St. Marguerite Bays

St. Marguerite Bays was born on Sept. 8 (the Nativity of Mary), 1815 in Switzerland. She was the second of seven children, and her parents were farmers. She was known as a good student in school. In 1830 she began an apprenticeship as a seamstress and soon served as a seamstress for several households.

She was pious and made a small alter in her room at home for prayer. Many around her suggested she join a religious order, but instead, she remained a single laywoman and virgin and devoted herself to an austere life of work and caring for her siblings.

During that time, local farmers were losing jobs to mechanization. She served them by delivering milk and bread and doing their washing and mending. She joined the Secular Franciscans. She regularly attended Mass and adoration and taught catechism to children.

In 1853 she got bowel cancer. On Dec. 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX declared the immaculate conception dogma. On the same day, Marguerite found herself cured of the cancer and took it as a sign. Also in 1854, she discovered she had the stigmata and consulted her bishop. While she tried to keep it secret, news got out. She would fall into ecstatic raptures and feel the pain of Christ’s death once a week. She had a medical exam in 1873.

She grew very sick and weak in early 1879 with acute pain in her head, throat, and chest. She died at 3 p.m. on June 27, 1879.

She was one of five people canonized this past Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019. Her feast day will be June 27, and she is a patron of Franciscan tertiaries.

Praying for the Kurds

The Kurds have faced ethnic persecution for generations. Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Kurds have wanted their own country, yet instead they comprise a sizeable majority in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Kurds have been on the forefront of fighting ISIS and rebel groups in Syria. Many Kurdish fighters are women. The U.S. has worked with Kurdish forces throughout the fighting.

Last week, Kurds logged into Twitter and discovered they had been betrayed. The U.S., with no warning, was pulling out of Syria and allowing Turkey to invade. Turkey is suffering from the mass of refugees that have fled Syria during the war. They claim they need to invade and secure a safe zone between Syria and Turkey, where they will return over a million refugees. That zone just so happens to be the Kurdish region of Syria. Turkey has long sought to stamp out Kurdish culture in Turkey. Thousands have been killed in recent years of fighting between Kurdish nationalists and Turkey. Erdogan has said that Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria are terrorists, same as the nationalists in Turkey.

In just days, there are reports of ISIS prisoner breakouts, civilian casualties, closed hospitals. Tens of thousands are being displaced. There is chaos and carnage in a place where stability was already fragile. The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces told a senior US diplomat, “You are leaving us to be slaughtered.”

The situation is terribly complex, of course. Yet this moment is clear. The U.S. betrayed a weaker ally. We enlisted them to fight in a war then abandoned them. We used to say we were the defender of freedom. But this moment shows no love of freedom, no leadership, no courage, and no morality.

The Kurds are used to being ignored. They are used to be persecuted. And now they experiencing devastating betrayal. One less ally to call upon. One less ally in which to place hope. One less friend on the world stage. They are learning that the U.S. is not trustworthy. That they are on their own.

When trust is lost, so can hope waver. How can one hope as their land is revenged, as their people die, as the world throws on one more betrayal? I certainly don’t have any solutions to the chaos in Syria. But I pray for the Kurds who continue to get up each morning and fight against evil. I hope that the slaughtering will end. I hope there are moral people who will find solutions. I hope that the refugees and the fighters and the civilians all caught up in this misery don’t lose hope.

St. Hunna

St. Hunna was born in the 7th century to a duke. She was known as being kind to the poor. One of her acts of service was washing the laundry of her needy neighbors in Strasbourg. Her neighbors called her the "Holy Washerwoman."

She married Hunon, who founded the village of Hunawihr in her name. Their son Deodatus became a monk. She and Hunon spent their lives donating money and land for churches and monasteries and serving the local poor through personal encounters. She was always willing to clean or do laundry for the poor. Though she was well-loved, there is not much else known about her. She died in 679.

She is the patron of laundry workers and washerwomen. Her feast day is April 15.