Soon to be SAINTS Jeanne Jugan and Damien de Veuster

These are both good calls, and long overdue.


In November of 2007, I posted about the great work being done by the Little Sisters of the Poor, and a little bit about their foundress, Blessed Jeanne Jugan. At an upcoming consistory, a date will finally be set for her canonization. Rocco Palmo has the details on Whispers in the Loggia.

Lest anyone was unaware, the Little Sisters of the Poor do so much for so many that, whatever they ask of you, you just drop everything and do it.

He's sure got that right! From the link about Jeanne Jugan above:

The French Revolution had broken out three years before the birth of a baby girl whose name is known today all over the world.

Jeanne Jugan was born on October 25, 1792 in Cancale (Ille-et-Vilaine), a fishing port on the north coast of Brittany, France. Her father was absent at the time, for he had sailed six months earlier for the fishing season in Newfoundland...

Less than four years later, Jeanne's father was lost at sea, like so many other sailors! At home, it was hard to make both ends meet. Jeanne, her brother and two sisters learned from their mother how to live poverty honestly and courageously, with faith and love for God...

She left Cancale for the nearby town of Saint Servan. A nurse at Le Rosais Hospital, a visiting nurse, then a servant, she desired only to serve God and others, especially the poor...

One winter's evening, Jeanne opened her home and her heart to an elderly, half paralyzed blind woman who had suddenly found herself all alone. Jeanne gave up her bed for her.

This act committed her forever. Soon another old woman followed, then a third. In 1843, there were forty of them around Jeanne and her three young companions, who had chosen her as the Superior of their small association which was slowly taking the form of a religious community...

However it was not long before Jeanne was deprived of this responsibility. In the face of this injustice, she responded only with silence, gentleness and abandonment. Through her faith and love, she discovered in this decision God's plan for herself and for her religious family...

As the years passed by, Jeanne Jugan was buried more deeply in obscurity. The history of the beginning of her work was distorted. When she died on August 29, 1879, in La Tour St. Joseph, few Little Sisters knew that she was the foundress.

However, her influence on the younger Little Sisters, whose life she had shared for twenty-seven years, was decisive. During this long period, she transmitted to them the original charism and the spirit of the origins. Little by little the situation became clear.

In 1902, the truth became evident: Jeanne Jugan, Sister Mary of the Cross, who died in oblivion a quarter of a century earlier, was not the third Little Sister, as it was believed, but the first, the foundress.

Rocco also points out that at the same consistory Damien de Veuster (Father Damien the Leper of Molokai, who I posted about at length here) is also expected to have a date set for his canonization.