Today is the memorial of St. Marianne Cope.
Who is she? (From a website dedicated to her)
A Sister of St. Francis, Marianne was canonized Oct. 21, 2012. She is the first Franciscan woman from North America to be canonized, and only the 11th American saint. A woman of great valor, this beloved mother of outcasts, spent her early years in central New York where she served as a leader in the field of health care, education and of her own congregation. Responding to a call to care for the poor sick on the then Sandwich Islands, she devoted 35 years to caring for those afflicted with Hansen’s disease on Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii.
In 1862 she entered the Sisters of Saint Francis in Syracuse, New York, after having postponed her entrance nine years in order to work to support her family. She was instrumental in the founding of several schools and hospitals for immigrants. In 1883 she led a group of sisters to the Hawaiian Islands to care for the poor, especially those suffering from leprosy. In 1888 she went to Kalaupapa, Moloka‘i, where she set up a home for girls with leprosy. After the death of Saint Damien de Veuster she also took over the home he built for boys. She died on 9 August, 1918.
Perhaps you know that author Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote an “open letter” in defense of Fr. Damien, against a gossipy, bigoted accusatory published piece written by a Presbyterian minister in Hawaii. Stevenson had visited Molokai – after Fr. Damien’s death – and was strongly affected by it, and was moved to defend the priest.
You can read that letter here.
During his bit more than a week on Molokai, he spent time with Sr. Marianne Cope, of course, and even purchased a piano for the colony. He also wrote a poem about the experience, the gist of which is that even though the sufferings of those with Hansen’s Disease might cause one to doubt the existence of God, that skepticism is corrected by the loving presence of the Sisters:
To the Reverend Sister Marianne, Matron of the Bishop Home, Kalaupapa.
To see the infinite pity of this place,
The mangled limb, the devastated face,
The innocent sufferers smiling at the rod,
A fool were tempted to deny his God.
He sees, and shrinks; but if he look again,
Lo, beauty springing from the breasts of pain!
He marks the sisters on the painful shores,
And even a fool is silent and adores.
Charlotte was Both 