Book Profiles Recently Canonized American Saint

by Amy Tracy, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 10/18/2006

On October 16, Mother Theodore Guérin (1798-1856), founder of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in Indiana was canonized by the Vatican, making her the eighth American to receive sainthood.

For Greg Pierce, president of Chicago-based ACTA Publications, the canonization of Mother Theodore offered a unique opportunity to bring out a new edition of a biography that had been out of print for decades.

The Eighth American Saint: The Life of Saint Mother Theodore Guérin, Foundress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana (ACTA, Nov.) was written by Katherine Burton in 1959 under the title Faith is the Substance. In June, Pierce contacted Mary K. Doyle, author of The Rosary Prayer by Prayer (ACTA, 2006) and a graduate of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, asking her to write a new foreword and afterword for Burton’s book. The afterword provides an eye-witness account of the canonization ceremony Doyle attended in Rome.

The Eighth American Saint tells the story of a woman who forsook friends, family, and the comforts of home in France to found a religious order on the wild frontier. Armed with an unwavering faith in God, she faced great hardships including a grueling passage from France, bitter winters, primitive living conditions, anti-Catholicism—and a tense relationship with her direct authority in the Church, the Bishop of Vincennes.

Pierce is optimistic that Mother Theodore’s life story will affect young and old alike. “Mother Theodore was a very holy woman with a strong commitment to the Blessed Sacrament. Yet she wasn’t so pious that she was afraid to roll up her sleeves and get to work. She also walked the tension between autonomy and submission to Church authority with class and grace.”

Two miracles are necessary for canonization. In 1908, Sister Mary Theodosia Mug, who had suffered from a number of crippling ailments including cancer, allegedly recovered overnight after praying at Mother Theodore’s tomb. Phil McCord, the director of facilities maintenance at Sisters of Providence, received the second miracle in 2000. McCord’s right eye was healed after praying to Mother Theodore; his miracle was accepted this year by the Vatican.