Jeanne Jugan

St. Jeanne Jugan, L.S.P. (Mary of the Cross)
Sister and servant of the poor
Religious and foundress
Born	(1792-10-25)25 October 1792 Cancale, Ille-et-Vilaine, France
Died	29 August 1879(1879-08-29) (aged 86) Saint-Pern, Ille-et-Vilaine, France
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church (Little Sisters of the Poor and the Eudist Fathers)
Beatified	October 3, 1982., Vatican City, by Pope John Paul II
Canonized	October 11, 2009, Vatican City, by Pope Benedict XVI
Major shrine	La Tour Saint-Joseph, Saint-Pern, Ille-et-Vilaine, France
Feast	30 August
Patronage	the destitute elderly

Jeanne Jugan (October 25, 1792 – August 29, 1879), 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. 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.