Today we celebrate the memorial of Saint Marguerite d’Youville.

Marie Marguerite Dufrost de Lajemmerais, a Canadian native born in Varennes, had to leave school at age 12 to assist her widowed mother. Eight years later, she wed François d’Youville; they had six children together, four of them passed away while they were very young. She cared for her husband until his death in 1730, even though he gambled, illegally supplied alcohol to Native Americans, and treated her poorly.

Marguerite continued to assist the less fortunate despite raising two young children and managing a store to help pay off her husband’s debts. When her kids were grown, she and a few friends saved a Quebec hospital on the verge of closing. Due to the color of their habits, the locals referred to her community as the Institute of the Sisters of Charity of Montreal or the Grey Nuns. Five more religious communities eventually traced their roots back to the Grey Nuns, who over time became known as the “Go to the Grey Nuns; they never refuse to serve” nuns among Montreal’s impoverished.

The Montreal General Hospital earned the nickname “Hôtel Dieu” (House of God) and established a high standard for medical care and Christian compassion. Mère Marguerite conducted the Te Deum, a song to God’s providence in all things, and started rebuilding after the hospital got destroyed by fire in 1766. She built the first foundling home in North America against attempts by authorities of the government to limit her charitable work.

Mère Marguerite got canonized in 1990, and her liturgical feast day is on October 16. Pope Saint John XXIII beatified her in 1959 and called her the “Mother of Universal Charity.”

source: franciscanmedia.org