Feast day: 9 July
St Marie Amadine’s birth name was Marie Pauline Jeuris, and she was born in 1872 in Belgium. Her father was Cornelius Jeuris and her mother Agnes Thijs.The latter died with the birth of the ninth child, when Pauline was seven years old. She was placed with a neighbour until she was fifteen, when she rejoined the family. She attended primary school with the Ursulines in Herk de Stad. In 1886 she went to work with the Sisters of Love congregation in Sint Truiden, where her sister was already a member of the congregation and another sister would also work there.
In 1892 she went to assist a widowed sister who was ill and who had four children. In the same year she entered the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, taking the name Marie Amadine. Her first assignment was to go to Marseilles to study nursing and tend the sick. She then went to Taiyuan, the capital city of the province of Shanxi in Northern China, to minister in the mission hospital. On the way she passed through Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and met another sister. When they parted they said, “Goodbye till Heaven”.
She began her work in Northern China. She reported to her superior that there were two hundred orphans, many of whom were sick, and also people who came by to get help. She reported that the conditions were horrific, with those who had wounds being made worse by lack of hygiene. When one of the other sisters became ill, she nursed her day and night in addition to her other duties and eventually became very ill herself. Her humour,friendliness and healing with laughter gained her the esteem of the Chinese, who called her the “laughing foreigner.”
The Boxer rebellion broke out in Northern China between 1899 and 1901. It was so named because its leaders were proficient in martial arts called “Chinese Boxing.” It was anti-imperialist, anti-foreigner and anti-Christian. An edict was issued in 1901, which in substance declared that the time of good relations with the European missionaries and their Christians was now past. The faithful were required to apostatise or face death. The missionaries must be repatriated. When she heard the news that a persecution was approaching, St Marie Amadine said, “I pray God not to save the martyrs but to fortify them.”
She and her companions met their execution by beheading singing the Te Deum. Seven sisters, including St Marie Amadine, were martyred on 9 July 1900. They were canonised in 2001, along with other martyr saints of China.
St Marie Amadine and companions, pray for us.