St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

Born in Grenoble to a prosperous French family, Rose Philippine Duchesne entered a Visitation convent as a young woman, only to be turned out when the French Revolution suppressed the religious orders. For years she cared for the poor, the sick, and imprisoned priests amid the Terror, and when peace returned she joined the newly founded Society of the Sacred Heart under St. Madeleine Sophie Barat.

Her heart was set on the missions, and in 1818, at the age of forty-nine, she sailed for the American frontier. In Missouri she opened the first free school west of the Mississippi and built schools, orphanages, and convents across the territory, enduring poverty, illness, and the hardships of pioneer life with unbreakable resolve.

At seventy-one she finally reached the goal of her life, going to live among the Potawatomi at Sugar Creek, Kansas. Too old to learn their language, she spent her days in prayer, and the people named her "Woman Who Prays Always." She died in 1852, a model of perseverance through long years of apparent failure, and was canonized in 1988.