{{Short description|French religious sister}} {{Infobox saint |honorific_prefix= Saint |name=Jeanne Jugan |honorific_suffix= LSP |birth_date={{birth date|1792|10|25|df=y}} |death_date={{death date and age|1879|8|29|1792|10|25|df=y}} |feast_day=30 August |venerated_in=Roman Catholic Church<br>(Little Sisters of the Poor and the Eudist Fathers) |image=Jeanne Jugan par Léon Brune 1855.jpg |imagesize= |caption=Portrait of Jugan, {{circa}} 1855 |birth_place=Cancale, Ille-et-Vilaine, France |death_place=Saint-Pern, Ille-et-Vilaine, France |titles=Virgin |beatified_date=3 October 1982 |beatified_place=Vatican City, |beatified_by=Pope John Paul II |canonized_date=11 October 2009 |canonized_place=Vatican City, |canonized_by=Pope Benedict XVI |attributes= |patronage= <!-- WARNING: patronages MUST CORRESPOND to a reliable secondary source, per WP:RS --> |major_shrine=La Tour Saint-Joseph,<br>Saint-Pern, Ille-et-Vilaine, France }}
'''Jeanne Jugan''', LSP (25 October 1792 – 29 August 1879), in religion '''Mary of the Cross''', was a French Catholic religious sister 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 throughout the world. She was canonized in 2009.
==Life== ===Early life=== Jugan was born on 25 October 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.<ref name=lsp>[http://littlesistersofthepoor.org/stjeannejugan/biography ''Who is Jean Jugan?'', Little Sisters of the Poor, US] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150214200354/http://littlesistersofthepoor.org/stjeannejugan/biography |date=14 February 2015}}</ref> 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.<ref name=CO>[https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=512 Catholic.org website, Saints section, ''St Jeanne Jugan'']</ref>
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.<ref name=rcl>[http://saintsresource.com/jeanne-jugan ''Jeanne Jugan''], SaintsResource.com. Accessed 8 August 2023.</ref>
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".<ref name=lsp/> At age 25, the young woman became an Associate of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary founded by John Eudes (Eudists). Jugan also worked as a nurse in the town hospital of Saint-Servan for six years,<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/2009/ns_lit_doc_20091011_jugan_en.html Vatican website, Liturgy, ''St Mary of the Cross Jugan (1792-1879)'']</ref> until 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.<ref>[https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-jeanne-jugan-707 Catholic News Agency website, ''St Jeanne Jugan'']</ref> 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.<ref>[https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-jeanne-jugan/ Franciscan Media website, ''Saint of the Day: Saint Jeanne Jugan'']</ref>
In 1837, Jugan and a 72-year-old woman (Françoise Aubert) rented part of a small cottage and were joined by Virginie Tredaniel, a 17-year-old orphan. These three women then formed a Catholic community of prayer, devoted to teaching the catechism and assisting the poor.<ref name=CO />
===Foundress=== In the winter of 1839, Jugan encountered Anne Chauvin, an elderly woman who was blind, partially paralyzed, and had no one to care for her.<ref name=lsp/> Jugan carried her home to her apartment and took her in from that day forward, letting the woman have her bed while she slept in the attic. She soon took in two more old women in need of help, and by 1841 she had rented a room to provide housing for a dozen elderly people. The following year, she acquired an unused convent building that could house 40 of them.<ref name=CO />
From this act of charity, with the approval of her colleagues, Jeanne then focused her attention upon the mission of assisting abandoned elderly women, and from this beginning arose a religious congregation called The Little Sisters of the Poor.<ref>[https://littlesistersofthepoor.org/saint-jeanne-jugan/her-story/ Little Sisters of the Poor website, ''Saint Jeanne Jugan: Her Story'']</ref> Jugan wrote a simple Rule of Life for this new community of women, and they went door-to-door daily requesting food, clothing and money for the women in their care. This became Jugan's life work.<ref name=rcl/>
During the 1840s, many other young women joined Jugan in her mission of service to the elderly poor. By begging in the streets, the foundress was able to establish four more homes for their beneficiaries by the end of the decade.<ref name=CO />
In 1847, based on the request of Leo Dupont (known as the Holy Man of Tours) she established a house in that city. She was much sought after whenever problems arose and worked with religious and civil authorities to seek help for the poor.<ref>Michel Lafon, (2009) ''15 Days of Prayer with Saint Jeanne Jugan'' New City Press; {{ISBN|1-56548-329-4}}, p. 20</ref>
