Women in History: Saint Jeanne Jugan and Humble Detachment

 For Holy Women’s History Month, Rachel Watkins shares what she learned from Saint Jeanne Jugan’s spirit of detachment when pushed out of her leadership role.  

Time passes along for us through seasons — and not just when it comes to the weather. Friends, jobs, places to call home, and even the saints that inspire us can move in and out of our lives.

Saints Who Have Inspired Me

During middle school, having been inspired by both Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972) and the books of James Herriot (pen name of Alf Wight, British veterinary surgeon) All Creatures Great and Small also published in 1972, I picked Saint Francis of Assisi as my confirmation name — convinced I’d be a veterinarian.

I am not a veterinarian, but Francis continued to inspire me and I attended Franciscan University, where I met my husband. Seasons came and went and we lived in Ohio and then Florida before we moved back to his home state of Maryland.

On my way to become a mom of a large family and eventually a homeschooling mom, I found Mother Seton, a mother herself, who also eventually lived in Maryland. The patroness of Catholic schools and unofficial patroness of homeschoolers, she started the first free Catholic school for girls in Baltimore, MD in 1808. In 1987, our first child was baptized in the Saint Mary’s Seminary lower chapel where she went to Mass with her own family.

Saints continued to come into my life through the arrival of more children and their chosen names. Who would we ask to watch over one of ours with special care? All of their name saints became favorites of mine.

My First Encounter with Saint Jeanne Jugan

A favorite homeschool activity was visiting nursing homes in Baltimore where I first encountered the Little Sisters of the Poor and their founder, Jeanne Jugan. As I read a few books about her, some details jumped out to me. I was first struck that her work with elderly and poor did not begin until she was 45 years old! Having declined marriage offers, she worked as a servant and knew God had a plan for her. She is known to have said she was called “to a work not yet founded.” It was a nice reminder that not every good work begins when we are young and I still had time to make my mark on the world.

But it was another aspect of her story that has truly helped me at various times in my own life. For several decades, until her death, her role as the founder of the order was forgotten. The details of this can be found online, but the important detail for me was that upon having been unapologetically pushed aside, she accepted being one of the beggars for the order. She undertook this humble, silent role without complaint, a witness to the need for detachment.

At times in my life, I have felt that my work went unnoticed and not just the hidden work of an at-home wife and mother. I recalled times when I was working when my ideas were taken by others, taking credit that rightly belonged to me. And, much more recently and more personally, I have endured people trying to usurp or alter the work I have done with the Little Flowers Girls’ Club.

I created the program more than 30 years ago, inspired by Father F.X. Lasanse’s The Catholic Girl’s Guide (1905) and other sources. Its history is not as important as the reality that over the years, others have claimed a right to somehow take the program as their own, lifting ideas from it or changing it. We would find out after that fact as none of these people reached out to my publisher, Joan Stromberg, or myself beforehand. It was as if what we had done did not matter — as if we didn’t exist.

Every time it happened, I tried to turn my frustration into detachment from my will into acceptance of God’s will. I found myself consoled by Saint Jeanne Jugan, who was detached enough from her own hard work to let God work. This is what we have always wanted for Little Flowers (and its other adjacent programs): for it to be God’s work. Through the intercession of the Blessed Mother and the inspiration of Saint Therese, the original Little Flower, this little work will be whatever He wants it to be. It will be as large as He wants it to be; it will spread as far as He wants it to.

Saint Jeanne knew this is a way I am still learning. And I have remembered Saint Jeanne Jugan in Little Flowers, Wreath V, with the virtue of service reflecting her great love for others, especially the elderly, but only because the virtue of detachment had already been taken!

Saint Jeanne Jugan, pray for us

Read more of our Holy Women's History Month stories.

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Copyright 2026 Sarah Pedrozo
Images: (banner) Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Stock Photo; By PSDP35 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons