SMTG Book Study
Join us anytime for this reflective, year-long reading and discussion of the “Journals and Letters” of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin. (You can find the book here and buy the digital download here.) Follow along as you read with our weekly reflections from 2020-21. Enjoy some time with Saint Mother Theodore.
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Join us in reading the “Journals and Letters” of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin
To celebrate Mother Theodore's life and many accomplishments that continue even today, we will be revisiting her own words by reading Journals and Letters over the course of a year. Each week we’ll read several pages and reacquaint ourselves with the woman who started it all. Won't you join us?
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“Journals and Letters” week 2: The voyage begins
The sea journey seems doomed from the moment they boarded. Thieves, seasickness and bad weather with the added addition of not speaking English and being on an “American” ship, all contribute to a wretched start.
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“Journals and Letters” week 3: At sea in 1840
I love the many instances where she studies and describes an animal for the reader. She tells of the whale's massive head, as big as a house. The dark brown color of its back and how it spouts out water apparently by respiration as its jets are so regular.
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Journals and Letters week 4: Arrival on U.S. soil
And then, as often happens in our darkest hours, the smallest of kindnesses can lift the spirits.
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Journals and Letters week 5: The measure of the woman
Did the woman carry a yard stick? A surveyor’s measure? A folded up paper chart that converts leagues to miles, meters to inches or feet?
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Journals and Letters week 6: Traveling the United States
Saint Mother Theodore's detailed descriptions of her experiences become a way to meditate on and pray thanksgiving for creation.
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Journals and Letters week 7: Hardship on the Ohio
As they get closer to Indiana, Mother Theodore and her companions experience some lows and highs traveling down the Ohio River.
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Journals and Letters week 8: Indiana arrival
I tend to forget that Mother Theodore came from a rather sophisticated France with great Cathedrals, actual roads, and thriving businesses, etc.
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Journals and Letters week 9: The Journey’s end
Mother Theodore entered a culture entirely unknown to her; so perhaps the mission succeeded and endures because of her willingness to act, observe, learn and adapt.
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Journals and Letters week 10: First letters, bishop issues
As she goes on, we get a feel for more of the distress coming the sisters’ way from the bishop. “So far there has been nothing but complaints about us,” she writes.
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Journals and Letters week 11: Early letters part deux
Did you know that Saint Mother Theordore Guerin wrote over 5,000 letters in her lifetime?
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Journals and Letters week 12: Hardship and consolation
The reading picks up after the fire at Saint Mary’s destroyed the barns and granary, other provisions and all the farm equipment.