By 1850, over 100 women had joined the congregation. Jugan, however, was forced out of her leadership role by the Abbé Auguste Le Pailleur, the priest who had been appointed Superior General of the congregation by the local bishop.<ref name=Foley>[https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-jeanne-jugan/ ''St. Jeanne Jugan''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191020231904/https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-jeanne-jugan/ |date=2019-10-20 }}, Franciscanmedia.org. Accessed 8 August 2023.</ref> In an apparent effort to suppress her true role as foundress, he assigned her to do nothing but begging on the street until she was sent into retirement and a life of obscurity for 27 years. Her eyesight was impaired in her final years.<ref>Morrow, Carol Ann. [http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Oct2009/Feature2.asp ''Little Sister, Big Heart: St. Jeanne Jugan''], americancatholic.org. October 2009.</ref>
===Expansion=== After communities of Little Sisters had begun to spread throughout France, the work expanded to England in 1851. From 1866 to 1871 five communities of Little Sisters were founded across the United States. By 1879, the community Jeanne founded had 2,400 Little Sisters and had spread across Europe and to North America. On 1 March that same year, Pope Leo XIII approved the Constitutions for the Little Sisters of the Poor for an initial period of seven years.<ref>[http://www.littlesistersofthepoor.co.uk/information/history/ Little Sisters of the Poor website, ''History'']. Accessed 6 August 2017.</ref> At the time of her death on 29 August 1879, at the age of 86, many of the Little Sisters did not know that she was the one to have founded the congregation. Le Pailleur, however, was investigated and dismissed in 1890, and Jugan came to be acknowledged as their foundress.<ref name=Foley/>
In September 1885, the congregation arrived in South America and made a first foundation in Valparaíso, Chile, from which it expanded later on.{{cn|date=August 2023}}
==Veneration== Jugan died in 1879, aged 86, and was buried in the graveyard of the General Motherhouse at Saint-Pern. She was beatified in Rome by Pope John Paul II on 3 October 1982, and canonized on 11 October 2009, by Pope Benedict XVI,<ref>[https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255222/once-shunned-and-forgotten-little-sisters-of-the-poor-founder-jeanne-jugan-now-shines Catholic News Agency website, ''Once shunned and forgotten, Little Sisters of the Poor founder Jeanne Jugan now shines'', article by Anna Kurian dated August 30, 2023]</ref> who said, "In the Beatitudes, Jeanne Jugan found the source of the spirit of hospitality and fraternal love, founded on unlimited trust in Providence, which illuminated her whole life."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20091011_canonizzazioni.html|title=11 October 2009: Canonization of five new Saints: Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński, Francisco Coll y Guitart, Josef Daamian de Veuster, Rafael Arnáiz Barón, Marie de la Croix (Jeanne) Jugan {{!}} BENEDICT XVI|website=vatican.va|access-date=18 February 2017}}</ref>
Today, pilgrims can visit the house where she was born, the House of the Cross at Saint-Servan and the motherhouse where she lived her last 23 years at La Tour Saint Joseph in Saint-Pern.{{cn|date=August 2023}}
==Legacy== [[File:Jeanne Jugan 2009 stamp of India.jpg|thumb|upright|An Indian stamp of Jugan]] The Sisters at the Queen of Peace Residence in Queens Village, New York established the Jeanne Jugan Award which is presented to the staff member who best exemplifies Jugan's spirit.<ref>[http://www.littlesistersofthepoorqueens.org/c37-blog-posts/c27-blogs/lucy-giammarco-presented-wth-jeanne-jugan-award-at-recognition-dinner/ Queen of Peace Residence], Little Sisters of the Poor website. Accessed 8 August 2023.</ref>
==See also== * Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory: Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm * Teresa Jornet Ibars: Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Sources== * Paul Milcen, 2000 ''Jeanne Jugan: Humble, So as to Love More'' Darton, Longman & Todd {{ISBN|0-232-52383-5}}
==External links== * [http://www.littlesistersofthepoor.org/ Little Sisters of the Poor Official website] * [http://www.catholic.org/video/?v=1285Catholic Online video of the Motherhouse at La Tour Saint Joseph] * [http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=512 Catholic Online article on "Bl. Jeanne Jugan"] * [http://www.catholicfounders.org/jeanne.htm Catholic Founders article on "Jeanne Jugan"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070905183400/http://www.catholicfounders.org/jeanne.htm |date=2007-09-05 }} * [http://lspsocal.org/page.cfm?Web_ID=1 Little Sisters of the Poor, San Pedro, California: A Biography of Jeanne Jugan] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110717225839/http://sacredheartisrael.vndv.com/jean.htm The Life of Blessed Jeanne Jugan (Sister Mary of the Cross) - full online book]
{{Subject bar |portal1=Saints |portal2= Biography |portal3= Catholicism |portal4= France}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jugan, Jeanne}} Category:1792 births Category:1879 deaths Category:People from Ille-et-Vilaine Category:Roman Catholic activists Category:Founders of Catholic religious communities Category:19th-century French nuns Category:Beatifications by Pope John Paul II Category:Canonizations by Pope Benedict XVI Category:19th-century Christian saints Category:Breton saints Category:Christian female saints of the Early Modern era Category:Christian female saints of the Late Modern era Category:Venerated Catholics by Pope John Paul II