How Prayer Grows Possibility, Providence, and Potential
“But I derive my hope above all, and most especially, from our utter incapacity, for it is always upon nothingness that God is pleased to rear His works. If at any day we accomplish some good here, the glory will certainly be His alone, since He has employed for this end instruments more capable of spoiling everything than of making it succeed. ” Mother Theodore Guerin
By Jennifer Lindberg
It doesn’t look like much, a diminutive log cabin sitting in a nondescript place that could be the gardener’s shed.
The Sisters of Providence left it there, what some would call an eyesore, among the splendor of a large church, tidy buildings, and beautiful grounds surrounding this little cabin.
This little cabin held the potential and possibility of bearing fruit in a tiny town of Terre Haute, Ind., that at the time was heavily forested and daunting to reach by any means, stagecoach, horse, or on foot in 1840. St. Mother Theodore Guerin did reach her patch of ground in Indiana, a bit shocked at the place God had prepared for her: “All appearances are against it,” she said.
She was right. This cultured nun from France accustomed to praying in churches with steeples reaching to the sky, adorned with works of art aiding one’s prayers in ease, looked out onto coarse wooden planks and overgrown land. There was not a footpath insight. This cabin was the church and lodging for the priest at St. Mary of the Woods. Her black habit catching on dense forest twigs, Mother Theodore Guerin and her sisters never hesitated, striding out of the stagecoach to pay homage to the King living in this shack. Jesus Christ was resting there in the tabernacle, a crude plank was the altar, but Mass was prayed and thanksgivings made for the place Mother Theodore Guerin would call home for the rest of her life.
Poverty stalked the sisters, the bread froze in the winter, the locals were anti-Catholic, spitting on these sweet, faithful nuns, and fire tried to burn them out. Mother Theodore persevered because she knew a secret fire lay between faith and love. Faith in abundance was with her, and love in torrents lived in her heart to forgive those who didn’t understand by God’s grace, yet, Mother Theodore Guerin knew the virtue of hope lay in the middle of faith and love. Grasping it, she knew hope was allowing her to see the possibilities in that place. It was hope that said Providence sees potential in every gift and circumstance. Struggling on, Mother Theodore Guerin kept hope alive. She didn’t know how it all would end, but she trusted God and she claimed hope for herself, her nuns, and her students.
Today, St. Mary of the Woods is a fine place. Their Lourdes Grotto replicates the real one in France. Its Adoration Chapel is stunning, all hues of blue and gold with Jesus shining out in all His Glory. The grounds are tidy, peaceful, and give one a calming sense. I imagine that calm came from Mother Theodore Guerin, who didn’t panic when one could think it was all right to do so. Panic wasn’t for her in the midst of the worst. Calm trust that hope would make something of this place was rooted deep. Walking the grounds, you see the fruit of this singular nun’s trust in Divine Providence that saw potential and possibility in a shack, deep woods, unkind strangers, dangerous times, and constant uncertainty.
“Let us hope that the few seeds sown may not remain unproductive fruit,” she wrote. Those are words for our time and our life.
St. Mother Theodore knew another secret about hope. Hope sees reality. It cannot be fooled. It is not positive thinking, but belief in possibility. Hope sustains one’s confidence that God works all things for one’s good.
“The community’s crosses and trials give me confidence. But I derive my hope above all, and most especially, from our utter incapacity, for it is always upon nothingness that God is pleased to rear His works. If at any day we accomplish some good here, the glory will certainly be His alone, since He has employed for this end instruments more capable of spoiling everything than of making it succeed. ”
God knows our limitations, just as we know them. We are not to despair because of them, but to let God use them, turning them into miracles in our life. Mother Theodore sets the example, she didn’t dwell on her shortcomings, her lack of money, food, friends, or the hostility she faced carving out a life for her nuns in the backwoods of Indiana.
She didn’t throw away her confidence in God buy believed it would be “richly rewarded by persevering so “that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised,” Hebrews 10:35. Mother Theodore Guerin knew God made up for what she lacked.
I learned this from Mother Theodore’s nuns who taught me in high school. Those nuns accepted us how we were and saw endless possibilities in us. They didn’t plan to leave us as they found us. They were going to help us grow, help us reach out for the hope that is ours, praying for God to lead us and giving Him ourselves. That is how hope works, enacting all the possibilities, and potentials through the fruit of prayer and works.
(Jennifer Lindberg writes about hope. Her newest book shows how we hope in God’s chief attribute, mercy, with “It’s Three O’clock Somewhere, How to Live the Divine Mercy Devotion Any Time of Day.)
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