Saint Marguerite Bays

Saint Marguerite Bays was a Swiss laywoman, a seamstress and a Franciscan tertiary. She spent almost her whole life in her family home in the countryside, in the parish of Siviriez in the canton of Fribourg. She sought holiness in her daily work, in prayer and in serving her neighbor. The Church commemorates her on June 27.

She was born on September 8, 1815, at La Pierraz, the second of seven children of modest farmers, and was baptized the following day. She attended school for a few years, and already as a child she would leave her games with her companions in order to pray. At about fifteen she began to learn dressmaking, and for the rest of her life she worked as a seamstress, at home and for neighboring families.

Many urged her to enter religious life, but she preferred to remain unmarried, within her family and her parish. She ran the household, looked after the children and calmed quarrels among her brothers and sisters. In 1860 her brother, who managed the family farm, married one of the servants. For fifteen years her sister-in-law showed Marguerite hostility and reproached her for the time she gave to prayer. Marguerite answered with silence and patience until her sister-in-law acknowledged her wrongs, and before her sister-in-law’s death it was Marguerite who nursed her.

Every day, even in bad weather, she walked to Holy Mass, which, according to John Paul II, was the summit of her day. On Sundays she prayed at length before the Blessed Sacrament, made the Way of the Cross and prayed the Rosary, and she also went on pilgrimage to Marian shrines. She taught the catechism to children, visited the sick and the dying, and called the poor God’s favorite friends. She introduced the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in her parish and spread the Catholic press. In 1860 she joined the Third Order of Saint Francis.

In 1853 she underwent surgery for intestinal cancer. She asked Our Lady to heal her, and at the same time to let her suffer in another way, in closer union with the Passion of Jesus. Both requests were granted on December 8, 1854, the day on which Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in Rome. From then on, every Friday and during Holy Week, she relived the Passion of Christ in ecstasy, and the stigmata appeared on her body, which she carefully hid. Bishop Étienne Marilley had these phenomena examined by physicians and recognized their mystical origin.

Her last years brought growing suffering, which she bore without complaint. She died on June 27, 1879, and her parishioners said that their saint had died. She was buried in the cemetery of Siviriez; her remains were later transferred to the parish church.

The cause of beatification was opened in 1927. John Paul II beatified her on October 29, 1995, and Pope Francis canonized her on October 13, 2019, together with John Henry Newman. In his homily he recalled that she was a seamstress and that her life shows the power of simple prayer, patient endurance and silent self-giving.