There’s no greater book in the Bible than the Psalms to teach you how to pray with the heart. The Psalms are a collection of prayers and songs that have shaped Jewish and Christian traditions for centuries holding profound insights into prayer. These are the prayers that Jesus himself said. They were and still are the pulse of daily prayer for many including the Holy Family.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Source EWTN
OCTOBER 13, 2024
“The Josephology Society has been a vision I’ve carried in my heart for over a decade,” said
Rev. Edward Looney, STL, the Founder of the Josephology Society and a priest of the Diocese of Green Bay in the US.
With a dedicated team of 16 charter members – including well-known scholars like Dr. Scott
Hahn, Mike Aquilina, and honorary advisors Fr. Larry Toschi, OSJ, MTh, MDiv, MSTM and Very Rev. Donald H. Calloway, MIC, MDiv, STB, STL – the dream of this new academic society is to bring together scholars, theologians, clergy, consecrated religious, and laity from around the world who are passionate about promoting the study of Saint Joseph and fostering a deeper appreciation for the loving father of Jesus and the chaste husband of Mary.
“I felt the time was right to bring this idea to life,” said Fr. Looney, author, social media evangelist, and current Secretariat (and past President) of the Mariological Society of America. “As a Marian theologian, I see Josephology as closely related to Mariology. By studying Joseph, we naturally find ourselves drawn to Jesus and Mary but with new and profound insights. Christology and Mariology complement Josephology.”
October 13 was chosen as the official launch date for The Josephology Society (TJS) because Joseph also appeared with Mary at Fatima, Portugal on this date in 1917, witnessed by many thousands, holding the Christ Child and blessing the world at the renowned “Miracle of the Sun” as a profound reminder of the importance of family and fatherhood.
With its first Josephology Symposium slated for May 1, 2025 and a call for paper abstracts to be submitted for its Josephology Studies publication by January 6, 2025, TJS is cordially inviting all Josephologist scholars, devotees, and students worldwide to join this new Society for their intellectual and spiritual enrichment and to contribute to the advancement of Josephology in Christian history.
In addition, Fr. Looney can be reached for further inquiries at
edwardlooneybooks@gmail.com
