Join us Feb. 28 for SMTG 101: Health & work

Sister Joan Slobig

A discussion focusing on the relationship between health and work, using Saint Mother Theodore Guerin as our model witness, will be presented Tuesday, Feb. 28, in the Providence Center Conference Room at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind.

"Saint Mother Theodore Guerin 101: Health and work," led by Sister Joan Slobig, is scheduled 6:30-8 p.m. (EST). The program is open to the public free of charge, although free-will donations are welcome. Click here for driving directions to Providence Center.

Sister Joan Slobig, who is approaching her 48th year as a Sister of Providence, said that Saint Mother Theodore, who was born Oct. 2, 1798, in the village of Etables-sur-Mer in Brittany, France, battled illness most of her life.

Mother Theodore entered the community of the Sisters of Providence in Ruille-sur-Loir, France.

"As a new member of the [Sisters of Providence], and within the first six months [while serving her first assignment at a parish], she contracted an illness." Her digestive tract was so severely damaged from medication that she could not eat solid food the rest of her life. In 1856, she died at age 57.

Because of her health, Sister Joan notes that when Mother Theodore was asked to establish a school and novitiate at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind., "she didn't even think she'd have the strength to get here."

But she and her five companions did leave France and, in 1840, Mother Theodore founded the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. She was canonized as America's eight saint (and Indiana's first) on Oct. 15, 2006, by Pope Benedict XVI at a ceremony in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican in Rome.

Mother Theodore understood the importance of what we refer today as work-life balance. "Her instructions to the sisters included the need and importance of that balance," Sister Joan said. "She would ask the sisters to come back early to the motherhouse so that they could rest from their labors during the year. She realized they worked hard, but needed that break before they went back to their ministries."

According to Sister Joan, Mother Theodore was also a proponent of "natural remedies." Being at the Woods, helped in this regard. In fact, when she opened free clinics and schools free remedies were dispensed to the poor.

In doing research, Sister Joan focused on "Mother Theodore Guerin Journals and Letters" (words taken directly from Mother Theodore's personal journals), and "Saint Mother Theodore Guerin — Woman of Providence" by Sisters Diane Ris and Joseph Eleanor Ryan. Books about Saint Mother Theodore, including the two mentioned, are available at The Gift Shop at Providence Center.

"I also looked at the culture at that time, the challenges of being a pioneer and the history of the area in the 1800s," Sister Joan said.

For more information about "Saint Mother Theodore Guerin 101: Health and work" contact Sister Jan Craven, coordinator of the interim Shrine of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin, at 812-535-2925 or jcraven@spsmw.org.