Saint Who?
Saints Who Cared for the Sick
Blessed Jean-Martin Moÿe
Priest and founder († 1793)Feast: May 4
Jean-Martin was born in France, one of thirteen sons in a pious family of peasants. After being educated at a Jesuit school, he decided to become a priest. Following ordination, he was particularly concerned about the lack of education for poor children in rural areas. He established a religious order of women, the Sisters of Divine Providence, who traveled to remote villages to serve the needy and teach children. Some people were concerned, however, about the prudence of sending young women on such missions, and Jean-Martin was ordered to stop doing so.
He then volunteered to serve in the missions and was sent to China. He initially struggled to adapt to Chinese culture and learn the language of his flock. Once again, he established a group of women who devoted themselves to caring for the needy and teaching young mothers. After a decade in China, he worked himself to exhaustion and had to return to France to recover. He also resumed direction of his order of sisters in France.
As anti-Catholic movements grew in influence, Jean continued to preach missions. During the French Revolution, he and his sisters were exiled to Trier, Germany. When a typhoid fever outbreak erupted in that city, he and his sisters risked their lives to care for those who were infected. Jean contracted the disease from a patient and died at the age of sixty-three.
Jesus our Savior, inspire us with the courage
to lay down our lives for those in need.
