ஆண்டவருடைய விண்ணேற்றம் மே 12 ஞாயிறு

 † Saint of the Day †

(August 30)

✠ St. Jeanne Jugan ✠

Religious and Foundress :

Born: October 25, 1792

Cancale, Ille-et-Vilaine, France

Died: August 25, 1879 (aged 86)

Saint-Pern, Ille-et-Vilaine, France

Venerated in: Roman Catholic Church

Beatified: October 3, 1982

Pope John Paul II

Canonized: October 11, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI

Major Shrine: La Tour Saint-Joseph, Saint-Pern, Ille-et-Vilaine, France

Feast: August 30

Patronage: The Destitute Elderly

St. Jeanne Jugan, also known as Sister Mary of the Cross, L.S.P., was a French woman who became known for the dedication of her life to the neediest of the elderly poor. Her service resulted in the establishment of the Little Sisters of the Poor, who care for the elderly who have no other resources throughout the world. She has been declared a saint by the Catholic Church.

Jugan was born October 25, 1792, in the port city of Cancale in Brittany, the sixth of the eight children of Joseph and Marie Jugan. She grew up during the political and religious upheavals of the French Revolution. Four years after she was born, her father, a fisherman, was lost at sea. Her mother struggled to provide for the young Jeanne and her siblings, while also providing them secretly with religious instruction amid the anti-Catholic persecutions of the day.

Jugan worked as a shepherdess while still very young, and learned to knit and spin wool. She could barely read and write. When she was 16, she took a job as the kitchen maid of the Viscountess de la Choue. The viscountess, a devout Catholic, had Jugan accompany her when she visited the sick and the poor. At age 18, and again six years later, she declined marriage proposals from the same man. She told her mother that God had other plans, and was calling her to “a work which is not yet founded”. At age 25, the young woman became an Associate of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary founded by St. John Eudes (Eudists). Jugan also worked as a nurse in the town hospital of Saint-Servan. She worked hard at this physically demanding job but after six years, she left the hospital due to her own health issues. She then worked for 12 years as the servant of a fellow member of the Eudist Third Order, until the woman's death in 1835. In the course of Jugan's duties, the two women recognized a similar Catholic spirituality and began to teach catechism to the children of the town and to care for the poor and other unfortunates.

Small Beginnings:

Jeanne Jugan grew up in a small town in revolutionary France. Times were tough. Violence ruled the day. For thousands, begging was a way of life.

Those who openly practiced their faith were not merely ridiculed – they were imprisoned or killed. Jeanne received her faith formation, secretly and at great risk, from her mother and a group of women who belonged to a lay movement of the day.

By the time Jeanne was four years old, her father had been lost at sea. Her mother found odd jobs to make ends meet. A neighbor helped a neighbor. As a young girl, Jeanne worked as a shepherdess. She learned to knit and spin wool. Later she went to work as a kitchen maid for a wealthy family.

On fire with love for God:

Jeanne barely learned to read and write. Her education consisted mostly of on-the-job training in the school of real life. Neither beautiful nor talented in the usual sense, she was gifted with an extraordinary heart. Jeanne was on fire with love for God!

Those who let themselves be seized by the love of Christ cannot help abandoning everything to follow him… Barely out of her teens, Jeanne felt the call of divine love. Preparing to leave home, she told her mother “God wants me for himself. He is keeping me for a work which is not yet founded.” Jeanne took the road less traveled, setting out to work among the poor and forsaken in a local hospital. One cold winter night, Jeanne brought home a blind elderly widow, giving the woman her own bed. What seemed to be a random encounter turned out to be a foreshadowing of her life's mission. Along with the two other women, she prayed, visited the poor, and taught catechism to children. Jeanne and her friends started a congregation in Saint-Sevran and began a home for the elderly. She wrote a simple set of rules for them. The three went out door-to-door asking for food, clothing, and money, Gradually they took in more people to care for, and more young women became members, dedicated to the dignity of the elderly poor.

