Today is Jan. 23, the optional memorial of St. Marianne Cope.
Today at Mass we pray in the Responsorial Psalm, “To do your will, O my God, is my delight, and your law is within my heart!” (Ps 40:9).
Among the many places I preached as part of the National Eucharistic Revival, I led a diocesan-wide mission at the cathedral in Syracuse, New York. (Sadly, the mission was interrupted by a massive snowstorm…but I digress!)
In the beautiful and historic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, there is a marvelous mosaic of St. Marianne Cope. As he showed me around the cathedral, Bishop Lucia proudly shared that St. Marianne had been head of her Franciscan congregation, whose motherhouse was located in the diocese. She left Syracuse in 1883 to begin her service in Hawaii, where she remained until she died in 1918.
St. Marianne Cope’s confidence in God’s will
Sister Marianne famously served the lepers of Molokai alongside St. Damien. She advocated for hygienic medical facilities and joy and fun. She worked tirelessly to beautify the spaces where her patients and their children lived.
We can only imagine the challenges she faced. That’s part of what makes what she wrote in a letter to another sister so remarkable. She wrote, “Try to accept what God is pleased to give you no matter how bitter — God wills it, is the thought that will strengthen you and help you over the hard places that we all have to experience if we wish to be true children of God.” For St. Marianne, these were no empty words. Brave and resourceful, she persevered in her mission to serve people with Hansen’s disease when no one else would.
Today, let’s each of us ask for a portion of St. Marianne’s confidence in God’s will for our lives. For any of us who are struggling, who need help over the hard places, let’s imitate St. Marianne’s trust in the will of God.
Let us pray,
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. Amen.
