Remember how we talked in August about St. John Vianney, patron of parish priests? About how he received first Holy Communion during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror? Rose Philippine Duchesne was an eighteen-year-old French nun at the time. And John Vianney’s future seminary classmate Mathias Loras was a baby, who lost his father to the guillotine.
The Curé of Ars never came to America, of course. But his seminary classmate Mathias Loras did. Loras eventually made his way up the Mississippi River to found the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa. He traveled right past the log cabin in St. Charles, Missouri, where Sister Rose Philippine Duchesne was living and teaching.
Meanwhile, east of the Mississippi: The Andrew-Jackson administration had no scruples whatsoever about breaking treaties with Native-American tribes and forcing them to migrate west. Here in the South. we know about the Cherokee Trail of Tears. But the Potawatomis of northern Indiana had to follow what they called the “Trail of Death.”
The Potawatomis who survived the trip eventually settled in Kansas. Rose Philippine Duchesne wanted to teach the children. But she couldn’t master their language.
So she prayed for them instead. Hour after hour.
Sister would pray for so long that the children would encircle her with little pebbles, then go to sleep. When they woke up, they would check to see if any of the pebbles had been disturbed. They hadn’t. Sister had been kneeling and praying in the same position the whole time. They called her Quahkahkanumad, the Woman Who Always Prays.
The cathedral basilica in St. Louis has a huge mosaic of St. Rose. She died 23 miles from there, in St.Charles, 167 years ago today. She lies in a marble sarcophagus in a small shrine dedicated to her memory.
May she pray for us, that we might have the kind of missionary courage and perseverance that she had.
Father Mark White Blog 
My dad’s first two years as an undergrad were spent at Loras College in Dubuque in preparation for seminary later (fortunately for my sisters and me, he changed his mind). He always said his priest professors there were especially rigorous in their logic and less than tolerant of sloppy reasoning from their students.
Thanks for telling us about some of the Saints we rarely hear about, like Sister Rose Philippine Duchesne. May she be an inspiration and example of enduring prayer to us.
“But they that are learned shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity.” Daniel 12:3
Thank you for sharing! What a beautiful way to dedicate ones life to God and man!