St. Rose Philippine Duchesne 

History

 

Rose Philippine Duchesne established the first of our nineteen schools of the Sacred Heart in the United States and she played a significant role in bringing the Catholic Church to the western frontier. She was a woman in a world and a church run largely by men. With a stubborn determination, she pushed the limits of what was allowed to a woman in her times, often risking her life to follow her calling to be of service to the poor and sick.
Philippine was born on August 19, 1769, to a wealthy, politically influential family in Grenoble, France, and was the second of eight children. During her childhood, while France endured great economic upheaval, the Duchesnes lived in a world of ease. Philippine loved nature, preferring to climb in the hills near her house to playing with dolls. She developed a capacity for solitude early in life, enjoying long walks while dreaming of traveling to far off lands. Philippine had a strong personality and was a natural leader with the other children.
From tutors she learned a bit of arithmetic, history, geography and literature and she was taught the fundamentals of the Catholic faith by her mother, Rose. She especially loved to read the lives of saints and martyrs. The many Jesuit missionaries who visited the Duchesne home with stories of the Indians or "savages' so intrigued her that the determination to serve in the foreign missions became a driving force in her life. Philippine developed a concern for the poor and needy very early in life. By the age of 11, she was giving her allowance to the poor.
At the age of 12, Philippine and her cousin were sent to the nearby Visitation girls boarding school, and there she first became aware of her religious vocation. Her family was so distraught at the news that her father wasted no time in removing her from the school. For the next five years, she was kept at home and, in an unusual move for the day, she was allowed to study under tutors with her male cousins who were preparing for careers in business and politics. She thus became one of the more highly educated women of the time.
At the age of 17, she was betrothed to a man selected by her father, but she refused to marry him. Determined to follow her calling, she began to live like a nun in the confines of the family home. She refused to wear her beautiful clothing, sought out the most unpleasant of the household chores to do, and followed a routine of daily prayer. Philippine finally had her way and upon visiting the convent, she refused to leave and was allowed to stay. She entered the novitiate at age 19, but her parents did not attend the ceremony.
The French Revolution had begun, and by 1792, all religious orders were outlawed in France. During the next 12 years, Philippine changed her residence repeatedly, experimenting with various religious lifestyles and at the same time became of the high unemployment, the desperate poverty, and the many schools and orphanages that had been closed. Repeatedly, she defied the revolutionary government and brought aid to the sick and dying. She became part of a large, spontaneous movement of women's religious charitable activity in France at this time and organized a group called the Ladies of Mercy. By this time, Philippine's charity had gone beyond just giving her allowance away. She recognized the dignity of the poor and the special presence of God in their midst. She got to know then and often brought them into her home for aid and comfort.
Both her parents died during this period. Philippine inherited a yearly income which gave her the independence and support she needed to continue her work. Her charity and her commitment to religious practices had become a dedication. In 1801, at the end of the Revolution, she reclaimed the old Visitation convent where she had first lived. However, only a few of the fragmented group of nuns returned with her. Eventually, the little community heard of the Ladies of the Faith, a religious society founded in 1800 by Madeleine Sophie Barat under the direction of Father Joseph Varin. Philippine and her companions were anxious to join them.
Father Varin visited Philippine and in 1804 wrote to Mother Barat, "You will find someone in this house...were she alone and at the remotest corner of the world, you should go after her." The nuns were accepted by the Ladies of the Faith. Philippine Duchesne who was 35 years old and her Superior, Madeleine Sophie Barat, who was ten years her junior, made a dynamic pair. The two complemented each other and became life long friends. Strong willed and intellectually independent, each had a missionary vision.
By 1808 three new convents and schools of the Sacred Heart dedicated to the education of young women were established, two in France and one in Belgium, and by the time the Napoleonic Empire fell in 1815, there were eight Sacred Heart Houses in existence.
Philippine's level of activity during her early years in the Society is most impressive and inspiring. In 1806 she was secretary to the Superior, head of the boarding school, teacher of the older children, business manager for the school and the convent, and nurse for the nuns and the students. What distressed her the most, however, was her lack of time for prayer, and so she often gave up sleep in order to make time.
Philippine became Superior of the house in Paris and while the school flourished, Philippine urged Mother Barat that the time had come for the society to send missionaries to foreign lands. In 1817 Bishop William DuBourg of Louisiana visited the Paris convent seeking a group of religious women willing to cross the Atlantic to open a school in his diocese. Philippine, consumed by her dream to work with the Indians, was ready to leave at once. Mother Barat finally consented to let her go.
And so, a year later, Mother Duchesne, no 49 years old, with 4 other nuns, DuBourg on the Rebecca. After an eleven-week voyage during which the small group endured violent storms, seasickness, spoiled food and lack of privacy, they sailed into the Mississippi River past cotton fields and plantations and finally anchored near New Orleans. Life many immigrants, Philippine had arrived ill with scurvy and was too sick to travel further.
When she recovered, the nuns booked passage for the 40-day trip to St. Louis, then a frontier fur trading post with four streets of homes and a bustling waterfront. There, much to her disappointment, she learned from the Bishop that he wished them to establish themselves 20 miles further west in the primitive town of St. Charles. Philippine would not yet be able to fulfill her dream to work with the "savages".
Bishop DuBourg found the nuns a modest wooden house in which they would create the first Convent of the Sacred Heart in America. There, in September of 181, a free school for poor girls was opened, the first of its kind west of the Mississippi. This was followed shortly by a day school and a boarding school which supported the free school. The students slept on mattresses on the floor of the house, as did Mother Duchesne and the other nuns.
