Saint Marguerite d’Youville

Saint Marguerite d’Youville was a widow and mother who founded in Montreal the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity, known as the Grey Nuns. She is the first person born in Canada whom the Church has declared a saint. The Roman Martyrology commemorates her on December 23, the day of her death; in Canada her memorial is kept on October 16.

Marie-Marguerite Dufrost de Lajemmerais was born on October 15, 1701, in Varennes near Montreal, in what was then New France, the eldest of the six children of Christophe and Marie-Renée, née Gaultier de Varennes. In her seventh year she lost her father, and the family fell into poverty. Thanks to the help of her great-grandfather she studied for two years with the Ursulines in Quebec. After her return she helped her mother run the household and bring up her younger brothers and sisters.

In 1722, in Montreal, she married François d’Youville. Her husband cared little for his home, was often away, and traded alcohol with the Indigenous people. Of their six children, four died in infancy. When her husband fell gravely ill, she nursed him until his death in 1730. She was left with debts and two sons, whom she supported by a small trade. Both later became priests. In those years there grew in her a trust in God, whom she loved as a Father, and a desire to carry his care to the poor.

On November 21, 1737, she took a blind woman into her home. On December 31 of the same year, together with three companions, she consecrated herself to God to serve him in the poorest. Relatives and neighbors answered with mockery and slander. The women were nicknamed “les grises,” which in French means “the gray ones” but also “the tipsy ones”: in this way they were reproached with her husband’s trade. When a fire destroyed their house, Marguerite and her two first companions pledged on February 2, 1745, to hold everything in common in order to help a greater number of people in need.

In 1747 she was entrusted with the General Hospital of Montreal, which was in debt and falling into ruin. She made it a refuge for the poor, the elderly, the sick, orphans, and abandoned children. In 1753 King Louis XV recognized the community and placed it in charge of the hospital, and in 1755 the bishop of Quebec approved its rule. The sisters then took a gray habit and kept the old nickname as their name.

In 1765 a fire consumed the hospital. Marguerite called on the sisters and the poor to recognize the hand of God in this misfortune too and to give him praise, and then, at the age of 64, she began to rebuild. She died in Montreal on December 23, 1771. Already in her lifetime she was called the mother of the poor.

John XXIII beatified her on May 3, 1959, and called her the Mother of Universal Charity. John Paul II canonized her on December 9, 1990, in Saint Peter’s Basilica. Her work is carried on today by the Sisters of Charity of Montreal and by the congregations that grew from them in Canada and the United States. Since 2010 the saint’s relics have rested in the Basilica of Saint Anne in her native Varennes.