Women’s History Month: It took everyone

Yes, Saint Mother Theodore was an incredible woman, but it took every sister to help make the Sisters of Providence a reality. “The Eighth American Saint” describes Mother Theodore’s gratitude for two special women — Sister Olympiade Boyer and Sister Francis Xavier Le Fer (Irma):

“One bright fact stood out for Mother Theodore: all her sisters stood loyally by her and gave her courage. She thought with special gratitude of Sister Olympiade, for whom no labor, no matter how menial, was too much, who took care of the academy laundry and the mending as well, who was baker for some forty people, who cared for the stock, acted as infirmarian and who, best of all, was always as cheerful as she was efficient.

“It was Sister Francis who was perhaps Mother Theodore’s greatest comfort and joy. The very opposite of Sister Olympiade, Sister Francis was never able to do any hard work, but her humility and her love of God were a constant inspiration to her superior as well as to the novices whom she trained. At Ruillé, Mother Mary [Lecor] had said Sister Francis was ‘good only to love God,’ but it was this love which gave her value to her congregation. As time went on she lost much of her early timidity — no doubt because of her constant work among novices and postulants. Her English was still faulty, but even so she made an excellent teacher, one who taught by example as well as by words. More and more she was put in charge of the convent when Mother Theodore was ill or away on a trip. Of herself she wrote to one of the sisters at Ruillé, ‘I am a little less disorderly in my affairs, a little more proper in my appearance — but my cap is still always a little crooked.’

“ … Mother Theodore called her the saint in the house, the angel of virtue whose example animated her, ‘I am in the chapel near her, distracted with temporalities and business, and see her there, lost in God,’ she said, ‘and I come away strong again to meet life.’” (page 141)

To learn more about Saint Mother Theodore Guerin, click here.