22/03/2023
Today is the anniversary of the day that Sister Rosalie Rendu was presented with the Legion of Honor by Napoleon III for her service to the poor (18 March 1852).
Jeanne Marie Rendu (later called Sister Rosalie Rendu) was the eldest of four girls in her family.
When she was nearly 17 years old, Jeanne entered the Motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity and received the name Rosalie. She took vows to serve God and the poor and spent over 50 years living out those vows. She opened a free clinic, a pharmacy, a school, an orphanage, a childcare centre, a home for the elderly and a youth club for young workers. She became known as the 'good mother of all' and helped Frederic Ozanam and his friends to do good works, which is how the St Vincent de Paul Society started.
As well as assisting the poor in the streets and in their homes, Sister Rosalie showed great courage and leadership during the bloody uprisings that took place in France in 1830 and 1848. During the battles, Sister Rosalie would climb up on the barricades – risking her life – to help wounded soldiers, regardless of which side they were fighting on.
During the French revolution of 1830 Rosalie Rendu gave asylum to the archbishop and other religious facing anti-clerical threats, while in the cholera epidemic of 1832 she gathered orphan children for care by her Daughters of Charity, thus beginning an orphanage.
By 1838, the Sisters’ soup kitchen was providing some 2,000 meals a day to the needy.
During the revolution of 1848 Sister Rosalie climbed to the top of the barricades in her district and successfully demanded that the crowd end the violence: “Haven’t I enough widows and orphans to care for?”
In 1852, Emperor Napoleon III bestowed on Sister Rosalie the cross of the Legion of Honour. Later he sent her a gold cross containing relics of Saint Vincent de Paul, feeling she was more likely to wear this than a medal.
Blessed Rosalie Rendu died in 1856, at age seventy, having given 54 years of her life to the care of people in need.
