‘She’s part of our story’:
Seminarians make pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Theodora
Seminarian Dustin Boehm, a member of Our Lady of the Greenwood Parish in Greenwood, kneels in prayer before the remains of St. Theodora Guérin during a seminarian pilgrimage on Aug. 15 in the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, the motherhouse of the Sisters of Providence. (See a photo gallery)
By Sean Gallagher
(Listen to the reporter read this story)
SAINT MARY-OF-THE-WOODS—Days before they began a new year of study and priestly formation, some two dozen archdiocesan seminarians made an Aug. 15 pilgrimage to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, the resting place of St. Theodora Guérin, co-patroness of the archdiocese. (See a photo gallery)
While there, they went to Mass, prayed in chapels and shrines of the motherhouse of the Sisters of Providence and learned more about the order’s saintly foundress.
They were met by Providence Sister Marie Kevin Tighe, who for more than a decade helped guide St. Theodora’s canonization cause to its completion last Oct. 15 at St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
Sister Marie Kevin told the men discerning the priesthood that helping people on their journey to heaven is essential to their calling.
“You’re going to enable their growth in holiness,” she said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
Father Eric Johnson, archdiocesan vocations director, said it’s important for men studying to be priests in central and southern Indiana to come to know and appreciate St. Theodora, the state’s first saint.
“She’s a part of our story,” he said. “And our story as the Church in Indiana has been shaped to some degree not only by her sanctity, but how other people have recognized her and how the people in the community she founded have helped shape the faith that’s here.”
As he walked the wooded grounds of the Sisters of Providence’s motherhouse, seminarian Joseph Newton, who will be entering his final year of priestly formation at Saint Meinrad School of Theology in St. Meinrad, said he values St. Theodora in a personal way.
“She faced a lot of adversity,” said Newton, a member of Our Lady of the Greenwood Parish in Greenwood. “She came to a place that wasn’t her home and made it her home.
“Myself, coming from Cincinnati and making Indianapolis my home, I feel very much akin to some of the struggles she went through.”
Like St. Theodora, seminarian Oscar Vasquez came to Indiana from far away. He grew up in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.
He was just 3 years old when his archbishop, Oscar Romero, was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating Mass. In the years since then, many people both from Vasquez’s home and others around the world have been praying for Archbishop Romero’s beatification and canonization.
“I pray every day [for this],” Vasquez said. “Actually, he is the model for my vocation because he is from my country, and I love him very much.” †
