The Feast of St. Rose Philippine Duschene

Born in France in 1769, she was one of eight children with six sisters and one brother. Her parents were devoted to their faith but when Rose, at the age of 18, asked her father for permission to enter the Visitation Convent he objected strenuously before finally relenting. 

However, the terror of The French Revolution kept Rose from entering the convent for eleven more years. While waiting, she lived according to the Rule while serving her family, and the sisters imprisoned at the convent. 

In 1801, The Catholic Church was allowed to operate openly again. The convent had been sold to a private owner but Rose was able to raise money and buy it back. However, it was in such poor condition that most of the sisters, who were elderly, had to leave. 

In 1804 Rose was introduced to Madeleine Sophie Barat, founder of The Society of The Sacred Heart. 

The two became friends immediately and, in 1815, Barat helped Rose establish a convent in Paris for The Sacred Heart where she opened a school and became Mistress of Novices. 

In 1817, Bishop DuBourg visited from America and asked for help in educating the children in his Diocese. Rose and four sisters received permission to go and, in 1818, they made the ten-week journey to New Orleans only to discover, upon arrival, that there was no place for them. 

Undaunted, they traveled up the Mississippi River to St. Louis and, finally, settled in St. Charles. 

There, she built the first house of The Society of The Sacred Heart ever established outside of France, in a log cabin known, as Duquette Mansion. 

She also built the first free school west of the Mississippi. One year later, Bishop DuBourg moved the community to Florissant, where Rose opened another school and a novitiate. 

The area was growing rapidly but Rose and the other sisters kept pace, and in just eight years they had expanded to six communities supporting several schools. Then, at the request of the Jesuits, they returned to the log cabin in St. Charles. 

In 1841 Rose went on a mission to eastern Kansas with the Jesuits but, at the age of 71, she was not quite strong enough anymore, and, after a year, she returned to St. Charles where she taught and prayed for ten more years while living in a small room under a staircase near the chapel. 

She died on this day in 1852.

St. Rose Philippine Duschene, please pray for us.