Born: August 29, 1769, Grenoble, France
Died: November 18, 1852, St. Charles, Missouri, United States
Religious Order: Society of the Sacred Heart

Rose Philippine Duchesne was instrumental in establishing the Society of the Sacred Heart in the United States, where her work centered on education and missionary activity, specifically in Missouri and Kansas.

Early Life and Context:

Born in 1769 in Grenoble, France, to a French Catholic family, Philippine Duchesne’s social standing was that of the highest tier of the middle class—wealthy and well-connected, though not of the nobility.

She was educated at a boarding school at Grenoble’s Visitation convent.

The French Revolution interrupted Duchesne’s pursuit of religious life; the convent was shut down, and she was forced to return home in 1792.

For ten years, Duchesne attempted to live a religious life at home, a period she described as a kind of exile, writing, “My heart was never attached to this sort of life and it was a land of exile for me, a foreign land.”

In 1800, Duchesne and her companions joined the Society of the Sacred Heart, founded by Madeleine Sophie Barat. Duchesne’s preference was for an active apostolate of teaching rather than a primarily contemplative life focused on prayer.

What is the Sacred Heart?

Madeleine Sophie Barat described the motivation for founding the Society of the Sacred Heart: “It was the void caused by the absence of Christian education after the Revolution, and the sight of the attendant evils, that determined our foundation.”

The spirituality of the Sacred Heart, central to the order, is rooted in an appreciation of the true humanity of Jesus as attested in the scriptures.

This devotion has origins in the theology of Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Jesuits, who was known for his emphasis on the humanity of Christ, as expressed in his “Spiritual Exercises” and the prayer “Anima Christi.”

The Jesuits played a significant role in spreading this devotion throughout Europe and the world, although the cult of the Sacred Heart also had strong political associations with the French monarchy before the Revolution.

Missionary Life: 1818

In 1818, at the request of Bishop Louis William Du Bourg of Louisiana, Madeleine Sophie Barat sent five nuns, with Philippine Duchesne as superior, to America.

Duchesne established the first convent of the Society of the Sacred Heart in America in a log cabin in St. Charles, Missouri. This also became the first free school west of the Mississippi.

The community later moved to Florissant, Missouri, where they established a new convent, a parish school, an orphanage, a school for Native American girls, a boarding school for girls, and the first novitiate for American nuns for the Society of the Sacred Heart.

Expansion of the Society of the Sacred Heart in America

Duchesne expanded the Society of the Sacred Heart’s presence throughout Missouri and Louisiana.

In 1841, she established a mission to the Potawatomi tribe at Sugar Creek in present-day Kansas.

In 1852, she returned to St. Charles, where she spent the last ten years of her life.

Legacy:

Through her missionary work, Duchesne provided a source of stability for the Church in America and was the instigator of the Society of the Sacred Heart’s expanding global missionary movement.

She was canonized in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.

Archival Sources:

Extensive archival materials document her life and work, including:

• 656 letters
• 198 letters exchanged between Madeleine Sophie Barat and Philippine Duchesne (1804-1852)
• 148 letters to Bishop Joseph Rosati of St. Louis
• 150 letters to Sacred Heart nuns
• 143 letters to her family
• 196 letters to priests
• 21 letters to pupils and other laypeople
• Personal narratives, including accounts of her boarding school years
• 3 house journals

These materials are located at the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Rome and the Archives of the USA-Canada Province.