Top photo caption: St. Mother Theodore Guerin is depicted in an image released by the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind. The French-born missionary, who established the Indiana religious community and several schools in the state in the mid-1800s, was canonized Oct. 15, 2006, by Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. OSV News photo/courtesy of Sisters of Providence
By Michael R. Heinlein, OSV News
OSV News – When St. Theodora Guérin (1798-1856) was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, the pontiff almost understatedly summed up her life and holiness when he said, “With great trust in divine providence, (she) overcame many challenges and persevered in the work that the Lord had called her to do.” Indeed, Mother Theodore’s life was full of challenges, and the way she responded to them shows how she lived as a saint.
Anne-Thérèse Guérin was born in France’s Brittany region in 1798. Early on, she decided to dedicate her life to God, telling the priest who administered her first Communion that she planned to be a nun. While her father’s naval work often kept him from the family home, her mother’s influence was strong and loving.
After her father’s murder, the young Anne-Thérèse returned her grief-stricken mother’s love as she cared for her mother and her sister. She lived a simple holiness knowing, “We are not called upon to do all the good possible, but only that which we can do.”
Entering the convent in 1823 at nearly 25 years old, St. Theodora became a Sister of Providence to educate and care for the poor. She was given a fitting new name, Sister St. Theodore, which is Greek for “gift of God.” At the age of 42, St. Theodora’s reliance on God’s providence soon became even more important when she accepted an assignment to the Indiana frontier.
Bishop Celestin de la Hailandiere of Vincennes, Indiana, asked the superior of St. Theodora’s order to send sisters as teaching missionaries to his Hoosier diocese. St. Theodora’s superior knew of only one sister who could lead the mission, and the humble St. Theodora was troubled to learn she was chosen for the task. After all, she long suffered from the effects of a disease-curing medication that rendered her tolerant of only an extremely limited diet. She accepted the mission only after a great deal of prayer with a heart dependent on God’s will, fearing that if she didn’t go, no one would.
In 1840, traveling with five other sisters, St. Theodora arrived in Indiana. After a meeting with the bishop, they arrived in Terre Haute, Indiana, first coming to a chapel with the Blessed Sacrament. “We found waiting for us in a poor log cabin our God, our ALL,” St. Theodora said.
First lodging in the home of a pioneer family, the sisters got right to work building the infrastructure making it possible to open their school within a year – a school that still exists today as St. Mary-of-the-Woods College. Filled with missionary zeal, St. Theodora would establish nearly a dozen schools and two orphanages throughout Indiana.
St. Theodora experienced almost every imaginable hardship on the Indiana frontier: anti-Catholicism, prejudice against women, misunderstandings, fire, hunger and illness. The woman of perseverance accepted it all in providence, “Does it matter what becomes of us, provided God’s will be accomplished?”
One of St. Theodora’s most notable challenges in Indiana was the difficulties she encountered with Bishop de la Hailandiere. Unable to work well with the sisters, the bishop sought more and more control of them. St. Theodora was eventually forced to return to France for advice from her superior, and it was decided that she should establish a new order back in Indiana.
In her absence, the bishop made matters worse. On her return, the bishop even locked St. Theodora in a room hoping to obtain her resignation. The bishop created further problems for St. Theodora and the wider community until he resigned in 1847.
In those years of pain and suffering, St. Theodora experienced her share in the cross. Ever reliant on God’s providence, she proved strong in leadership and holiness, and urged her sisters, “Put yourself gently into the hands of providence.”
St. Theodora Guérin died at age 57 in 1856 at the motherhouse of the Sisters of Providence St. Mary-of-the-Woods, the order she founded. She knew what it was to live as a saint, and she teaches us about our call to the same: “What have we to do in order to be saints? Nothing extraordinary; nothing more than what we do every day. Only do it for his love.”
Her feast day is Oct. 3.
Michael R. Heinlein is author of “Glorifying Christ: The Life of Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I.” and a promised member of the Association of Pauline Cooperators. A version of this story appears in his book “Holiness in Our Midst: America’s Saints.”
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