ST ROSE PHILLIPNE DUCHESNE - FEASTDAY 18TH NOVEMBER

St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, Virgin (Feast day – November 18) Born in Grenoble, France, in 1769, Rose joined the Society of the Sacred Heart. In 1818, when she was forty-nine years old, Rose was sent to the United States. She founded a boarding school for daughters of pioneers near St. Louis and opened the first free school west of the Missouri. At the age of seventy-one, she began a school for Indians, who soon came to call her “the woman who is always praying”. Her biographers have also stressed her courage in frontier conditions, her single-mindedness in pursuing her dream of serving Native Americans and her self-acceptance. This holy servant of God was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1940 and canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1988.

“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 back nothing for self…. The truest crosses are those we do not choose ourselves…. He who has Jesus has everything.”


………………………………………..St. Rose Philippine Duchesne