From Paris to North Africa to China; a missionary canonized by St. John Paul II

    

St. Jeanne-Marie Kerguin

Facts

Feastday: July 8
Birth: 1864
Death: 1900
Beatified By: 24 November 1946 by Pope Pius XII
Canonized By: 1 October 2000 by Pope John Paul II in Rome

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Jeanne-Marie was born on May 5, 1864, at Belle-Isle en Terre, France. She was born to a poor peasant family. Her mother died when she was quite young, and she was forced to take over the household chores for the family. She joined the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary in 1887, with the name Marie Santa Natalia. There she happily threw herself into a life of devotion. She was assigned first to Paris, then to Carthage in Northern Africa. She encountered health problems and was sent to Rome to recover. There she answered the call of her Order to work as a missionary. She arrived in China in March 1899, and was almost immediately hospitalized for several months with typhus. Her short lived career ended during a crackdown on foreign missionaries during the Boxer Rebellion. St. Jeanne - Marie Kerguin was beheaded on July 9, 1900, at at Taiyuanfu, China.