November 18 + Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne

Born in Grenoble, France, of a family that was among the new rich, Rose learned political skills from her father and a love of the poor from her mother. The dominant feature of her temperament was a strong and dauntless will, which became the material — and the battlefield — of her holiness. She entered the Visitation of Mary convent at 19, and remained despite family opposition. As the French Revolution broke, the convent was closed, and she began taking care of the poor and sick, opened a school for homeless children, and risked her life helping priests in the underground.

When the situation cooled, Rose personally rented the former convent, now a shambles, and tried to revive its religious life. The spirit was gone however, and soon there were only four nuns left. They joined the infant Society of the Sacred Heart, whose young superior, Mother Madeleine Sophie Barat, would be her lifelong friend.

In a short time, Rose was a superior and supervisor of the novitiate and a school. But since hearing tales of missionary work abroad, her ambition was to go to America and work among the Native Americans. At 49, and with four nuns, she spent 11 weeks at sea en route to New Orleans, and seven weeks more on the Mississippi to St. Louis. She then met one of the many disappointments of her life. The bishop had no place for them to live and work and he sent her to what she sadly called “the remotest village in the U.S.,” St. Charles, Missouri. With characteristic drive and courage, she founded the first free school for girls west of the Mississippi.

In her first decade in America, Mother Duchesne suffered practically every hardship the frontier had to offer — poor lodging, shortages of food, drinking water, fuel and money, forest fires and blazing chimneys, the vagaries of the Missouri climate, cramped living quarters and the privation of all privacy, and the crude manners of children reared in rough surroundings and with only the slightest training in courtesy.

Finally at age 72, retired and in poor health, Rose got her lifelong wish. A mission was founded at Sugar Creek, Kansas, among the Potawatomi and she was taken along. She was referred to by the Natives as "The Lady of Mercy," and "Woman Who Prays Always."

Rose died in 1852, at the age of 83, and was canonized in 1988.