St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, Virgin nun 1769- 1852 (4th American Saint)
by VP
Posted on Tuesday November 18, 2025 at 12:00AM in Saints
Saint Rose-Philippine Duchesne, sister of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, founderess of the congregation first house in America (1818)
"Mother Rose Philippine Duchesne, Virgin, foundress, in America, of the first houses of the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Born at Grenoble, France, August 29, 1769, she was educated by the Visitation Nuns, entered that Order, saw its dispersion during the Reign of Terror and vainly attempted the reestablishment of the convent of Sainte-Marie d'en-Haut, near Grenoble. Finally, in 1804, she accepted the offer of Mother Barat, to incorporate her community into the Society of the Sacred Heart. In 1818 Mother Duchesne set out with four companions for the missions of America. Bishop Dubourg welcomed her to New Orleans, whence she sailed up the Mississippi to St. Louis, finally settling her little community at St. Charles. Cold, hunger and illness, opposition, ingratitude and calumny served only to fire her lofty and indomitable spirit with new zeal. Having founded the new houses at Florissant, Grand Coteau, New Orleans, St. Louis and St. Michel, La., she yearned to teach the poor Indians. Old and broken as she was, she went to labor amongst the Pottowatomies at Sugar Creek, Kansas. But one year later she returned to St. Charles and died October 18, 1852. Preliminary steps for her beatification have been taken. " BAUNARD, Histoire de Mme. Duchesne, Paris, 1878.
"At Bordeaux, for example, Robespierre had ordered the construction of a huge guillotine having four blades, thus to make short work of the execution of the twelve hundred priests imprisoned there. Four days before that fearful decree was to be carried into effect, Robespierre met his own death by the knife of another guillotine.
Some few of the faithful priests escaped deportation and wandered through France, giving the Last Sacraments to the sick and dying, saying Mass in hiding wherever they might and encouraging the faithful to persevere. So Philippine became a "priest-hunter." She seemed to have an intuition for recognizing those who could give her sick poor what would be their only comfort in their last hours. When she had failed to find one of these outlawed priests, she would pray beside the dying, exhorting them to contrition and to confidence. One day she carried a woman to her own lodging, placed her in the bed which she shared with another Dame de la Miséricorde, and prayed beside her all the night until she died. Fear seemed unknown to Philippine. Danger was evident, even to her, but she scorned the thought of it if there were hope of saving souls. In those years of terror, she would go at any hour of the night to visit the sick in the hovels they called home and, if she left them before dawn, it was to find her way to some secluded spot where Mass was to be said.
At last there came a respite when with the death of Robespierre in 1794 the application of the laws against the loyal clergy was relaxed. Some of the clerical prisoners were set free and so many exiled priests returned, that the Convention in alarm gave them a month in which to quit France once more. Vacillation was, in most cases, the characteristic of the Convention, which revoked, renewed, and withdrew the renewal of the decrees which it had made." Mother Philippine Duchesne By Marjory Erskine
"The hard soil about them was but a type of the harder soil in the population of the new land which they came to serve. Souls neglected, hardened, arrogant, ignorant, filled with self-conceit, devoted to ease and pleasure and self-indulgence, gave little encouragement for the future. Yet the good nuns struggled on. But in one year they had to leave the placeanother instance of the constant disappointment that was to be Mother Duchesne's earthly portion. "One day the Sacred Heart was to return to that place, and to gather in the harvest she had prepared. This was always her part of the work in our Lord's vineyard. Others reaped where she had conquered the soil inch by inch. She opened the way amidst brambles and briers. She was in the desert the pioneer of Christ." Catholic World, Volume 65 Mother Duchesne BY S. L. EMERY. p 687
