Michelle Duppong

A Hidden Mystic of the Great Plains

Michelle Christine Duppong was born on January 25, 1984, in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. When she was one year old, her family moved to a farm in Haymarsh, North Dakota, where she grew up tending gardens, shepherding sheep, and attending Holy Mass with her family at St. Clement Oratory. She graduated as valedictorian from Glen Ullin High School in 2002.

At North Dakota State University, Michelle encountered the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) at Saint Paul’s Newman Center, a meeting that would transform her life. After earning her degree in horticulture in 2006, she joined FOCUS as a missionary, serving on four college campuses over six years, including the University of Nebraska, South Dakota State University, the University of South Dakota, and the University of Mary in Bismarck.

In 2012, Michelle accepted a position as Director of Adult Faith Formation for the Diocese of Bismarck. Her colleagues knew her as joyful, generous, and deeply devoted to the Eucharist. What they did not know, until after her death, was the extraordinary depth of her interior life. Her private journals revealed a soul living in intimate conversation with Christ, offering what she called her “little yeses” to God’s will each day.

On December 29, 2014, Michelle was diagnosed with advanced abdominal cancer. She fought the disease for nearly a year with remarkable faith and serenity, her CaringBridge journal attracting over 230,000 visits as she witnessed to hope in suffering. She died on Christmas Day, December 25, 2015, at the age of thirty one. On November 1, 2022, Bishop David Kagan of Bismarck formally opened her cause for canonization, making hers one of the fastest American causes opened in modern times.

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