Woman-Who-Prays-Always

Do you choose a saint for each year? I do. There are varying degrees of success regarding how much I learn about this saint or how often I ask for the saint’s particular intercession, but I like to try to pick a saint as a patron for the year.

For the past couple of years I have used Jennifer Fulwiler’s saint name generator. Whenever a saint comes up and I am completely unfamiliar with them, there is always the desire to pick a new one, a better one. Sometimes I do, especially if there is nearly nothing known about the saint. However, during a good year, I pick up a book about my new saint for the year and try to learn something about them.

The website gave me the name “St. Rose Philippine Duchesne” as my saint for the year. I looked up a short biography online to see if she made the cut and would really be my patron. As I read about her desire to be a missionary and living through the French Revolution and then journeying to the Americas, I was struck by a particular section near the end of the article.

A mission was founded at Sugar Creek, Kansas, among the Potawatomi and she was taken along. Though she could not learn their language, they soon named her “Woman-Who-Prays-Always.” While others taught, she prayed. Legend has it that Native American children sneaked behind her as she knelt and sprinkled bits of paper on her habit, and came back hours later to find them undisturbed.

Franciscan Media

Woman-Who-Prays-Always

I saw that name and I was filled with a desire to be her, to be a person who could be rightly given that name. In a variety of situations, I have been growing in an awareness that the best thing that I can do for the people under my care or a part of ministries I help with is to delve deeper into the heart of Jesus. Of course, I’ve known this for a long time, but I have become more and more convinced that this is thoroughly true and not simply a pious thing one declares.

I am not ‘woman-who-prays-always’ yet, but I am striving to become her. May we continually be filled with a desire for our greatest attribute to be our dedication and faithfulness to the Lord.

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Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash