Two hundred years ago, Rose Philippine Duchesne set out across the Atlantic to establish the Society of the Sacred Heart and educate the children in the new world. Opening the first Catholic school west of the Mississippi, Mother Duchesne, known as "the woman who prays always," crossed frontiers to bring faith, love, and education to the world. From a convent in France to the frontier of the New World... a child and then a nun in a convent boarding school dreamt of bringing the Gospel to the native peoples. She persevered through Revolution, uncertainty, and long years of waiting, finally to follow her dream on the Missouri frontier, only to find it not at all what she had imagined. The life and relationships of Rose Philippine Duchesne reveal the heart and soul of a pioneer woman of faith on fire with love of God, in the context of the rapidly-expanding settlement of the Midwest in the first half of the nineteenth century, and its catastrophic effects on the native peoples in its wake.

"Rose Philippine Duchesne dreamed of being a missionary. She wanted to travel to the United States to work and pray with Narive Americans. Read Rose's story. Do you dream, like Rose, about helping others?"--Page 4 of cover

Sister Karen Olson has written a concise biography for middle school students of Philippine Duchesne, one of the few canonized saints of the Catholic Church who lived and worked in the United States. Young people will find information and inspiration in Saint Philippine's story.

When Rose Philippine Duchesne was born in Grenoble, the beautiful gateway to the French Alps, in 1769, no one knew she’d eventually be canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. When she went to the Sisters of the Visitation convent, Ste. Marie d’en Haut, to study for her First Holy Communion at age twelve, she consecrated herself to God. That was the happiest day of her life. At age eighteen, she asked to join the sisters, and while her father did not approve at first, he eventually began to realize how happy Philippine was. During the French Revolution, the government outlawed any and all religious congregations, so all convents, monasteries, and Catholic schools were closed. Philippine kept busy teaching her cousins, visiting the sick, and teaching catechism to the poor children she met in the streets. Finally, after twelve years of praying and hoping to go to the New World, in 1817, Bishop William Valentine DuBourg, bishop of Louisiana, came to visit the convent to ask for help for his American missions. Philippine threw herself at his feet and begged to be invited, and against all odds, she established religious communities in the United States to spread the word of the Lord.

This book also explores Sophie Barat's spiritual journey, from her dark Jansenistic roots to her belief in a loving, warm and tender God, as expressed in devotion to the Sacred Heart."--BOOK JACKET.