MOREAU, ANNE FRANÇOISE, ST.

In religion Marie de St. Just; martyr and religious of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary; b. April 9, 1866, La Faye, near Rouen, Loire, France; d. July 9, 1900, Taiyüan, China. Anne was the daughter of a wealthy, charitable farmer, who died while she was still young. Thereafter, she assumed responsibility for taking the farm's produce to market. Perceiving a vocation as a missionary in China, she sought the counsel of Mary of the Passion and, against her mother's wishes, entered the novitiate of the Missionaries of Mary in 1890. During her stay at Vanves, France, she learned many practical skills to sustain the community, including printing and cobbling. For a time she suffered an interior darkness and struggled with her vocation. After finally making her perpetual profession, Sr. Marie de St. Just was sent to the orphanage in Shanxi, China in 1899, where she was martyred the following year. She was beatified with her religious sisters by Pope Pius XII, November 24, 1946, and canonized, October 1, 2000, by Pope John Paul II with Augustine Zhao Rong and companions.

Feast: 4 July.

Bibliography: g. goyau, Valiant Women: Mother Mary of the Passion and the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, tr. g. telford (London 1936). m. t. de blarer, Les Bse Marie Hermine de Jésus et ses compagnes, franciscaines missionnaires de Marie, massacrées le 9 juillet 1900 à Tai-Yuan-Fou, Chine (Paris 1947). l. m. balconi, Le Martiri di Taiyuen (Milan 1945). Acta Apostolicae Sedis 47: 381–388. L'Osservatore Romano, Eng. Ed. 40 (2000): 1–2, 10.

[k. i. rabenstein]