August 27, 2023 - "Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne"

Rose Philippine Duchesne was born in Grenoble, France in 1769, in a well-to-do family.  From her father she learned political skills and from her mother she learned a love for the poor.  When she was nineteen, she entered the Visitation Order without asking her parents and remained in the convent despite parental opposition.  While she was still a novice the French Revolution began.  Convents, particularly of cloistered communities like the Visitation nuns, were suppressed. Even though she was forced to leave the convent, she began taking care of the poor and sick, opened a school for street urchins, and risked her life helping priests in the underground.
 
Once the Reign of Terror was over and the situation cooled down a bit, she personally rented her old convent, now in shambles.  Most of the former nuns were not interested in reestablishing the Visitation Monastery.  Only four nuns were left.  In 1804, they joined the recently established Society of the Sacred Heart whose young superior, Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat would become a life-long friend.  In time the members of this new institute became known as the Religious of the Sacred Heart.
 
In a short-time Philippine (now known in the congregation as Mother Duchesne) was a superior and supervisor of the novitiate and a school.  For the next fourteen years she undertook various assignments requested by Mother Barat.  When Philippine was a little girl, she heard tales of missionary work in Louisiana.  She hoped that one day could be a missionary among Native Americans.  In 1817, Bishop William Dubourg, bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana and the two Floridas, came to see Mother Barat to ask for Sisters to work in the Louisiana Territory recently purchased by President Thomas Jefferson from the French government.  Mother Duchesne was chosen to go with four nuns to work in the Louisiana Territory.  When they finally arrived after an eighteen-week journey, they met with one of many disappointments in her life.  The bishop had no place for them to live and work.  Instead, he sent her to what she sadly called “the remotest village in the United States,” Saint Charles, Missouri.  Mother Duchesne founded there the first free schools for girls west of the Mississippi. Conditions were primitive, and the winters were especially harsh.  In time they had to move from Saint Charles to Florissant, Missouri. While the sisters endured challenges of frontier life, the community grew, building schools and orphanages, including a school for Indians.  Eventually, additional houses were opened near New Orleans, St. Louis, and elsewhere.
 
Finally, at seventy-two, in poor health and retired as the Superior of the Religious of the Sacred Heart in the United States, she had the opportunity to fulfill her dream to do missionary work personally with Native Americans.  A mission was founded at Sugar Creek, Kansas, among the Potawatomi. She was taken along at the insistence of the Jesuits who were opening the mission.  Although she could not learn the language, they soon named her “Woman-Who-Prays-Always.” While others taught, she prayed.  The story is told that the Native American children wanted to check to see if she really was a woman who always prays. 
 
One day they were able to sneak in behind her when she knelt and sprinkled bits of paper on her habit and came back hours later to find them undisturbed.  Philippine died in 1852 when she was eighty-three.  Beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1940, she was canonized by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1988.
 
Let me conclude with this quotation from St. Rose Philippine Duchesne: “We cultivate a very small field for Christ, but we love it, knowing that God does not require great achievements but a heart that holds nothing back for self.”
 
Until next week,
Fr. John