"Why was I spared...?"

Molokai's St Marianne Cope never succumbed to leprosy, as did Fr Damien and others.

On this, her feast day, let us discern her bio & God's plan for her ...

October 22, 1883 [age 45]

This morning, we left a cold gray New York sky, with vapored breath. This train will carry seven Franciscan sisters to California, from where, we sail to Polynesia. The train causes nausea as the cars toss us to-and-fro. At least, our hands are warmed around tin cups of coffee spillage as the locomotive plows west.

October 30, 1883

Chicago was noisy and bustling. Omaha, with its wide plains, was an ocean of grass waves. The snow-capped Rockies were so tall, the passengers stared silent in awe. It made us whisper our prayers. We slept in short stretches, lulled by the clatter of wheels and the hum of purpose. We were not traveling as tourists—we are servants of God—unsure of what awaits, but certain of He, who sends us.

San Francisco greeted us with crying gulls and salty air. We transferred our trunks to the SS Mariposa, with its towering hull. As our feet touched the gangway, we felt the shift from land to mission. The ship’s deck vibrated under our steps, and the Pacific tested us like a navy-blue novitiate. We had eight days at sea with wind threading up our sleeves, waves slapping the hull like demons and nights filled with engines groaning. With no chapel to hide, we prayed to learn the language of ocean. Then, we felt both small and held. Every mile was mercy in motion; every step west was a yes, and every wave was received by our willingness to accept the work waiting ahead.

November 8, 1883

The warm air of Honolulu was welcoming, fragrant with plumeria. The calm, sunlit water sparkled like angels’ wings. When we stepped onto land, it felt sacred. Dignum et justum est.

The Molokai Manifesto

It would not be easy. Walking and functioning together in chaos would require structure and rhythm: wash, tend, listen, laugh, rinse and repeat. Compassion would be demonstrated through clean beds, fresh clothes, warm meals and gentle words. Joy was less about naivety and more about defiance—the refusal to let suffering define their love. Objectives would have been informally discussed amongst the nuns upfront.

• Merciful presence — the ability to stand with suffering without flinching.
• Joyful service — the gift of making care feel like celebration rather than duty.
• Orderly compassion — the instinct to create structure, cleanliness and peace so souls could focus on God.
• Fearless hospitality — show courage in welcoming those, whom others feared to touch.

Kalaupapa was the end of the world where the unclean were sent to die. Against all Jewish purity laws, Jesus hands steadied the lepers (Matthew 8:3, Mark 1:41 & Luke 5:13). Jesus’ steadying hand was on their shoulders too. Moreover, His love was in their eyes. Fondly called, Mother of Lepers—St Marianne Cope teaches us that the Gospel is not an idea in a book. It says that acts of love should be given to those who need us most. It is through her and other saints, who ask God to work through them, that we learn we are capable.

WARNING do not read if squeamish. Please skip to Lessons Learned.

In reality, St Marianne Cope’s 30-plus years on Molokai unfolded via her letters and those of Fr Damien. She would not have time to keep a diary, so disclosure, all musings are mine.

• >1,000 patients lived and died under her care, about 200 were inmates.
• When requesting resources, Fr Damien reported patients with open sores, rotting tissue and necrosis stench. When Sr Cope et al arrived, deaths outpaced arrivals.
• Medical records describe ulcers exposing bone, faces disfigured by nodules and hands reduced to stumps from repeated injuries to numb limbs. NPS records note physicians refusing to touch patients, leaving nuns to clean “filth-encrusted rooms” and dress wounds that “crawled with infection.” Some refused, despaired or left. This left Mother Cope to step up.
• She maneuvered psychological horrors where families were permanently severed, children orphaned and where most begged to avoid the “graveyard peninsula.”
• Mortality rates in 19th-century leprosy settlements exceeded 20–30% annually. Life expectancy was 5–10 years in exile. Mother Cope’s daily reality included transporting bodies, comforting the dying and managing a community where hundreds of funerals marked her decades of service.
• The medical horrors she witnessed—blindness, gangrene, nerve decay and the slow collapse of human faces—were matched only by the social cruelty of their exile. This included the leaders in her Church.

Lessons Learned

Leprosy is caused by a bacillus, cured by macrolide antibiotics. For the nuns, it was treated with trust in God. With God, everything is possible. We can choose mercy even in fear. We can build beauty in places of despair. We can serve cheerfully without losing strength. We can welcome the outcast without hesitation. We can become instruments of order in places of chaos, if we allow His courage to flow through us.

Kalaupapa — August 1918, AD [age 80]

Writing is slower but I am determined. My hands tire easily, and the light in my room feels softer to my eyes than it once did. The sisters tell me I should rest, but I want to leave a few thoughts. Rhythmically, the ocean washes the shore as though it breathes for me. It comforts me, to let it take over.

The doctor calls it chronic nephritis, but I feel it as God’s gentle way of drawing me home. I feel it in the heaviness of my limbs and how my breath shortens when I rise from my chair. Yet my heart is peaceful. I have spent my life among the sick, the abandoned, the wounded and my beloved. If my final season is quiet, it is only because the Lord has given me time to listen.

I have wondered often—more often now—why I never contracted the markings of so many faces I loved. I lived among contagion for over three decades. I bathed wounds, held hands, wiped brows, kissed children and embraced those others feared to touch. I never kept my distance. I never hesitated. And still, my skin remained untouched by the scars that have shaped our lives.

Why was I spared? I do not believe it was because I deserved it, no. And since I am not capable of delivering the Sacraments; I can only believe that God needed someone physically whole for the work He asks of me. He needed strong hands to scrub floors, a clear voice to advocate and a steady presence to calm frightened hearts. He needed me to carry a different cross, although labors of love; responsibility, leadership and making life beautiful for those, who by no fault of their own, had been cast aside.

Sometimes, in prayer, I ask Him why He chose this path for me. The answer comes quietly.

“I spared you so you could spend yourself entirely.”

Every day. Every hour. Every ounce of strength that He gave me, belonged to Him and the people He placed in my care.

Now, as my final moments draw near, I feel no fear. Only gratitude. The sisters sit beside my bed, as I hear the birds’ sing psalms through the shutters. I have loved this place. I have loved these people. I have loved God, who carried me through every season and every service.

My work here is finished. My heart is full. If I leave anything behind, let it be this. Love is stronger than fear, service is sweeter than safety and God wastes nothing that is offered freely. I go to Him with quiet joy, as His ocean sings my recessional hymn to my sunset that softens the cliffs of Kalaupapa.

I am not afraid; I am going home.

Sources

EWTN Great Britain | Saint Marianne Cope

Franciscan Sisters of the Neumann Communities. “Saint Marianne Cope.”

Vatican. “Homily at the Canonization of Marianne Cope.”

Vatican. “Saint Marianne Cope: Biography.”