Marguerite Bays was born in 1815 in the small village of Siviriez, Switzerland, and worked her whole life as a seamstress and dressmaker, never marrying, never joining a religious order, and remaining deeply embedded in the ordinary rhythms of village and family life. She cared for her aging parents and remained active in her local parish community.
Behind this outwardly unremarkable life, she experienced intense mystical prayer and, according to those close to her, bore the stigmata privately from 1854 onward, which she went to considerable lengths to conceal, along with reportedly being healed of colon cancer after praying for the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. She died in 1879 and was canonized in 2019, remembered as an example of holiness achieved entirely within an ordinary lay life.
Saint Marguerite Bays
The Hidden Mystic of Switzerland
A Swiss seamstress who lived an outwardly ordinary life while experiencing profound mystical union with Christ, entirely hidden from her rural village.
- Born
- 1815
- Died
- 1879
- Birthplace
- Siviriez, Switzerland
- Died in
- Siviriez, Switzerland
- Country
- Switzerland
- Canonised
- 2019-10-13
- Century
- 19th century
Categories
Why People Pray to Saint Marguerite Bays
Saint Marguerite Bays is invoked by seamstresses and those with cancer, and by anyone seeking to find deep holiness within a hidden, ordinary daily life.
