Saint Who?
Saints Who Promoted the Rosary
Blessed Pauline Jaricot
Laywoman († 1862)Feast: January 9
“The rosary is not a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, it is the devotion to Mary!” Pauline Jaricot was the youngest daughter of a wealthy French factory owner. Though a devout girl, she was strongly tempted by vanity. At seventeen, she heard a homily which changed her life. She made a private vow of virginity, began dressing simply, and devoted herself to the care of poor factory workers.
Fueled by an intense, mystical love for Jesus in the Eucharist, she would found several pious associations. Among these was the Association of the Living Rosary, under the patronage of Saint Philomena. It was comprised of groups of fifteen members, each of whom recited a decade a day. As she described it: “the good, the mediocre, and those individuals who had only good will—fifteen coals: one being well lighted, three or four partially so, and the others not at all. Bring them all together and you have a furnace!”
Some objected that a less repetitious devotion would be more meritorious. “Suppose,” she responded, “you had been on earth when the Holy Family were living and you knew they were partial to a certain kind of flower. Wouldn’t you try to get it for them, even though you yourself preferred another?” Pauline died in 1862 and was beatified in 2022.
Heavenly Father, through the intercession of
Blessed Pauline, may we offer to Mary
the flowers which please her most.
