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We all know what saints look like, don’t we? After all, we see their images on holy cards and stained-glass windows all the time. They’re the ones who take vows of poverty and sleep on cold floors among the poor whom they serve. They’re the ones who risk their own health to live alongside lepers. They’re the ones who suffer and die heroically as martyrs for the faith. And they’re even the ones who … serve as the head of the faith formation department for their local diocese. Wait, can that last one be right?
Those who spend their time going about the seemingly mundane tasks that keep a parish or diocese running rarely make it to our classification as saints -- not in the same sense as Mother Teresa or Father Damian, anyway. But the Church, in her great wisdom, knows better.
And it is one such “ordinary” saint, or likely soon-to-be canonized saint, to be more accurate, who is the subject of the new documentary Radiating Joy - The Michelle Duppong Story.
Born in Colorado in 1984 and raised on a farm in North Dakota, Michelle Duppong lived what was by all accounts a rather simple life. Interviewed for the documentary, those who knew her paint a picture of a simple girl who did her chores and schoolwork, went to church with her family, and hung out with her friends. Basically, Michelle was remarkably normal, except for perhaps her unflappable good nature, a trait mentioned by everyone who appears on camera.
Michelle would eventually attend North Dakota State University, and it was there her life took a bit of a turn, though not one that could be seen as drastic in any way. While working on a horticulture degree, Michelle encountered the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) and became so enamored with the organization that she would go on to work for them for a while after graduation. This in turn would lead to her becoming the Director of Adult Faith Formation for the Diocese of Bismarck. Admiral activities to be sure, but thousands of others do the same things daily. The only possible difference according to the interviewees is that Michelle always performed her duties with a smile.
In 2014, at the age of 30, Michelle Duppong was diagnosed with stage four cancer. Despite the combined forces of medicine and prayer working to save her, Duppong’s descent was rapid and painful. And yet, as family and friends tell it, her face beamed with joy throughout her final months. Michelle embraced her suffering as she had everything else in life, with faith and a desire to touch others with it. She was a true believer in the joy of the Christian life even in the face of suffering, and so inspiring was her presence that the hospital staff began to bring others into her room to help comfort them.
In 2022, nearly seven years after her death, Michelle Duppong was declared a Servant of God and the process for her beatification was begun. She was not called to do some of the amazing things other saints accomplish but, as the documentary makes clear, the things she was called to do she did so with joy and devotion. And should her canonization come to pass, Michelle Duppong will join the ranks of all those “ordinary” saints whose stories serve to remind us that everyone is called to live fully in the joy of Christ, no matter in what role we serve or what hardships they bring.
Radiating Joy: The Michelle Duppong Story will be shown in select theaters nationwide on November 12 for one day only.
