Patronage
2 saints are venerated as patrons of Poverty, led by Saint Bernadette Soubirous (feast day April 16).
1844 — 1879 · Feast day: April 16
A poor, asthmatic fourteen-year-old, Bernadette Soubirous experienced eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1858, uncovering a miraculous spring while enduring fierce skepticism. She fled the fame she never sought, entering religious life and dying at thirty-five.
April 17, 1620 AD — January 12, 1700 AD · Feast day: January 12
Marguerite Bourgeoys crossed the Atlantic to a rough colonial outpost and turned a stone stable into Canada's first school. Sailing to New France in 1653, she founded the Congregation of Notre-Dame of Montreal — one of the Church's first uncloistered sisterhoods — and was canonized by John Paul II in 1982, becoming Canada's first female saint.