Today we celebrate a saint who sounds like she's from a town invented by Dr. Seuss: Youville. But she's not. She married a man named Francois d'Youville in Canada in the 18th century. Her mother in law treated her terribly, and her husband was distant. She had several children, but most of them died in infancy. Then her husband died, leaving her in serious debt.
She ran a shop and used the income to slowly pay off the debt. While she did that and took care of her children, she also worked with the poor. She begged for money so that she could help bury people who had been executed. She eventually took over a hospital and worked to make life better for the sick in her town. You can read more about her here.
So her town sounds like a Dr. Seuss invention, and her life sounds like something out of Dickens. But she used all of the suffering that life sent her to make her better, not bitter. She suffered, but in her suffering she reached out to others who were also suffering and alleviated her own suffering by focusing on helping others. Is there any way God might like you to do something like this today?
God, thanks for the example of helping others in our suffering that we see in the life of this amazing woman. St Marguerite d'Youville, pray for us.
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