East Deanery Mass celebrates St. Theodora Guérin

Jeff Ellenberger of New Palestine kisses his son, Nathan, while his daughter, Claire, kneels beside them during the Mass of Thanksgiving for St. Theodora. Jeff and Patricia Ellenberger and their five children are members of St. Michael Parish in Greenfield.

By Mary Ann Wyand

Trust in God’s loving Providence carried St. Theodora Guérin through the trials of daily life in the wilderness of

west-central Indiana from 1840 until her death in 1856.

So it was fitting that the Gospel reading from Luke during the Indianapolis East Deanery Mass of Thanksgiving for St. Theodora served as a reminder that dependence on God helps people cope with life’s adversities.

“For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Lk 12:34), part of the Gospel reading, provides insight into how St. Theodora was able to leave her home in France and courageously travel across the ocean to serve God and his people. By putting God first, she was able to face an uncertain future in an unknown land with Providence sisters to found Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.

Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein was the principal celebrant for the East Deanery Mass on May 23 at Holy Spirit Church in Indianapolis, which was offered in thanksgiving for St. Theodora’s life and ministry.

“We also seek her intercessions for the needs of our archdiocese,” the archbishop told Catholics during the bilingual liturgy.

“It was a very solemn Mass,” Holy Spirit parishioner Juan Fuentes of Indianapolis said after the liturgy as he and his wife, Lintdsay, read a St. Theodora holy card printed in Spanish.

“We’re very grateful for being invited to it,” he said. “We’re loving that they’re having the two languages used in the Mass. The bilingual Mass is really nice. You get to know a little bit of our culture and we get to know a little bit of yours, and it’s praise to us.”

Lintdsay Fuentes said St. Theodora was “a great woman” and “it’s wonderful all she’s done.”

St. Michael parishioner Kevin Ellenberger of Greenfield, a 14-year-old home-school student, said after the Mass that, “It’s pretty cool to think about [St. Theodora as Indiana’s first saint].”

Holy Spirit parishioners Jim and Carol Shaver of Indianapolis served as hospitality ministers for the liturgy, and were pleased that Archbishop Buechlein celebrated the Mass with priests from the 12 East Deanery parishes.

“It’s remarkable that [St. Theodora] was able to survive in this country when she first came here,” Jim Shaver said. “For what she did and what she came with, it’s pretty unbelievable that she was able to survive on the frontier like she did and make the best of it, and also to build a college and a lot of grade schools.”

During her years in Indiana, St. Theodora “was ill and had some rough times,” he said. “It was interesting reading a little bit about her life [in The Criterion] when she was canonized.”

Father Joseph Riedman, pastor of Holy Spirit Parish and dean of the Indianapolis East Deanery, said he enjoyed concelebrating the bilingual Mass with the archbishop and so many other priests.

He said the archbishop “gave us the opportunity to be a part of acknowledging in our lives the necessity of looking to the virtues of those who have gone before us, and have been declared by the Church as having those virtues worthy of living in our own lives.”

Father Riedman said he appreciates St. Theodora’s “persistence at living God’s will and doing that in Indiana, which was really the hinterlands.” †