To Mother Adeline Boilvin, American RSCJ

Venerable Pauline-Marie Jaricot
Foundress of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith

December 29, 1844 ~ Mother Duchesne writes to Mother Adeline Boilvin, RSCJ,  "I have asked someone in Lyons to send you the collection of the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith. You should procure the English edition and pay the subscription fee.  I have never in all my life read anything more interesting or better calculated to enkindle zeal.  This reading is my delight."

Taken from the book:  Through the Year with Philippine Duchesne

More about the Venerable Pauline-Marie Jaricot...

Pauline-Marie Jaricot was born in Lyons, France on July 22, 1799.  She died on January 9, 1862 and was declared venerable on February 25, 1963. It was under the influence of her brother (a student at the Seminary of St. Sulpice) that Pauline-Marie developed a concern for the Asian missions and at the young age of 17 began to lead a life of abnegation and self-sacrifice. It was on Christmas Day, 1816, that she took a vow of perpetual virginity.  At the young age of 18, Pauline-Marie Jaricot composed a treatise on the Infinite Love of the Divine Eucharist.  

In order to repair the sins of neglect and ingratitude committed against the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pauline-Marie Jaricot established a union of prayer among pious servant girls, the members of which were known as the "Réparatrices du Sacré-Coeur de Jésus-Christ".

During an extended visit to her married sister at Saint-Vallier (Drôme), she succeeded in effecting a complete transformation in the licentious lives of the numerous girls employed by her brother-in-law. It was among them and the "Réparatrices" that she first solicited offerings for the foreign missions. Her systematic organization of such collections dates back to 1819 when she asked each of her intimate friends to act as a promoter by finding ten associates willing to contribute one cent each week to the propagation of the Faith. One out of every ten promoters gathered the collections of their fellow-promoters; through a logical extention of this system, all the offerings were ultimately remitted to one central treasurer. The Society for the Propagation of Faith at its official foundation (3 May 1822) adopted this method, and easily triumphed over the opposition which had sought from the very start to thwart the realization of Pauline Jaricot's plans.

In 1826 she founded the Association of the Living Rosary. The fifteen decades of the Rosary were divided among fifteen associates, each of whom had to recite daily only one determined decade. A second object of the new foundation was the spread of good books and articles of piety. An undertaking of Pauline's in the interest of social reform, though begun with prudence, involved her in considerable financial difficulties and ended in failure. She died on January 9, 1862 and was declared venerable on February 25, 1963. Taken from the CatholicCulture.org site