Saint Jeanne Jugan

Jeanne Jugan was born on October 25, 1792, in Cancale, a fishing village in Brittany, France. Her father was lost at sea when she was small, and she worked as a kitchen maid and servant. She declined marriage, sensing another call.

In the winter of 1839, in Saint-Servan, she carried a blind and paralyzed elderly widow, Anne Chauvin, up to her own room and gave her her bed. Other poor old women followed, and young companions joined her: this was the beginning of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Jeanne went door to door begging for food and money for the elderly in their care. In 1843, however, the community's priest-adviser removed her as superior, and for the last twenty-seven years of her life she lived hidden at the novitiate, forming the novices by her humility. By her death on August 29, 1879, at Saint-Pern, the congregation had spread across Europe and to the Americas. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, who run homes for the elderly in the United States, Latin America and around the world, celebrate her with the residents on August 30.

Note: in Peru and other Latin American countries, August 30 is also the national feast of Saint Rose of Lima, whose universal memorial is August 23.