Editorial

Religious women and men are witnesses to courage, perseverance and deep faith

What strength the soul draws from prayer! In the midst of a storm, how sweet is the calm it finds in the Heart of Jesus. (St. Theodora Guérin)

More than a quarter century ago, in 1997, Pope St. John Paul II instituted the World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life. This celebration, which honors all women and men in religious orders, is attached to the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, also known as Candlemas Day, the day on which candles are blessed symbolizing Christ who is the light of the world. So, too, those in consecrated life are called to reflect the light of Jesus Christ to all peoples. This year, the celebration of World Day for Consecrated Life is observed on Feb. 4–5, in order to highlight the gift of consecrated persons for the whole Church.

Religious men and women in our archdiocese serve as educators, evangelists, pastoral leaders and witnesses to the power of prayer. When they are true to their vocations, they are undaunted by illness, physical obstacles, prejudice, poverty or petty jealousy. They discern God’s will in their lives and then refuse to let anything get in the way of carrying out the mission entrusted to them by Christ.

The Church in central and southern Indiana is blessed to have a patronal saint who embodies all the gifts of consecrated life. Anne-Thérèse Guérin (1798-1856) entered religious life in her native France at the age of 25 after caring for her widowed mother and her family for 10 years. Several years later, she led a group of five sisters on a tumultuous journey from France across the Atlantic Ocean traveling by steamship, railroad, canal boat and stage coach only to discover that their destination was not a town but just a log cabin in the woods of west central Indiana. Once there, she encountered hostile anti-Catholicism, hunger and privation, and near complete destitution resulting from a fire that destroyed the community’s harvest. In spite of everything, Mother Theodore (as she was known then) persevered. Under her leadership, the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in the United States flourished, educating thousands of children throughout Indiana and the Midwest.

Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein, who was archbishop of Indianapolis at the time Mother Theodore was canonized in 2006, offered the following reflection on the saint’s remarkable achievements:

Against all odds, in primitive circumstances, Mother Theodore founded schools for poor children because she had a vision of their value both academically and religiously. … The courage, valor and generosity of the intrepid Mother Theodore are a timely and needed inspiration. I do not believe we could find a more fitting patroness for our challenged apostolate of Catholic schools and Catholic education in general.

Mother Theodore’s accounts of her missionary activity describe the struggles that she and her small community experienced in order to find and provide the resources needed to serve Christ’s primitive Church in Indiana. It was hard enough for the sisters to meet their own needs for food, shelter and life’s most basic necessities, but they refused to abandon the needs of the people they had come to serve—especially young women.

Letters written by Mother Theodore describe the transatlantic trips she made in barely seaworthy ships. But as Archbishop Buechlein notes, “She crossed that stormy ocean several times in order to find resources to carry on Christ’s mission in our part of the New World. She summoned the fortitude she needed to overcome her personal fears in order to seek help for the desperate missions in Indiana.”

Pope Benedict XVI once described saints as “people who are close to God.” Thousands of women and men in the woods of Indiana and throughout the midwestern United States recognized the nearness of God in Mother Theodore’s prayer, in her leadership of the Sisters of Providence, and in the Catholic education she made possible, especially for young women.

May the courage and perseverance of St. Theodora Guérin inspire us to pray for all the women and men in our archdiocese, and throughout the world, who have dedicated their lives to following Christ as Benedictines, Franciscans, Jesuits, Sisters of Providence and other religious orders. And may all of us who have been called by our baptism to serve as disciples of Jesus Christ maintain the kind of missionary spirit (and trust in God’s providence) that will enable us to serve those who need it most!

—Daniel Conway