The Eighth American Saint: The Story of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin, Founderress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-Of-The-Woods, Indian

Katherine Burton's biography of Mother Theodore Guérin, published in 1959 under the title Faith Is the Substance, is being reissued in recognition of her canonization in 2006. The latest American saint was born in France, joined the Sisters of Providence there, and in 1840 undertook a missionary voyage to America. During the remaining 15 years of her life she founded a new congregation of the Sisters of Providence, the first Catholic institution of higher learning for women in Indiana, elementary schools in Indiana and Illinois, two orphanages, and two free pharmacies. Through it all, writes Mary K. Doyle in the foreword, "she was loved and admired by her peers, fellow sisters, employees and the surrounding lay community." Mother Theodore, while dealing with chronic poor health and the hardships of life on the American plains, brought patience to her encounters with everyone from bigots who spat upon the sisters in the street to a bishop who insisted on exercising control beyond his authority. Burton includes a good example in the account of the newly professed Sister Theodore's appointment as head of a French school in which the girls had been deemed incorrigible. It was their habit to behave disrespectfully to their teachers, ignore all instructions, and dance about the classroom at will. Unlike others before her, Sister Theodore simply stopped speaking and waited until the girls became bored with their apparently ineffective antics. She also ceremoniously broke apart and threw away a switch that had been used to punish them. "Before long it was clear that she had won them over," wrote Burton, "no doubt because she had used persuasion instead of the severity they had come to expect."