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From Daily Catholic

Feast of Saint Rose Phillippine Duschesne , Virgin, Missionary and Religious

      This saint, Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne was canonized in 1988 by Pope John Paul II. She was born on August 29, 1769 in Grenoble, France to a family whose father was a wealthy merchant. Educated by the Visitation nuns of Sainte Marie d'en Haut, a vocation was fostered to that order despite the protests of her parents who wanted her to marry. Rose had always had a desire to be a missionary, on fire with zeal for Jesus and wanting to share it with everyone. When the French Revolution broke out the Vistation nuns were forced to disperse and Rose was left alone. Her prayers to be reunited with a community of Visitation nuns were not answered, rather God chose a new order for Rose in 1804 - the Religious of the Sacred Heart which had been founded in 1800 by Mother Madeleine Sophie Barat. This was a missionary order of nuns which, through God's Providence, brought Sr. Rose to New Orleans in the southern United States in 1818. There, with four other nuns, Rose was sent up the Mississippi River by the bishop of New Orleans to St. Charles, Missouri where she founded the first American Sacred Heart house and began the first free school west of the Mississippi in a log cabin in Florissant just outside St. Louis. By 1828 there were six houses along the mighty Mississippi. It was here that she intervened with the Indians who had objected to the Jesuits and through her efforts and good will, preserved the Jesuit mission. At the age of 72, St. Rose resigned as head of the American branch of her Order to answer Jesuit missionary Father De Smet's call for her to pursue missionary work. With a handful of other hand-picked nuns she traveled farther west to Kansas where she opened a girls' school for the Cherokees and other Indian tribes in Sugar Creek, Kansas. Though she could not learn the Indians' dialect, she was able to communicate through her prayers and devout example. The Indians loved and admired this woman they called "The Woman Who Prays Always" that many conversions were manifested even though St. Rose was in Sugar Creek for only one year because ill health mandated that she return to the mother house in St. Charles where Rose died on October 18th, 1852. Her remains were enshrined at the mother house and her name is the first one listed on the Pioneer Roll of Fame in St. Louis' famed Jefferson Memorial Building. She played a major role in bringing the faith to the heartland of America where, in the gateway to the west, it has remained strong to this day. She was beatified in 1940 by Pope Pius XII before being canonized 48 years later.

[Salvation]

BTTT on the Optional Memorial of St. Rose Philliping Duchesne, November 18, 2006!