In 1804 Madeleine Sophie Barat was told about Philippine Duchesne, a woman of uncommon gifts and grace. Their first meeting led to an immediate soul friendship. Philippine joined the Society of the Sacred Heart and her desire to bring God to distant lands was realized in 1818 when she and four companions sailed to the New World. Here she longed to work among the Native Americans but it would be 23 years before she went to live among the Potawatomi. Before realizing her heart’s desire Philippine established the first Catholic schools west of the Mississippi and oversaw the growth of the Society of the Sacred Heart in the United States.
Frontier life exacted an enormous toll both physical (hunger, cold, poverty, sickness) and psychological (the difficulties of distance and communication, letters sometimes delayed six months or more). Philippine never believed she had the gift of leadership and died in 1852 thinking herself a failure. History reveals otherwise: Native Americans saw in her a woman “who prays always”; the schools she founded became part of a network of Sacred Heart Schools around the world; and the Society of the Sacred Heart remains an international community, bound together across six continents as much by relationships as by a common spirituality and mission.
Rose Philippine Duchesne was named a saint of the Church in 1988.
- from the website of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Almighty God, who didst fill the heart of Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne with charity and missionary zeal, and gave her the desire to make thee known among all peoples: grant us to follow her way, and fill us with that same love and zeal to extend thy kingdom to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.