Homily for Tuesday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/
St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, pray for us!

St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, the only canonized saint to have done part of her work in Kansas, albeit only for a brief period of one year in 1840 with the Potawatomi indians near Sugar Creek, is a saint known mostly for the heroic virtues of patience and perseverence. The Potawatomi indians, whose language she could never master, described her as the woman who 'prays always.' Her prayer must certainly have been the source of her perseverence despite the obstacles that stood in her way beginning at the age of 17. St. Rose, even from an early age, was not known to be an especially beautiful or happy child. She was known to be quite irascible and selfish actually, and surprised many when she indicated her desire to go to the convent at age 17. After four years of formation, Rose was forbidden by her father to make final vows, as he correctly saw the impending breakup of religious orders by Napoleon during the French Revolution. Rose's vocation had to wait for about 15 years, before a Concordat between Napoleon and the Church allowed her to return to religious life. It took her another 15 years before she could convince anyone to allow her to go to the United States as a missionary, something she had wanted to do since studying history at age 17. She was named the superior of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, and founded several schools along the Mississippi for poor children, the majority of them around St. Louis, where she is today buried. Her sisters always suffered from many setbacks and the lack of money, but her saintly virtue was proven by her steadfast determination in the face of any difficulty. St. Rose lived up to the prophetic challenge of today's reading from Revelation, allowing herself to be refined and made into pure gold by the chastisements and crosses that came her way. She resigned as mother superior at the age of 71 to fulfill her final wish to establish a mission among the indian peoples of Kansas. Even though she never learned to speak the language, and was only able to stay in Kansas for a year because of declining health, she gives to our great state the privilege of having had a canonized work on our soil. She was canonized by John Paul II in 1988 and is the secondary patron of the St. Lawrence Center.