Today's Ornament of Grace for Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent is St. Rose Philippine Duchesne.
Zephaniah 3:1-2, 9-13
For then will I remove from your midst the proud braggarts, and you shall no longer exalt yourself on my holy mountain. But I will leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord…
In 1769, Rose Philippine Duchesne was born to a prominent family of Grenoble, France. The parish her family attended welcomed missionary priests who served in Louisiana, colonized by the French. Rose listened and wished she, too, could serve the Native Americans there. Later, this desire would be realized, but it took a long time.
When she was around twelve, Rose was sent to a monastery to be educated by the Visitation nuns. When Rose’s father found out she was becoming enamored with monastic life, he brought her home to be tutored. Yet, Rose’s desire to enter religious life did not go away. In 1788, she entered the Visitations against her family’s wishes.
Just four years later, revolutionaries shut down the monastery during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, scattering the nuns. Rose returned to live with her family in a country home, trying to remain faithful to the Visitations’ Rule of Life while caring for her family, prisoners, and others impacted by the Reign of Terror. When Napoleon came to power in 1801, Catholics were again allowed to practice their faith openly. Rose returned to the monastery only to find it practically destroyed. By this time, most of the nuns were elderly and found it too difficult to live there. Rose, now the Superior, had only three companions.
In northern France, Madeleine-Sophie Barat founded the Society of the Sacred Heart, an active order educating young women. Wanting to establish a community in Grenoble, southeastern France, Barat was introduced to Rose by her spiritual director. The women agreed to merge their communities since they shared an educational ministry. After the Napoleonic Wars, Barat sent Rose to establish a convent and open a school in Paris. A bishop from Louisiana visited the convent in 1817, seeking religious to teach the Indian and French children of his diocese. Rose’s childhood desire was reawakened, and she asked Barat to send her there.
Rose, with four other Sisters, went to New Orleans in 1818. After a ten-week trip at sea, they arrived to find the bishop had arranged no housing for them. So, taking a steamboat up to St. Louis, Missouri Territory, they settled in nearby St. Charles. There, they established the first free school west of the Mississippi, a simple log cabin. A year later, the bishop moved them to Florissant, Missouri, where they opened a school and novitiate.
Many settlers were very poor, and the new foundation struggled. The Sisters had to learn English and suffered from the cold in poor housing. They lacked money for school, convent, and novitiate needs and often went hungry. Still, by 1828, the group had established six communities and was operating several schools.
Asked by the Jesuits to join them in educating the Potawatomi Indians in Kansas, the Sisters went enthusiastically. Rose, now elderly, could not teach there because she could not master their language, but she was sent to pray. That is what she did until she became too feeble and returned to St. Charles. There, in a cramped room under the stairway, she lived the rest of her life. Blind, weak, with little companionship, she felt no human or divine consola
Learn More
Heart to Heart, a Catholic Media Ministry: htoh.us
420 W County Line Rd, Suite 200
Barrington, IL 60010
Submit a prayer request: htoh.us/prayers
Support our ministry with a financial gift: htoh.us/donate
