|
|
 |
|
CNS Story:
|
GUERIN-LIFE Oct-6-2006 (910 words) With photos posted Oct. 4, 5 and 6. xxxn
Mother Theodore Guerin's life, sainthood seen as summons to holiness
By Nancy Hartnagel
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The vice postulator of the sainthood cause of Mother Theodore Guerin, foundress of the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind., sees her life and Oct. 15 canonization in Rome as a summons to holiness.
Providence Sister Marie Kevin Tighe, who was promoter and vice postulator for the completed cause, said she hoped that for each Sister of Providence the canonization "would deepen her own understanding of the call to holiness in her life in imitation of St. Mother Theodore."
Beyond that, she told Catholic News Service in a phone interview Oct. 5, "I would hope that every person would understand the fact that God does not create just some persons to become saints." Everyone is called to holiness, she said, citing a chapter with that theme in the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
Sister Marie Kevin also hoped "Catholics and others would realize that the most important aspect of sainthood is the way the person lived life according to the Gospels, and that the miracles are secondary to that." In general, the church must confirm two miracles through the intercession of the sainthood candidate before canonization.
The Sisters of Providence foundress was born Anne-Therese Guerin Oct. 2, 1798, in Etables, a village in Brittany, the picturesque French peninsula jutting into the Atlantic. Her family's cottage near the ocean likely prompted her fondness for the seashore.
She had three siblings, two brothers who died in childhood in a fire and a sister, Marie Jeanne, who outlived her. Her father, a lieutenant in Napoleon's navy, was killed by bandits in 1813 while returning home from duty. Her mother, who taught the young Anne-Therese at home, never quite got over the loss of her husband and became an invalid.
At age 20 Anne-Therese wanted to enter religious life, but her mother refused permission. Five years later, with her mother's consent, she entered the Sisters of Providence of Ruille-sur-Loir. As Sister St. Theodore, she made first vows in 1825 and perpetual vows in 1831. For eight years, she directed a school in Rennes, an industrial town, then was transferred to Soulaines, where she administered the school and studied pharmacy and medicine with a local doctor.
Meanwhile, in 1834 on the American frontier, Bishop Simon Brute de Remur, another native Breton, became the first bishop of the Diocese of Vincennes, Ind., which is now the Archdiocese of Indianapolis but which at that time comprised all of Indiana and the eastern third of Illinois. People were pushing west from the Atlantic seaboard, and Bishop Brute saw a need for Catholic sisters to serve in the large diocese.
He sent a colleague to France to find a congregation willing to help. The superior of the Ruille community felt Sister St. Theodore would be perfect to lead such a mission, but she was reluctant because of poor health. She had contracted smallpox as a postulant, and the treatment she received for it was believed to have damaged her digestive system.
But, after a period of prayer and discernment, she sailed from France with two other sisters and three novices July 27, 1840. They landed in New York Sept. 7, and arrived Oct. 22 at the forest clearing already named St. Mary-of-the-Woods.
Despite much hardship, the six sisters opened an academy for girls that became St. Mary-of-the-Woods College and began the foundation of a new religious congregation modeled on the one they had left in France.
Ill health accompanied Mother Theodore throughout adulthood. For many years she lived on broth and soft foods. She died May 14, 1856.
Her cause for sainthood was opened in 1909. After her life, work and writings were examined in U.S. and French dioceses and at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II declared her venerable in 1992. She was beatified in 1998, once the Vatican accepted as miraculous the 1908 healing of Providence Sister Mary Theodosia Mug through Mother Theodore's intercession. A second miracle through her intercession, the healing of the right eye of Philip McCord, the facilities manager at St. Mary-of-the-Woods, was accepted by the Vatican earlier this year.
Mother Theodore's remains had been in a tomb under the floor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception at the motherhouse in St. Mary-of-the-Woods. On her feast day Oct. 3, her remains were transferred to a coffin built by staff carpenters for placement adjacent to the church's altar. With Mother Theodore's canonization, the congregation felt the new resting place would allow for better visitation and prayer.
Sister Marie Kevin said she also hoped "that other young women would be touched by the story of the life of Mother Theodore and respond to God's call as women religious in our congregation." The mission of the Sisters of Providence today is "to promote God's providence by works of love, mercy and justice," she said.
From that first academy, their teaching ministry spread across Indiana, and extended to Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Florida, Texas and Oklahoma. They were the first U.S. women's congregation to establish a mission in China, and currently they serve in Taiwan, China and the Philippines.
About 125 members of the community were to travel to Rome for the canonization; the congregation also will celebrate Mother Theodore's sainthood Oct. 21-22 at St. Mary-of-the-Woods. Details are provided on the sisters' Web site, www.spsmw.org.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250
|
|
|
|
