Born in Germany in 1838 and raised in New York, Marianne Cope joined the Sisters of Saint Francis in Syracuse and helped found hospitals that welcomed patients others turned away. In 1883 she answered a plea from Hawaii and spent the rest of her life caring for people with leprosy on Molokai, continuing the work of Saint Damien. She died there in 1918 and was canonized in 2012.
Marianne went willingly to those the world had abandoned, and promised her sisters that none of them would catch the disease if they served with love — a promise kept. Her life shows that tender, practical care for the sick is holiness in action, and that no one who suffers should ever be left alone.
Saint Marianne Cope, who gave your life to the sick and the forgotten, teach us to love without fear, and stay near all who are ill and all who care for them. Amen.Enter today’s Mass → All saints →