St. Marianne Cope
Feast day: January 23
Born in Germany, Marianne moved to the United States with her family when she was 2. She entered the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in New York in 1862. She served as teacher, then principal at a school for immigrant children. She started the first two Catholic hospitals in central New York and served as superior of her congregation. In 1883, she traveled with six sisters to Hawaii to minister to people with Hansen’s disease, then known as leprosy. In 1888, they opened a home on Molokai for women and girls and continued the work of St. Damien de Veuster. Mother Marianne died in 1918 and was canonized in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.
Collect
O God, who called us to serve your Son
in the least of our brothers and sisters,
grant, we pray, that by the example and intercession
of the Virgin Saint Marianne Cope,
we may burn with love for you and for those who suffer.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
