St. Mother Theodore Guerin

Ø  Foundress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods Ø  Foundress of the Academy of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods the first Catholic women‘s liberal-arts college in the United States. Ø  Indiana's first saint
Born	2nd October 1798 at Etables-sur-Mer, Brittany, France
Died	14th  May 1856 at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, USA, of natural causes ,buried at Church of the Immaculate Conception
Venerated	22nd  July 1992 by Pope John Paul II
Beatified	25th  October 1998 by Pope John Paul II at Saint Peter’s Square, Vatican City, Rome, Italy
Canonized	15th  October 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI
Feast	3rd October

 

 

Mother Théodore (Anne-Thérèse Guérin) was born Oct. 2, 1798, in the village of Etables, France. Her devotion to God and to the Roman Catholic Church began when she was a young child. She was allowed to receive her First Communion at the age of 10 and, at that time, told the parish priest that someday she would be a nun.     Her  father was  a French naval officer  and he murdered when she was only 15, and Anne-Therese was left with the responsibility of caring for her mother and sister. But when the young woman was 25, her mother finally told her it was time to answer God’s call. She entered the Sisters of Providence, a young community of nuns who served as teachers and cared for the sick poor. Anne-Thérèse was given the name of Sister St. Theodore.    While she was still in formation, Sister St. Theodore became very sick and nearly died. For the rest of her life, she was unable to eat most solid foods and existed only on soft things and liquids. But despite this, she was soon sent to minister to the many people left poor and without religion after the French Revolution. She was a wonderful teacher, but when visiting the sick, she learned medical skills and felt she was being called to use them.    In July 1840, Sister St. Théodore and five companions (Sister Olympiade Boyer, Sister Saint Vincent Ferrer Gagé, Sister Basilide Sénéschal, Sister Mary Xavier Lerée and Sister Mary Liguori Tiercin) departed from France to sail to America. After a treacherous journey across the Atlantic Ocean, the six women traveled by steamboat and stagecoach to the dense forest of the Indiana territory.    On October 22, 1840, Sister St. Théodore and her companions stepped from a carriage into the wilds Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, a small village in Vigo County a few miles northwest of Terre Haute. For several months, they lived packed into the small frontier farmhouse of the local Thralls family along with a few postulants that had been waiting for them when they arrived. With the founding of this new order separate from that in France, Guerin became known as Mother Theodore, the superior of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.   After a period of sickness, Guerin died at age 57 on May 14, 1856. On Oct. 15, 2006, Mother Theodore Guerin was recognized as a saint by Pope Benedict XVI in a canonization ceremony at St. Peter's Square in Rome.