A French Franciscan Missionary of Mary killed with her sisters at Taiyuan, China, in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion.

Marie-Hermine de Jésus (1866-1900) led a small community of Franciscan Missionaries of Mary in Taiyuan, in China’s Shanxi province. During the anti-foreign, anti-Christian violence of the Boxer Rebellion in the summer of 1900, she and six of her sisters were killed along with local Catholics and other missionaries under the orders of the provincial governor. She was 34 years old.

Quick Facts

• Born: 1866, France
• Died: July 9, 1900, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China (age 34)
• Feast Day: July 9
• Venerated as: Religious of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary; martyr

Who Was Saint Marie-Hermine de Jésus?

Marie-Hermine de Jésus was a French religious sister who served as superior of a small mission community of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary in Taiyuan, capital of China’s Shanxi province, at the close of the nineteenth century. She led catechetical and charitable work among the local Catholic population until the community was caught up in the violence of the Boxer Rebellion.

Historical Setting

The Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901 was a violent uprising against foreign influence and Christianity in China, during which thousands of Chinese Catholics and dozens of foreign missionaries were killed, often with the complicity or direct order of local officials. In Shanxi province, the provincial governor Yuxian was personally responsible for a series of massacres of missionaries and Christians in the summer of 1900.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Marie-Hermine de Jésus

Marie-Hermine and her sisters were executed alongside Franciscan friars, local seminarians, and lay Catholics in Taiyuan, refusing to renounce their faith even when offered the chance to save their lives by doing so. Their deaths became one of the best-documented episodes of the wider persecution of Chinese Catholics during the Boxer year.

Canonization and Feast Day

Marie-Hermine de Jésus was beatified in 1946 and canonized in 2000 by Pope John Paul II among the 120 Martyr Saints of China, a group spanning several centuries of persecution. Her feast is kept on July 9, the shared feast of the Chinese martyrs.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Her leadership of a small, vulnerable mission community under mounting threat, and her choice to stay with her sisters and the local Catholics rather than flee, is a model of pastoral responsibility carried through to its final cost.

A Prayer to Saint Marie-Hermine de Jésus

Saint Marie-Hermine de Jésus, faithful missionary and martyr of Taiyuan, you stayed with your sisters and the people entrusted to you when danger came. Give courage to missionaries and pastors everywhere who serve in places of persecution, and strengthen the Church in China. Amen.

Sources

• Vatican.va (canonization of the 120 Martyr Saints of China, 2000)
• New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia
• EWTN