Jeanne meets Christ in the Poor:

Many years went by before Jeanne discovered her vocation. Finally, one cold winter night she met Jesus Christ in the person of an elderly, blind and infirm woman who had no one to care for her. Jeanne carried the woman home, climbed up the stairs to her small apartment and placed her in her own bed. From then on, Jeanne would sleep in the attic.

God led poorer old people to her doorstep. Generous young women came to help. Like Jeanne, they wanted to make a difference. Like her, they believed that “the poor are Our Lord.” A religious community was born!

There were so many old people in need of a home, so many souls hungry for love! The work rapidly spread across France and beyond. Struck by their spirit of humble service, local citizens dubbed the group the Little Sisters of the Poor. The name stuck!

For herself, Jeanne chose the religious name Sister Mary of the Cross. She would live it in its fullness …

Jeanne is set aside:

The work of the Little Sisters continued to spread, borne by the wind of the Spirit. So did Jeanne’s renown – until one day she was mysteriously cast aside by an ambitious priest who had taken over the direction of the young community.

Jeanne was replaced as superior and sent out begging on behalf of the poor. And then one day she was placed in retirement, relegated to the shadows. At the time of her death 27 years later, the young Little Sisters didn’t even know that she was the foundress.

Jeanne had often told them, “We are grafted into the cross and we must carry it joyfully unto death.” How she lived these words! What a radiant example of holiness she gave to generations of Little Sisters!

Jeanne chose the name Sister Mary of the Cross but was commonly known as Mother Marie of the Cross. She would often say, "the poor are Our Lord." Locals began to call her humble sisters and their hospitality efforts, the Little Sisters of the Poor. 

In 1851 a small group of Little Sisters crossed the English Channel to establish the first home outside France, in a London suburb. Spain was next, followed by Belgium, Ireland, North Africa, and North America. In just the last decade, new homes for the elderly have opened in India, Peru, and the Philippines.

Like the grain of wheat that falls to the earth and dies, Jeanne's life has produced great fruit that continues today—but she was not always honored or appreciated during her life. One day a new priest who was put in charge of the young congregation decided to replace Jeanne as superior and place her in retirement without any say in the decision. While others protested what was viewed as an injustice, Jeanne simply accepted it as the will of God and went about begging for contributions to support the growing order. The priest was later removed by the Holy See in 1890. Jeanne told her sisters, “We are grafted into the cross and we must carry it joyfully unto death." When she died 27 years later, few of the young Little Sisters even knew that she was the foundress.

God lifts up the lowly:

Like the grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies, Jeanne’s life would bear much fruit. Thousands of young women followed in her footsteps. The Little Sisters’ mission of hospitality spread to the ends of the earth, like a great wave of charity.

In his time, God would raise Jeanne up. At her beatification, Pope John Paul II said that “God could glorify no more humble a servant than she.”

Pope Benedict said that Saint Jeanne’s canonization would “show once again how living faith is prodigious in good works, and how sanctity is a healing balm for the wounds of humankind.”

Some beautiful testimonies of St. Jeanne's fellow sisters:

She was always joyful and even-tempered. She used to give us very good advice. She often spoke to us about the presence of God within us, in the tabernacle and in the poor. Her love for the poor was boundless, and she had given her whole life for them, right to the end. —Sr. Clementine Joseph

She once said to me, “I’m going to tell you three thoughts; if you make them part of your life, you will become a great saint: the just man lives by faith; charity covers a multitude of sins, and she who keeps guard over her tongue keeps guard over her soul.” I have very often thought over her wise advice. —Sr. Saint Albert

I was much edified by her deep humility and by her love for the poor. I have treasured my memory of her through all my life and have always considered her to be a saint. One would notice how happy she was when she had others around her to listen to her speak about the poor old folk: “My little ones,” she would say to us, “Never forget that the poor are Our Lord.” —Sr. Léontine de la Nativité

She lived in the presence of God and always spoke to us about him. On meeting us she would say, “Do your work for God alone.” One felt that she spoke from the abundance of her heart. She was always quite simple, always serene, and one felt the presence of God in her soul. She never spoke about herself, either for good or for ill. —Sr. Angélique de Ste. Marie

A friend of the poor – a Gospel witness for our time – a Saint for old age and every age!