Saint Marianne Cope was born in Germany in 1838, but her family moved to Utica, New York two years later. As a young woman, she worked in a factory until she was 24 and decided to join the Franciscans. As a Franciscan sister, she taught school and worked in hospitals in New York.
Saint Marianne Cope was the superior general of her Franciscan congregation when she received a letter from the king of Hawaii pleading for religious to help care for the lepers. With six of her sisters, she sailed to Hawaii. They tirelessly founded hospitals, instituted medical reform, and cared for the orphan children of lepers.
Finally, she went to Moloka'i where she befriended Saint Damien and served the exiled leper colony there. Saint Marianne Cope noticed that the girls all had to wear plain uniforms, She brought them brightly colored dresses and scarves.
Saint Marianne Cope is the patroness of the Hawaiian Islands. She is also the patron saint of people with leprosy and people with HIV/AIDS. Saint Marianne Cope saw Christ in the sick, the poor, the disfigured, and the dying. She treated all of these people as she would treat Jesus, Himself. Let us try to love all people the way Saint Marianne Cope did.