Pauline Jaricot
1799-1862 19th century Feast day: January 9
Making prayer and giving into shared works, where the smallest, joined together, carry the whole world.
Who was Pauline Jaricot?
Daughter of a Lyon silk merchant, at seventeen she renounced worldly life after a sermon on vanity. A laywoman, she devised a mechanics of generosity: groups of ten each giving a penny a week for the missions (the Society for the Propagation of the Faith), then the Living Rosary, where each person prays a single decade. Ruined by an industrial venture she had meant to serve the workers, she died in poverty and obscurity.
In their own words
One evening, while my parents were playing boston and I sat by the fire seeking help from God (that is, the plan I longed for), the clear sight of the plan of the Propagation of the Faith was given me, and I understood how easily each person close to me could find ten people, themselves included, who would give one sou each week for the Propagation of the Faith.
The need to divide and subdivide the number of people gathered in the association, in order to spread objects of devotion, gave me the thought of having them propose the daily practice of the Rosary, which, divided among fifteen members, would leave each of them only a single decade to say each day.
The feeling that overcame all the others in that place of peace was an immense need to live for nothing but the fulfilling of God's designs, whatever severities that Master might hold in store for me.