My physical therapy is causing an intense struggle between my left leg and my right. It’s not … pleasant. However, the saint for today has a story that reminds me how easy my life really is.
October 3 is the feast day of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin. That is such a mouthful of a name that I believe it contributes to the relative lack of knowledge of this woman. She came to the United States as a missionary from France. Specifically Mother Theodore came from the Loire in the northwestern part of France where a priest, secretly ordained during the French Revolution when the whole church was persecuted, founded a Congregation of nuns in 1803. They were to help educate children who were suffering the effects of the destruction the Revolution had brought. And specifically she was eventually part of a mission to the state of Indiana, requested by the bishop of Vincennes, in the US.
Mother Theodore suffered from extraordinarily poor health, beginning in her novitiate. The story says that on when she was on the brink of dying some extraordinary (unspecified) measure was taken that ruined her digestion for ever, but brought her back to life. She had trouble eating for the next thirty years. What did they DO to her?
She had assumed that a mission to the United States would be impossible for such a one as herself. However, her superiors summoned her and said that all the other volunteers had stated that they would not go if she did not go with them. This confidence in her abilities was based in part on the work she had done in a desperate part of the city of Rennes in France. The children at the school she was sent to were famed for driving away teachers in a state of despair. She overcame the children using absolute kindness. Plus absolute self-control.
The mission in Indiana began in the utmost poverty. The eight nuns stayed at a farm in an attic so tiny that they had to dress in shifts, standing on the straw beds as they did so. The winter was an unaccustomed icy cold. And yet, people were so desperate for their services that they had students before they had a building to teach them in. The nuns also had to struggle with a bishop, who at one point had Mother Theodore locked up. He was on the cusp of excommunicating Mother Theodore when he was recalled from his office by the Pope.
In spite of Mother Theodore’s relative obscurity, including that fact that there is only one known picture of her, there is a wealth of written testimony to her amazing life.
Her story is easy to read on the website of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, the congregation Mother Theodore founded in Indiana.
The two miracles that were presented for the canonization of Saint Mother Theodore can be found at the bottom of this story. https://175.smwc.edu/smtg Pope Saint John Paul II beatified this remarkable woman in 1998, based upon a miracle from 1901 when her cause was first advanced. A second miracle was attested in 2001. Phil McCord, who worked for the Sisters of Providence, was on his way into eye surgery and was suddenly granted 20/20 vision. Pope Benedict canonized Saint Mother Theodore Guerin in 2006.
Quite remarkable. And quite humbling.
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