"St. Rose Herself, My Spiritual Wife", © 1971 Norval Morrisseau

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>>> To read 'The Globe and Mail' article featuring painting titled 'St. Rose Herself, My Spiritual Wife' click HERE.
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~ St. Rose Philippine Duchesne (1769-1852)
Also Known as: The Lady of Mercy; Woman Who Prays Always
------------------~ Feast: November 18
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"St. Rose Herself, My Spiritual Wife", © 1971 Norval Morrisseau
- In 1975 exhibited at Jack Pollock's gallery (Pollock Gallery), Toronto, ON
--/Click on image to Enlarge/
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Rose Philippine Duchesne came to the wilds of North America when anything west of Pittsburgh was considered uncharted wilderness. She came up the Mississippi to Missouri and established a school at St. Charles as early as 1818, while St. Elizabeth Seton was doing her work in the eastern United States. She is the foundress of the American branch of the Society of the Sacred Heart.
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She was born in Grenoble, France, in 1769, her father a successful businessman. She was educated by the Visitation nuns and, although her father opposed her decision, she entered the Visitation Order in 1788, in the middle of the French Revolution. She was not able to make her profession because of the disruption of the Revolution and had to return home when the Visitation sisters were expelled from their convents.
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During the Revolution, she cared for the sick and poor, helped fugitive priests, visited prisons, and taught children. After the Revolution, she tried to reorganize the Visitation community but was unsuccessful, so she offered the empty convent to St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart, and entered the Sacred Heart Order herself. When the bishop of New Orleans, William Du Bourg, requested nuns for his huge Louisiana diocese, St. Rose Philippine Duchesne came to the United States, arriving in New Orleans in 1818.
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She and her four nuns were sent to St. Charles, Missouri, where she immediately opened a school; then at Florissant, she built a convent, an orphanage, a parish school, a school for Indians, a boarding academy, and a novitiate for her order. In 1827, she was in St. Louis where she founded an orphanage, a convent, and a parish school. Her energy and ideas were prodigious. When she was seventy-two years old, she founded a mission school for Indian girls in Kansas and spent much of her time there nursing the sick. She was ever concerned about the plight of Native Americans, and much of her work was devoted to educating them, caring for their sick, and working against alcohol abuse.
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Her last years were spent at St. Charles, a model and inspiration to those around her, facing all the hardships of pioneer work. She died on November 18, 1852, at the age of eighty-three and was canonized in 1988. She was truly the "missionary of the American frontier," one that her beloved Potawatomi Indians called , "Woman-who-prays-always."
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Indeed, she had need of prayer; not only to bear her many responsibilities, but also to accept the untold disappointments she met from within and without her religious community. She did not often "get her own way" but she surely accepted all tribulation as well as joy, as "God's way!"
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"We cultivate a very small field for Christ, but we love it, knowing that God does not require great achievements but a heart that holds back nothing for self."
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Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne
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"I live now in solitude and am able to use my time reflecting on the past and preparing for death. I cannot put away the thought of the Indians and in my ambition I fly to the Rockies."
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Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne
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Sources: http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/DUCHESNE.HTM; http://saints.sqpn.com/saintr20.htm; http://www.cin.org/kc87-4.html.

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* The painting in this post: "St. Rose Herself, My Spiritual Wife", 40"x26", © 1971 Norval Morrisseau; Acquired directly from Shayne Gallery, Montreal, QC by the current owner in 1975; Earlier in 1975 "St. Rose Herself, My Spiritual Wife" was also exhibited at Jack Pollock's gallery (Pollock Gallery), Toronto, ON /Private Collection/ >>> Currently availabe for purchase at the Old Downtown Gallery, Orangeville, ON (see also 'Woodland Art Rising' website) / 800-903-8626 or 519-942-2010 & info@olddowntowngallery.com /.