With each passing year, I recall distinct moments in the colorful life of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, RSCJ that have meant something to me: the time she pulled the unwilling cow to cross the Mississippi River in the freezing weather; the times she did the essential, but small, hidden things of daily life in the community like mending clothes for children in the boarding school and polishing the furniture; and the many times she prayed all through the night.

With the annual celebration of her feast day each year, I appropriate her story in new ways, and, in that way, Philippine Duchesne becomes more alive, more personal and more real to me. Her powerful narrative is not for me alone. It is for all of us. So, I ask (as many have asked): Who is Philippine for you today? That is a good way to celebrate her feast: by asking “How does her life speaks to me this day?”

For me, Philippine was a woman who moved to the front lines of mission in the world of her time. She followed her call out of the safe zone, moving her feet to the rugged frontier of a new, vast and unexplored territory. I see in her as a woman who was patient—a person who understood that progress forward sometimes means both waiting in the dark and waiting for the light—not simply charging ahead. She knew how to wait on others, and, also, to wait on God’s time, knowing that it was not always her own.

I have come to know this woman of courage and resiliency, of agency and advocacy in my own life. But, what does she say to you—about your life today?

As a way of celebrating her feast, we can pray for the grace to listen to her life and to what God is calling each one of us to discover and to make known of His Sacred Heart on our journey.