Saint of the Day - St. Mother Theodore (October 3rd)
Channel: House of Prayers for Everyone (HOPE)
Date: 2023-10-02

St. Mother Theodore Guerin SP, was of French-American descent and the foundress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. The Catholic Church celebrates her feast day every October 3rd.

Early Life

Born Anne-Therese Guerin on October 2nd, 1798 in the village of Etables-sur-Mer in Brittany, France. Her mother was Isabelle Lefevre while her father, Laurent Guerin, was an officer in the French Navy under Napoleon Bonaparte. She had a younger sister, Marie-Jeanne; however, her two brothers did not survive to see adulthood.

The Guerin sisters were mostly educated at home by their mother and later by a relative who lived with the family. At an early age, Anne-Therese devoted her life to serving God. At age 10, she took her First Communion, two years earlier than the custom at that time, and confided to a priest that she wished to enter the religious community when she got older.

Unfortunately, when Anne-Therese was fifteen, her father was killed by bandit robbers. Her mother fell into deep depression and already lost two children. As the elder daughter, the responsibility to take care of their mother falls on Anne-Therese's shoulders.

It is said that around the age of twenty, Anne-Therese asked her mother's blessing to join a religious order. However, she refused as she was still unable to cope with her loss. It was after Five years later her mother permitted her to leave home to join the religious community.

Religious Life

On August 18, 1823, Anne-Therese entered the Sisters of Providence of Ruillé-sur-Loir congregation and was given the religious name of Sister Theodore. She professed first vows on September 8, 1825, and perpetual vows six years later, on September 5, 1831.

Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods

On July 15, 1840, Sister Theodore and five of her companions departed from France to sail to the United States. They arrived at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana on October 22, 1840, in a small, remote village in the wilderness in Vigo County, a few miles northwest of Terre Haute.

For several months, the sisters lived in a small frontier farmhouse with the Thralls family, along with a few postulants who had been waiting for them when they arrived. The group settled in western Indiana where Sister Theodore became the devoted leader of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods congregation.

Soon, they opened several schools across Indiana and eastern Illinois for the Diocese of Vincennes, Indiana, as well as ministering to the needs of orphans, the sick, and the poor.

As Educator

In July 1841, Mother Theodore and the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods opened Saint Mary's Academy for young women. The academy was the forerunner of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.

Mother Theodore had doubts that the new institution would succeed. As she reflected in her journals, "It is astonishing that this remote solitude has been chosen for a novitiate and especially for an academy. All appearances are against it."

From July 1840 to January 1849, Mother Theodore worked with Catholic parishes to establish parish schools at several sites within the Diocese of Vincennes. During this time, Mother Theodore made trips to France to raise funds to found schools. 

In addition to establishing schools, Mother Theodore and the Sisters of Providence cooperated in the establishment of two orphanages in Vincennes and free pharmacies at Vincennes and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.

Death and Veneration

Mother Theodore suffered from poor health for most of her adult life; however, her health started to deteriorate in March 1856. She died on May 14, 1856, at the motherhouse at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, at the age of 57.

In 1907, Mother Theodore's remains were exhumed. It was found that her brain had not fully decomposed after 51 years in the grave. This phenomenon was the first physical sign to consider her life and service to the people of the area worthy of further investigation.

In 1909, the Cause for Canonization was introduced, the first step in the extensive process of declaring saints in the Roman Catholic Church. During the early phase of the process, twenty-four individuals provided personal accounts of their experiences with Mother Theodore.

On October 25, 1998, after the first miracle attributed to her was accepted, Pope John Paul II beatified and bestowed the title of "Blessed" on Mother Theodore. On July 1, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI gave his final approval for her canonization as a Saint, and the canonization ceremony was held on October 15, 2006.

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Images attributed to the following:
- By http://www.spsmw.org/SistersofProvidence/News/SaintMotherTheodoreGuerinMediaKit/tabid/1456/Default.aspx, Fair use, Wikimedia Commons
- By Christina Blust - Own work, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons