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Day 3 Saints Novena – Theresa Maxis Duchemin and Louis Florent Gillet
We offer this Saints Novena in gratitude for the ways God lives and moves and has being in the lives of all the saints who are part of this online community. We give thanks for you and for the gift of God that you are to us and to the world. It is because of people like you that there is this awesome place of hospitality and gospel community. This novena is written by the A Nun’s Life Community.
2 Saints Novena – Theresa Maxis Duchemin and Louis Florent Gillet – by Sister Julie 
Reflection: Saints take many forms, canonical and otherwise. In today’s novena we celebrate all the saints who have gone before us “marked with the sign of faith,” those who may not be canonized but who have had a profound influence on our lives. Today we honor two such saints, founders of the religious congregations of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
While general superior of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, Theresa Maxis Duchemin met the Redemptorist missionary Louis Florent Gillet, who was seeking women religious for schools in the still new State of Michigan. After much discernment, Theresa agreed to help Gillet found a new congregation in Monroe. On November 10, 1845, Theresa along with Charlotte Schaaf and Therese Renaud, became the first members of a new religious community dedicated to education in the frontier land of Michigan.
In January 1846, they opened St. Mary’s Academy in Monroe. As the community and mission grew, Father Gillet was forced to leave and return to Europe in 1847. Though flourishing, the community struggled to deal with Louis’ departure and their struggle worsened with a sudden separation from Theresa. Theresa was caught in the middle of a jurisdictional dispute about the congregation between the bishops of Philadelphia and Detroit. The bishop of Detroit held Theresa responsible, deposed her as General Superior, and sent her to the Pennsylvania foundation, which later became a separate branch of the congregation. Despite these trials, the new community persisted in its Redemptorist spirit of humility, simplicity, and zeal.
Theresa and Louis’s legacy of courage, peace and service to the poor continues in now three IHM congregations of Monroe, Michigan, Immaculata, Pennsylvania, and Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Prayer: We pray that we might tap into God’s gifts to each of us of courage, peace, and service, even when it seems the struggles and trials that we bear are too much. We trust with Theresa and Louis, that God will bring all our efforts to good.
“May the same faith and hope and courage of those loved ones who are ‘dwelling now in Light—yet ever near’ inspire us to continue bravely and earnestly the glorious work so nobly begun.” (Mother Theresa McGivney, IHM, November 10, 1945)
Suggested Reading:
- Paths of Daring, Deeds of Hope: Letters by and about Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin by Sister Margaret Gannon, IHM (Published in Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1992)
- Building Sisterhood: A Feminist History of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the IHM Sisters of Monroe, Michigan (Syracuse University Press, 1995)
- Also, be sure to spend time with the icons of Louis and Theresa by Sister Nancy Lee Smith, IHM, iconographer
Join A Nun’s Life Community for a day of events in honor of All Saints! See the schedule for the day’s events in the sidebar to the right. And please consider participating in A Nun’s Life fundraiser going on now through November 9. We need to raise $10,000 for much needed equipment and supplies. See our fundraiser page for more information. You may be eligible to win a brand-new iPad 2!
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{ 1 comment }
Inspired writing SJ.
“…even when it seems the struggles and trials that we bear are too much. We trust with Theresa and Louis, that God will bring all our efforts to good.”
Thanks for the reminder timing couldnt have been better.
I hadnt heard of Theresa Maxis Duchemin or Mother Theresa McGivney. There are so many saints with a variation of my name I cant believe it.