This Tuesday is the feast of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne. She was born in 1769 in France, baptized in a church there named for St. Louis, and was named after Rose of Lima the, first saint to be named from the Americas. We’ve talked about this before, but notice the date and place she was born; she came of age during Revolutionary France. She had attempted to enter a convent in her youth but it was shut down by the anti-catholic government. A decade later convents were allowed to re-open and Rose quickly asked Mother Madeleine Barat to enter the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I hope you are taking note of all the names we just referenced. In St. Louis there was a parish named for Rose of Lima, there are several grade schools named for the Sacred Heart, and there are Duchesne and Barat highschools. There is a reason for this and it has to do with Rose. She greatly desired to become a missionary, and she wanted to come to the Americas. She even had a vision one night during adoration. She describes it,

"I spent the entire night in the new World ... carrying the Blessed Sacrament to all parts of the land ... I had all my sacrifices to offer: a mother, sisters, family, my mountain! When you say to me 'now I send you', I will respond quickly 'I go"'.

In 1818 her dream became reality when Bishop Dubourg (again, a highschool named after him!) invited her to begin teaching the Indian and French children in his diocese. She arrived in New Orleans with her sisters and was surprised to find that Bishop Dubourg had absolutely no money to help support the Sisters. They didn’t let that stop them. They boarded a steamboat, which was a relatively new invention, heading up the Mississippi and came to St. Charles, Missouri. Their convent was in a log cabin near the riverfront. St. Charles was a frontier town. Rose described it as the most remote village in America, and they had to take care of themselves. These brave women managed not only to survive but to open the first free school west of the Mississippi. Shortly after, they moved to Florissant. The sisters did a lot of good there and made many converts. I know that when I worked in the archives, we had all of the old baptismal records of the many children the sisters helped enter the Church. Many of the old records are written in Latin but the Sacred Heart sisters wrote in French.

Rose loved her work but longed to go even further into the frontier. At the age of 72, mark that age well, you are never too old, she headed west to Kansas and opened a school there. She was perhaps older and weaker but the Jesuit priest who helped her said this of her, "she may not be able to do much work, but she will assure success to the mission by praying for us. Her very presence will draw down all manner of heavenly favors on the work". She stayed for a number of years and was highly respected by the Indians in Kansas but eventually poor health forced her to return to St. Charles where the sisters had reestablished their school. There she remained, living austerely in a tiny nook under the stairs, until she died on November 18, 1852 at the age of 83.

She is buried on the grounds of the Sacred Heart school in St. Charles and there is a beautiful shrine that you may visit if you like. Her body had been in the ground for 3 years before it was moved to the shrine and it was found to be incorrupt at the time it was exhumed. It is amazing to consider that these humble women, with no money or power or influence, became great through their faithful service to the Church. We cannot discuss the early history of our city without mentioning them, landmarks everywhere are named after them, and Rose herself is represent in one of the mosaics at the Cathedral. She is one of the patron Saints of our Archdiocese and she is praying for us still.

I would like to end with these encouraging words of hers:

"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.”