During that first year the group faced many challenges: some of the children spoke only French, others only English, and most had never heard of Jesus. One of Mother Duchesne's most frustrating personal assignments wads to learn the English language, a task she never completely mastered.
Supplies were limited and food and water were scarce. Philippine wrote to her sister in France: "Neither doors nor windows close tight and there is not one who knows how to make a foot warmer. Our logs are too large for the fireplace and there is not one to chop them for us and not a saw with which we might cut them ourselves. We have maize, pork, and potatoes but not eggs, butter, oil, fruit or vegetables. We should value a case of altar wine and some olive oil - the only edible oil to be had here is bear grease and it is disgusting."
Enrollment in the free school increased but not in the boarding school because parents in St. Louis were reluctant to send their daughters across the often unnavigable Missouri River. It became increasingly obvious that the boarding school, the nun's only source of revenue, was a failure! After only 12 months, the school was closed and would not reopen until 1828.
These years in America were not only physically difficult for Philippine but often emotionally painful. Despite her visionary zeal, her eloquent voice on behalf of the poor and her steadfast soul in the face of physical hardship, she protested for 22 years that she was unfit to be superior. She took the closure of St. Charles very hard, feeling it was her fault as much as a lack of money. But, Mother Duchesne's efforts had broken ground in two areas: free schooling for the poor and the education of girls.
Bishop DuBourg then asked Mother Duchesne to establish a boarding school at Florissant, a farming community 14 miles northwest of St. Louis. By May of 1820, a new building, brick this time, was constructed next to Cold Water Creek and 22 students were enrolled. The school had a classroom, reception room, large kitchen, and the dormitory room upstairs where students slept. Philippine's room was under the stairs, a windowless closet-size space. The school was a success and eventually filled to capacity. By 1824, within 5 years of the founding of the school at Florissant, 22 young women had entered the Society of the Sacred Heart under the strict supervision of Mother Duchesne.
Meanwhile, at Grand Coteau in Louisiana, the widow of a wealthy landowner wished to donate property for a school which would be run by the Society of the Sacred Heart. Philippine happily accepted in 1821, and soon more nuns were on their way from France. Within 7 years, under her leadership, two more schools were opened in Louisiana.
In 1826 Mother Barat told Philippine that she wish a mother house to be established at St. Louis to support the other houses. Acting on her Superior's word, Philippine south donations and set about building a complex which would become know as City House - it included a convent school, a free school, and orphanage, and a chapel. Boarders paid $120 a year for tuition and the curriculum was rigorous and rigid. Frontiersman, Jut Carson's daughter was once a pupil at City House.
For several years the Society of the Sacred Heart was the only religious order offering education to the poor in the Midwest, and the schools it started in St. Louis became models for educational institutions in the city. By the end of the century, more than 600 girls had been cared for and educated there.
During these years, the cause to send Religious of the Sacred Heart to work among the Indians was growing not only with Philippine and the Jesuit priests but with Pope Gregory XVI as well. In 1841, at the urging of Father DeSmet, Philippine wrote to Mother Elizabeth Galitzin, the newly appointed Provincial for the United States, and pleaded for nuns to be sent to open a school for the Potowatami Indians in Sugar Creek, Kansas. Philippine was 72 years old and by many accounts, near death. But, permission for her to go was granted! The reverence that so many had for Philippine is obvious from the words of one Jesuit who traveled with Philippine to Sugar Creek: "But she must come too. Even if she can use only one leg, she will come. Why, if we have to carry her all the way on our shoulders, she is coming with us. 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." At long last, Philippine, 3 nuns and 2 Jesuit priests arrived at Sugar Creek. They lived in a 12 x 15 foot log cabin and suffered during the severe winter. Mother Duchesne's infirmities became worse and except for visiting the sick, helping the Indian girls with their knitting, and praying there was little else she could do. She found the Potowatami language with its nine and ten syllable words so difficult that she couldn't learn it, and she felt once more that she was a failure as well as a burden to the other nuns. However, to the Indians she was a presence of goodness and compassion. Legend has it that as Philippine knelt motionless in prayer for long periods of time in the Church, the Indians would sneak in and lay feathers or leaves around her hem to see how long she remained there. To them, she was the woman who always prayed.
In the Spring of 1842, the Bishop of St. Louis determined that it was unwise for Philippine to remain at Sugar Creek. And so at age 73, she returned to the Sacred Heart Community at St. Charles. She would spend the last ten years of her life there either praying long hours before the blessed Sacrament or writing and sewing in her small room. Her letters reveal a deep sense of personal failure, diminishing health, and frequent loneliness. She wrote, "For thirty eight years my great desire was to work among the savages...Then after one year of uselessness at the Indian mission, I cam back here by order of my Superior General, without accomplishing anything....It seems to me that in leaving the Indians I left my real element, and now I can only yearn for that land from which there will be no departure. God knows why I was recalled, and that is enough."
Rose Philippine Duchesne died on November 18, 1852, at the age of 83 and was buried on the grounds at St. Charles. Today, her body is entombed in a marble sarcophagus in her shrine there.
Philippine's path to sainthood began in 1895. She was pronounced venerable in 1909, beatified in 1940 and canonized a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on July 3, 1988. Philippine never personally became aware of the profound impact her life and her sanctity had on others. Her undying faith that God is first and last in all things and her dedication to those who had less was what really mattered. We are here today because this spirit of hers has become ours. In the words of T. Gavan Duffy, "What have we learned from her? The value of steadfast purpose, the success of failure and the unimportance of our standards of success; the power of grace released by deep divine desires and simple duty daily