“What can we do to love God more?”

Marguerite Bays was the 2nd of 7 children, born on the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1815, the daughter of simple, pious farmers near Fribourg, Switzerland.

She spent all of her life in her own neighborhood and worked as a dressmaker. She was dedicated to children, the sick and the dying with tireless love and intensity. She was a true friend to the poor whom she called “God’s favourites”. She introduced missionary activities into her local parish and contributed to founding the Catholic Press during a time of conflict between Prussia and the Catholic Church.

She developed intestinal cancer at the age of 35. She asked Our Lady to intercede with her Son and to exchange her suffering for the kind of pain that would enable her to share more directly in the Passion of Our Lord.

She was miraculously cured in 1854 at the moment Pius IX pronounced the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Instead of the cancer, she bore a “mysterious affliction” which immobilized her every Friday when, physically and spiritually, she relived the phases of Jesus’ Passion from Gethesmane to Calvary. She received the Stigmata, like Saint Francis, which she did her best to hide.

She put the greatest trust in prayer and had a deep love for Our Lady, whom she venerated with frequent reciting of the Rosary and visiting her shrines. She had immense love for Jesus in the Eucharist and lived constantly in God’s presence.

She suffered greatly from the sight of weak faith in those around her and prayed that it would be strengthened. She was profoundly humble, feeling the lowliest of creatures and as a great sinner.

With her increased suffering of Jesus on the Cross, happy to follow him, uttering words of adoration and submission to God’s Holy Will, she died at 3:00pm on Friday, June 27th in 1879.

She was canonized in October 2019.

Her feast day is June 27.

For God’s Glory.