A Reflection for the 2025 Feast of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin

It seems that everywhere we turn these days, we find someone preaching about the importance of hope. Writing articles urging us not to lose hope. Making speeches, composing songs about hope. In fact, we Sisters of Providence have chosen the theme: “Sowing Seeds of Hope” for our 2026 General Chapter.

This is happening, you might say, because everywhere we turn these days, very hard things are occurring — violence, division, tragedies at both the personal and global level. So, it does seem easy to lose hope. 

At the time I began to think about writing this reflection, the shooting at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis had just taken place. That was followed by a high school shooting in Evergreen, Colorado. And on the same day, Charlie Kirk was killed.

In the meantime, war continues to rage in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. On Oct. 10, another human being on death row will be executed in northern Indiana. And just the other day, I learned that 300 immigrants are being held at the Clay County Jail down the road in Brazil, Indiana. The jail functions as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center.

What Would She Do Today?

It would be easy to lose hope.

As I prepared for this gathering of the Providence Community, this remembering of a woman we celebrate as a saint of the Church, I found myself thinking or maybe praying, “What would Saint Mother Theodore Guerin do if she walked among us today? Does her life have something to say to the oldest among us? To the youngest among us about how not to lose hope?”

We know that she had unfailing trust in Providence. She was the epitome of those words we just heard in the reading from the Book of Sirach: Trust in God, and God will help you; make your ways straight and hope in the Most High.”

How might her response to the struggles of her times inspire hope in each of us in these our times?

Significant Period of Immigration

Historical accounts indicate that the 1840s and 1850s in the U.S. and in Indiana were periods of significant immigration from Catholic countries. This was driven by both economic hardships in Europe and the prospect of economic opportunities in the U.S.

Massive immigration also created a critical need for social services, education and religious support. This led to the influx of many Catholic missionary groups of women, including the Sisters of Providence.

All of this resulted, unfortunately, in rampant anti-Catholic sentiment, especially among native-born Protestants. They believed that Catholics were a threat to American culture, values and institutions. This sentiment came to life most notably through the Know-Nothing Party. Their primary goals and beliefs included: restricting immigration and naturalization; holding office for “native-born” Americans only, and limiting Catholic influence in schools.

The Calling for Equal Rights

Couple this anti-Catholic sentiment with the position of women in this country.  Remember that it wasn’t until 1848 that the Seneca Falls Convention took place. Here activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton called for women’s voting and equal rights. Both of these conditions created a perfect storm for our sisters and other groups like us.

How did this play out in the life of the Congregation that Mother Theodore led?

For me, there is no stronger example than the fire of Oct. 2, 1842. For the better part of 1842, the little Providence community struggled to make ends meet.

The anti-Catholic sentiment was influencing the families of children who attended our school. They began to withdraw their children, leading to a decline in enrollment in the boarding school and a significant loss of income. Creditors refused further credit. The bishop, who had promised to pay off the congregation’s debts, used the money instead to improve their convent and build the new parish church. No wonder these years were called, “The Years of Our Sorrow.”

However, the 1842 planting season had yielded an abundant harvest. With their provisions tucked away safely in the barn, they celebrated the Feast of the Holy Angels and Mother Theodore’s birthday on Oct. 2 in the peace of a retreat day. That peace was disturbed by “the dreadful cry, ‘Fire! Fire!’ from the lips of a postulant.”

An Architect of HOPE

What followed could have shaken the resolve of the strongest of spirit, especially when it was highly suspected that this (and I quote) “sad event appears to be the result of malice.”

Out of the rubble of this fire and the loss of their provisions, I believe our Saint Mother Theodore became an architect of HOPE.

Listen to part of the letter she wrote the day after the fire and sent to Mother Mary in France. Describing their attempts to put out the fire, Theodore explains:

“We had no water, for we have neither well nor cistern; we take the water indispensable to us from a little spring which flows naturally and which scarcely suffices for the needs of the house; our only resource was the good God. I left everybody at work and went for a moment before our Lord to ask him to protect this house, which was confided to him and where he deigned to live; *fortified and filled with confidence, I returned to the workers … Nearly all have some burns, but by a special Providence, no one was seriously injured. … Our wheat, our poor wheat, all beaten down, burned before our eyes.”

She goes on to say that their house was saved, and then concludes, “The good God has preserved us. … and everything gives hope that the worst is over.”

Absolute Trust in God

At the heart of her blueprint for hope was absolute trust in this good God.

Jesus proclaims that very truth in the Gospel reading that is always part of her feast day:

“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father (our good God) is pleased to give you the kin-dom.”

The good God has preserved us; our good God will preserve us.

I found the following wonderful quote about Mother Theodore as an architect of hope, from a very unlikely source — the company that just produced socks for our Linden Leaf Gift Store featuring her image.  On the tag that is fastened to the socks, it says:

“From anti-Catholic hostility to supply shortages, she faced every challenge with grace (and probably a sigh or two) … she was a powerhouse of perseverance.”

An Active Hope

She persevered, I believe, because her hope was active. Her eye was on the mission. And she played an active role in advancing that mission. That was her blueprint. She did not let the failures she experienced or the hatred spewed her way deter her from bringing the light of a loving, caring God into the wilderness.

Despite their own dire circumstances, she continued the custom of their French foundresses to open a free school for poor children whenever they opened a school for children whose parents could afford to pay tuition. That first free school was right here in St. Mary’s Village.

She did not let anti-Catholic sentiment keep her from admitting non-Catholic children to her school. In an 1850 letter to her dear friend and confidante, Bishop Bouvier of LeMans, France, she tells him that there are always six to seven hundred pupils in their schools. About two-thirds are Catholic. Of the other third, she quips, “We might almost say that the other third are also Catholics.”

Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, authors of the book, Active Hope, define it as active participation in creating a better future — a tool for resilience and empowerment, allowing individuals and communities to respond to difficult circumstances by transforming anxiety into purpose and action—by transforming anxiety into purpose and action.

A good portion of Mother Theodore’s same letter to the bishop recounts her own anxieties. She informs him that they have just been asked to take charge of the boys at the orphanage because Father Sorin, leader of the Holy Cross congregation in Indiana, cannot give brothers for this work. She says, “I fear we shall not succeed … and then, a line later, she says, “Well, we shall do our best.” 

Is this what Saint Mother Theodore Guerin is saying to us today in response to our own anxiety? “Well, do your best.”

This is OUR Blueprint for Hope

Let us make that our blueprint for hope. To take whatever anxiety we may have about all that is swirling around in our lives and in our world and do our best to transform it into Active Hope, into purpose and action for the life of our world. The world needs us for this. We need each other to make it happen. Our shared mission is the good of this world.  

So, on this her feast day, let us hear Saint Mother Theodore call us forth — you fourth graders from St. Simon School, you students of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College and Providence Cristo Rey High School, you partners in our mission at the college, Providence Health Care, in our SP departments, you friends and neighbors on our campus and in our local environs, you Providence Associates and Sisters of Providence wherever you may be and: Do what you can, when you can, to change and challenge situations for the good of this world — whether that be out in the public forum or right in our own living rooms, classrooms and community rooms.

Remembering always that we walk in the footsteps of someone who was an architect of hope and who reminds us that

“… our hope is in the providence of God, which has protected us until the present, and which will provide, somehow, for our future needs…”

Let us help it be so.