Hundreds celebrate St. Theodora’s feast day with Sisters of Providence

Providence Sister Marie Ellen Sullivan, a retired sister who lives at the motherhouse, and St. Patrick parishioner Teresa Clark of Terre Haute venerate the remains of St. Theodora Guérin after the saint’s first feast day Mass on Oct. 3 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. Clark is the artist who created the official sculpture of the eighth American saint. It has been reproduced in several sizes.

By Mary Ann Wyand

ST. MARY-OF-THE-WOODS—“Caution! Saint at work” and “A saint walked here” billboards featuring St. Theodora Guérin’s image greet travelers on Interstate 70 near Terre Haute.

The signs invite people to turn on Exit 3 at West Terre Haute and visit the Sisters of Providence motherhouse at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, which is the home of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Providence and the new National Shrine of St. Mother Theodore Guérin.

Providence sisters—who lovingly call their foundress St. Mother Theodore—celebrated her first feast day on Oct. 3 during an emotional Mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception at the motherhouse with several hundred pilgrims who came in cars and a bus to participate in the historic liturgy.

Father Daniel Hopcus, chaplain for the congregation and the celebrant, thanked Provident God for the life of St. Mother Theodore, her prophetic witness to the Gospel, and her faithful pursuit of love, mercy and justice for God’s people.

Later this year, pilgrims who come to venerate St. Theodora’s remains in the church will also have an opportunity to sit outside on benches beside a new statue of the humble and devout woman who became a saint in the universal Church.

“What a joy and a privilege it is to celebrate the first feast day of the eighth American saint—St. Mother Theodore Guérin—in this place, the site of her arrival, of her home, the center of her ministerial outreach and her final resting place,” Providence Sister Denise Wilkinson, general superior of the congregation, said during the liturgy.

“In a short time, we will have a six-foot bronze statue of St. Mother Theodore that will stand right outside the church,” Sister Denise explained. “This tribute to Mother Theodore is the gift of Larry Fleschner, a Terre Haute resident who died this past Sunday morning [on Sept. 30].”

Fleschner, who had been diagnosed with cancer, became friends with Providence Sister Marie Kevin Tighe, the promoter of the saint’s cause and a cancer survivor, and Teresa Clark, the artist who created the saint’s official sculpture for reproduction as statues, during Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults classes two years ago at St. Margaret Mary and St. Patrick parishes in Terre Haute.

During that time, Sister Denise said, he came to love St. Mother Theodore.

“As Larry moved through the different stages of a very devastating cancer, he took great comfort in Mother Theodore,” Sister Denise said. “He had a statue of her signed by Teresa Clark placed in his room where he could see it, and he told me that … he had many conversations with her, and that she had become a living and hopeful presence in his life.”

Fleschner decided to donate money for the statue and benches for an outdoor reflection area, Sister Denise said, because he wanted the Sisters of Providence and people who visit the motherhouse “to have a place to be with her so that they could breathe in her strength and her comfort as he had done … and enjoy the beauty of the place she called home.”

Sister Denise said she believes that he felt St. Mother Theodore’s love and gained strength from her deep reliance on Providence in the midst of his suffering.

After the Mass, Sister Marie Kevin said Fleschner joined the Church last year at Easter at St. Patrick Church and traveled to Rome for St. Mother Theodore’s canonization Mass on Oct. 15, 2006.

They prayed together during his cancer journey, and she took Communion to him until the day before he died at age 55.

Sister Marie Kevin downplays her own difficult cancer journey and healing, insisting that, “I don’t think it was exactly a miracle, but I got well.”

She said people tell her that they “feel drawn” to St. Mother Theodore when they see her picture, and Fleschner also talked about how he felt close to her.

Father Rick Ginther, pastor of St. Patrick and St. Margaret Mary parishes, said in a telephone interview that Fleschner joined the Church after his brother, Steve, and nephew, Paul, became Catholic.

“Sister Marie Kevin spoke one evening about suffering, … specifically about her survival of cancer,” Father Ginther said. “… They became very good friends. … He was a very spiritual man. He found comfort in Roman Catholicism … and Mother Theodore’s belief in God’s Providence. From what I understand from his family, even as he approached death, it wasn’t, ‘Why me?’ It was, ‘All right. God provides, and God will take care of me even into death and into new life.’ ”

Providence Sister Barbara Doherty, coordinator of the shrine office, said St. Mother Theodore’s “birth date is Oct. 2 [1798], and her feast day is celebrated on Oct. 3. Her canonization day is Oct. 15, the foundation day is Oct. 22 [1840], and her beatification is Oct. 25 [1998]. For us, the whole month of October is celebrated as St. Mother Theodore’s month.”

Throughout the year, Providence sisters join pilgrims in prayer during Masses at the motherhouse church. A favorite petition is “Provident God, hear our prayer.” †