November 18--St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, Religious and Missionary

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“Go West, middle-aged woman.” That is where today’s saint, St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, went to fulfill her calling in America, teaching among the pioneers and Native Americans of the American frontier of Missouri and Kansas.

Born in 1769, St. Rose started out as a nun in a French convent in the late 18th century. During the French Revolution, her convent closed, and she took it upon herself to care for the poor and sick, opened a school for street children, and helped priests. After that she joined the Society of the Sacred Heart, where she became a superior and a supervisor of the novitiate. But she still longed to go to America to work among the Native Americans. She finally got the chance when she was 49. She and four other sisters sailed to New Orleans and up the Mississippi to St. Louis, where she started the first free school for girls west of the Mississippi in St. Charles, Missouri. She also founded the first Catholic Native American school. At the age of 72, retired and in poor health, she went to a new mission in Sugar Creek, Kansas, about 50 miles south of Kansas City and worked among the Potawatomi. She could not teach, but prayed while others taught. She was named “Woman-Who-Prays-Always.” She died in 1852 at the age of 83 and canonized in 1988.

What does it take to be a pioneer? It doesn’t mean “Go West” in location, but rather “Go West” in love; go to those who need the most help, the poor, the outcast, the young, the hurting, the homeless. Expect hardship and suffering, but do so to offer it up in love for the grace of God to be showered on those whom we serve, as well as ourselves.

*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DuchesneRSCJ.jpg