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Our most popular Web feature since 1997 is now available free by e-mail! Learn about the lives of the saints one at at time, and be linked always to other saints resources, including a calendar and a list of patron saints. Even better, listen to a 90-second version of Saint of the Day from our own Franciscan Radio. It's all in your inbox every day.
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Each bimonthly free issue contains information and inspiration, and the latest happenings at AmericanCatholic.org "Friar Jack's Musings," on the message of St. Francis for today; and "Friar Jack's Catechism Quiz," a lively refresher course on Catholic basics.
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A radio ministry of the U.S. Bishops' Catholic Communication Campaign and the Franciscans, designed to help Catholics know their faith and grow in their faith, American Catholic Radio airs weekly throughout the country on Catholic radio stations. It also can be found at www.FranciscanRadio.org. Our bi-weekly e-newsletter highlights content from coming shows, two weeks out. Host Father Greg Friedman discusses his topics in his blog and alerts listeners and radio station staff to future projects. The e-newsletter is free and comes to your inbox every other week.
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Faith Formation Update (for Catechetical leaders)

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Improve your Web ministry with this free monthly e-newsletter exploring how Catholics use the Internet. Webmasters and communications professionals can keep up with what's new on the Web for Catholics and learn from their colleagues whose sites are featured. View past "Sites of the Month."
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Rose Philippine Duchesne: Born in Grenoble, France, of a family that was among the new rich, Philippine learned political skills from her father and a love of the poor from her mother. The dominant feature of her temperament was a strong and dauntless will, which became the material—and the battlefield—of her holiness. She entered the convent at 19 and remained despite their opposition. As the French Revolution broke, the convent was closed, and she began taking care of the poor and sick, opened a school for street urchins and risked her life helping priests in the underground.
<p>When the situation cooled, she personally rented her old convent, now a shambles, and tried to revive its religious life. The spirit was gone, and soon there were only four nuns left. They joined the infant Society of the Sacred Heart, whose young superior, St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, would be her lifelong friend. In a short time Philippine was a superior and supervisor of the novitiate and a school. But her ambition, since hearing tales of missionary work in Louisiana as a little girl, was to go to America and work among the Indians. At 49, she thought this would be her work. With four nuns, she spent 11 weeks at sea en route to New Orleans, and seven weeks more on the Mississippi to St. Louis. She then met one of the many disappointments of her life. The bishop had no place for them to live and work among Native Americans. Instead, he sent her to what she sadly called "the remotest village in the U.S.," St. Charles, Missouri. With characteristic drive and courage, she founded the first free school for girls west of the Mississippi.
</p><p>It was a mistake. Though she was as hardy as any of the pioneer women in the wagons rolling west, cold and hunger drove them out—to Florissant, Missouri, where she founded the first Catholic Indian school, adding others in the territory. "In her first decade in America, Mother Duchesne suffered practically every hardship the frontier had to offer, except the threat of Indian massacre—poor lodging, shortages of food, drinking water, fuel and money, forest fires and blazing chimneys, the vagaries of the Missouri climate, cramped living quarters and the privation of all privacy, and the crude manners of children reared in rough surroundings and with only the slightest training in courtesy" (Louise Callan, R.S.C.J., <i>Philippine Duchesne</i>).
</p><p>Finally, at 72, in poor health and retired, she got her lifelong wish. A mission was founded at Sugar Creek, Kansas, among the Potawatomi. 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. She died in 1852 at the age of 83.</p> What should I do about my son’s Jewish wedding? O Wisdom of our God Most High, guiding creation with power and love: Come to teach us the path of knowledge!

 
PICK OF THE DAY
DVD! The World of St. Francis
The World of St. Francis: Past, Present and Future includes three programs on the life, times and influence of St. Francis.

 
CATHOLIC GREETINGS
Thanksgiving
In America, Thanksgiving is one of the rare times when religion and civics intersect. Let us always give thanks and praise ...



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