True Leadership
“But still when two or three shall meet,
And old tales be retold,
From low to highest in the Fleet,
We’ll pledge the Blue and Gold.”
From the United States Naval Academy Alma Mater
“Guide us, thy sons, aright,
Teach us by day, by night,
To keep thine honor bright,
For thee to fight.
When we depart from thee,
Serving on land or sea,
May we still loyal be,
West Point, to thee.
And when our work is done,
Our course on earth is run,
May it be said, 'Well Done;
Be Thou At Peace.'”
From the United States Military Academy Alma Mater
It’s time for “we wuz robbed…. Fake news… illegal voters… rigged… The Supreme Court let us down” yelling politicians to learn a lesson from the greatest moment in American sports.
Not the confetti drops and crystal-ball-trophy-moments of national championships.
No. The final act of the annual Army-Navy Game when the winning team stands with their rivals before the losing team’s student body and sings their Alma Mater; then both teams cross the field to sing the victor’s Alma Mater. That is respect, honest competition and a type of leadership sorely lacking in Washington and state capitols.
And if those politicos cannot learn from these young cadets and midshipmen, perhaps they can learn from the Church
Over the course of centuries, the Roman and Anglican Communions have managed to recognize patron saints for just about every possible condition and occupation:
Danger at Sea – Erasmus
The deaf – Francis de Sales
U.S. Army Field Artillery – St. Barbara
Vinegar makers – Vincent of Saragossa
Barbers – Cosmas and Damian, and Martin de Porres
Rabies – Hubert
Racquet Makers – Sebastian
Protection against vanity – Rose of Lime
Basket makers – Anthony the Abbot
The butcher has a fistful including the Apostles Bartholomew and Peter; the baker - Elizabeth of Hungary; and the candle-maker (Sorry, no candlestick- makers here) – Ambrose.
For those who angrily (fearfully?) chose not to run again and those who ran and lost at the local, state, congressional and White House levels and yet rage about “fraud” and “stuffed ballot boxes” and “stolen elections” and file frivolous lawsuits all the way to the Supreme Court, the Church offers the example of Abbe Auguste le Pailleur. To those who leave office gracefully, accepting the decision of the citizenry and going on to find new ways to serve, the Church offers Jeanne Jugan.
Strangely (but not surprisingly - this is, after all, the Church), their lives were uniquely intertwined and remarkably separated – literally by feet because he occupied the big-honcho’s quarters and condemned her to invisibility.
Born in the last decade of the 18th Century, in the midst of the French Revolution, Jeanne was the sixth of eight children; her father was lost at sea when she was just four-years-old and her mother worked diligently to provide for her children – including secret religious education during a period of anti-Catholic persecution.
At 16 and barely able to read or write, she was employed as a kitchen maid, frequently accompanying her employer, the Viscountess de la Choue, when she visited the poor and the sick. At 25, she became an associate of a religious congregation and spent years praying and working as a nurse, until her own health issues forced her to leave the town hospital.
“When you will be near the poor, give yourself wholeheartedly…
Making the elderly happy – that is what counts!”
Jeanne Jugan
In 1837, Jugan, 72-year-old Francoise Aubert and the 17-year old orphan Virginie Trendaniel shared part of a small cottage, forming a community of prayer and service to the poor. In 1839, Jeanne encountered the elderly, blind and partially paralyzed Anne Chauvin, taking her into the small apartment and, ultimately offering up her own bed. Then two more women. Then four. And by 1841, Jeanne and her companions were caring for a dozen sick and elderly women and Jeanne was elected as the first Mother Superior of the community. Thus, began the congregation known as The Little Sisters of the Poor. By 1842, they had obtained use of an abandoned convent and were housing more than 40 and, with the approval of her peers, Jeanne focused her attention on a new mission – assisting abandoned elderly women.
Jeanne was re-elected in 1843 and sustained their work by begging in the streets for food, clothing and money. By 1850 the once small community had grown to one-hundred members with its own “Rule of Life” and four homes in which The Little Sisters served the sick and poor. The work spread to England in 1851 and five communities were established in the United States between 1866 and 1871.
Enters now the priest Auguste de Pallieur, who was a “spiritual advisor” for two of the Sisters and finagled his way into the community. Weeks after Jeanne’s 1843 re-election and on his own authority, he declared the election void, designated a 23-year-old Sister as the new Mother General and declared himself “Father General” and sole “Founder” with complete control, sending Jugan to begging in the streets and confining her to a life of oblivion.
“The Abbé le Pailleur’s behavior has something odd about it, pointing to some kind of psychological disturbance,” wrote Paul Milcent, author of the biography Jeanne Jugan: Humble So As to Love More. “He was determined, even at the cost of falsifying the truth, to concentrate power and fame in his own person.”
When the Sisters acquired a large property – La Tour - for their motherhouse, where they could train the large numbers of young women joining the community, le Pailleur decreed that Jeanne would no longer go begging and would, instead, live among the new applicants – without rank or recognition.
The anonymous foundress was remembered as a joyous, pleasant woman with piercing blue eyes, who joined in the recreation of the young aspirants to the community and encouraged them to become “little” - if they were truly going to be of real help to the old in their care, they had to be genuinely little with the little people, not be ladies condescending to do good. Rather than being bitter, Jeanne withdrew into the love and joy of God – passing on her values to every new novice and postulant of the Order.
Almost as proof that God has a unique sense of humor, Jeanne died at age 86 on St. Joseph’s Day 1879 – Father le Pailleur’s feast day. She was buried in the graveyard of the Sisters’ Motherhouse at Saint-Pern. There was no official mention of her death. Instead, the priest sent a letter to all the houses of the Little Sisters thanking them for their well wishes and congratulations on his feast day.
It was as if Jeanne Jugan never existed. Young women entering the community had no idea the woman living in the shadows of the Motherhouse for the last twenty-seven years of her life was, indeed, the Foundress and guiding spirit of The Little Sisters.
“My little ones, we should always be cheerful,
for our old people do not like long faces…
It is a great grace that God has given you in calling you to serve the poor.”
Jeanne Jugan
Only her deathbed did Sister Marie Jamet, the woman le Pailleur appointed as superior, identify Jugan as the rightful foundress. “Jeanne Jugan is truly our foundress, not the priest mentioned in the article,” the Sisters noted in a 2000 correction/clarification to The Catholic Encyclopedia. “Father le Pailleur was in fact involved in the early phases of the work, but he was not the founder. In fact, as time went on, he removed Jeanne Jugan from the office of superior, forced her into oblivion, and then manufactured and propagated a false story about the origins of our congregation.”
The once banished and forgotten Jeanne Jugan, who died in oblivion, was canonized as a saint of the Church on October 11, 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI, 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."
If “Those who those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it,” (George Santayana), Saint Jeanne Jugan and the priest le Pailleur serve as lessons to the nation’s political leaders. Perhaps a “narcissistic sociopath” – to use a sortta psychological phrase, certainly a “liar” – in normal people talk, and probably “evil” – in moral terms, he stands as a lesson to blustering politicos and their self-serving and kowtowing sycophants. When the truth was finally revealed, le Pailleur was banished to oblivion, ignominy, a monastery in Rome and the dung heap of ecclesiastical history.
Having lost her position of honor as Foundress of The Little Sisters, Jeanne Jugan became a servant of the poor and sick who would never be able to reward or enrich her. Having been removed from office and authority, she humbled herself before God and His people.
“There is in this woman something so calm and so holy,
that in seeing her I know myself to be in the presence of a superior being.
Her words went straight to my heart, so that my eyes,
I know not how, filled with tears.”
Charles Dickens upon meeting Jeanne Jugan