receiving Station outside Honolulu; on the island of Maui they also opened a hospital and a school for girls.
In 1888, Mother Marianne and two sisters went to Molokai to open a home for “unprotected women and girls” there. The Hawaiian government was quite hesitant to send women for this difficult assignment; they need not have worried about Mother Marianne! On Molokai she took charge of the home that Saint Damien de Veuster had established for men and boys. Mother Marianne changed life on Molokai by introducing cleanliness, pride, and fun to the colony. Bright scarves and pretty dresses for the women were part of her approach.
Awarded the Royal Order of Kapiolani by the Hawaiian government and celebrated in a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mother Marianne continued her work faithfully. Her sisters have attracted vocations among the Hawaiian people and still work on Molokai.
Mother Marianne died on August 9, 1918, was beatified in 2005, and canonized seven years later. Her Feast Day is on her birthday, January 23.
She wrote of her ministry in Hawaii: “I am hungry for the work, and I wish with all my heart to be one of the chosen ones, whose privilege it will be to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the souls of the poor Islanders… I am not afraid of any disease, hence, it would be my greatest delight even to minister to the abandoned ‘lepers.’” Because of her zeal to serve God and save souls at that leper colony, she is now known as the Saint of the Outcasts.
Her shrine is in Syracuse NY. (www.saintmariannegiftshop.org). Additionally, if you are so blessed to be traveling to Hawaii this year, her remains are interred in Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, Honolulu.
Her shrine is sponsored by Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities. We are blessed to also have the Sisters of St. Francis in our own Archdiocese. They have taught in many of our schools and continue to do outreach work throughout our Archdiocese. They are also very present at our own Neumann University in Aston, PA. May God, through the intercession of St. Marianne Cope, continue to bless the Sisters of St. Francis with many vocations.
Prayer to Saint Marianne Cope
From the National Shrine of Saint Marianne Cope
Lord Jesus, you who gave us your commandment of love of God and neighbor, and identified yourself in a special way with the most needy of your people, hear our prayer.
Faithful to your teaching, St. Marianne Cope loved and served her neighbor, especially the most desolate outcast, giving herself generously and heroically for those afflicted by leprosy. She alleviated their physical and spiritual sufferings, thus helping them to accept their afflictions with patience.
Her care and concern for others manifested the great love you have for us. Through her merits and intercession, grant us the favor which we confidently ask of you so that the people of God, following the inspiration of her life and apostolate, may practice charity towards all according to your word and example. Amen.
St. Joseph, Patron of the Church, and our Patron, pray for us!
Fr. Michael J Pawelko, Pastor