Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/87

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GUERARD
59
GUERIN

made their solemn profession under the direction of the new abbot, who had pronomiced his vows at Rome, 2t) July, 1837.

Thenceforth Dom Gu^ranger's life was given up to developing the young monastic comnmnity, to pro- curing for it the necessary material and indispensable resources, and to inspiring it with an absolute devo- tion to the Church and the Pope. Amongst those who came to Solesmes, either to follow the monastic life or to seek self-improvement by means of retreats, Dom Gueranger found many collaborators and valuable steadfast friends. Dom Pitra, afterwards Cardinal, renewed the great literary traditions of the Benedic- tines of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Bishops Pie of Poitiers and Berthauil of Tulle, Pere Lacordaire, the Count de Montalembert and Louis Veuillqt, were all interested in the abbot's projectsand even shared his labours. Unfortunately the controversy o?casioned by several of Dom Gueranger's writings ha 1 the effect of drawing his attention to secondary questions and turning it away from the great enter- prises of ecclesiastical science, in which he always manifested a lively concern. The result was a work in which polemics figured prominently, and which at present evokes but mediocre interest, and, although the time spent upon it was by no means lost to the cause of the Church, Dom Gueranger's historical and liturgical pursuits suffered in consequence. He de- voted himself too largely to personal impressions and neglected detailed and persevering investigation. His quickness of perception and his classical training per- mitted him to enjoy and to set forth, treat in an inter- esting way, historical and liturgical subjects which, by nature, were somewhat unattractive. Genuine en- thusiasm, a lively imagination, and a style tinged with romanticism have sometimes led him, as he himself realized, to express himself and to judge too vigor- ously. Being a devout and ardent servant of the Church, Dom Gueranger wished to re-establish more respectful and more filial relations between France and the See of Rome, and his entire life was spent in endeavouring to effect a closer union between the two. With this end in view he set himself to combat, wherever he thought he found its traces, the separatist spirit that had, of old, allied itself with Gallicanism and Jansen- ism. With a strategic skill which deserves special recognition, Dom Gueranger worked on the principle that to suppress what is wrong, the thing must be replaced, ancl he laboured hard to supplant every- where whatever reflected the opinion he was fighting. He fought to have the Roman liturgy substituted for the diocesan liturgies, and he lived to see his efforts in this line crowned with complete success. On philo- sophical ground, he struggled with unwavering hope against Naturalism and Liberalism, which he consid- ered a fatal impediment to the constitution of an unre- servedly Christian society. He helped, in a measure, to prepare men's minds for the definition of the papal Infallibility, that brilliant triumph which succeeded the struggle against papal authority so bitterly carried on a century previously by many Galilean and Joseph- ite bishops. Along historical lines Dom Gueranger's enterprises were less successful and their influence, although once very strong, is daily growing weaker. In 1841 he began to publish a mystical work by which he hoped to arouse the faithful from their spiritual torpor and to supplant what he deemed the lifeless or erroneous literature that had been produced by the French spiritual writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. "L'Annee liturgique", of which the author was not to finish the long series of fifteen volumes, is probably the one of all Dom Guer- anger's works that best fulfilled the purpose he had in view. Accommodating himself to the development of the liturgical periods of the year, the author laboured to familiarize the faithful with the official prayer of the Church by lavishly introducing fragments of the Eastern and Western liturgies, with interpretations and commentaries. Amid his many labours Dom Gueranger had the satisfaction of witnessing the spreading of the restored Benedictine Order. Two unsuccessful attempts at foundations in Paris and Acey respectively did not deter him from new efforts in the same line, and, thanks to his zealous perseverance, monasteries were established at Ligug^ and Marseilles. Moreover, in his last years, the Abbot of Solesmes founded, at a short distance from his monastery, a community of women under the Rule of St. Benedict. This life, fraught with so many trials antl filled with such great achievements, drew to a peaceful close at Solesmes. The complete bibliogr.iphy is tn be found in 126 nunribers in Cabrol, Bibliographie ties Benedictins (Solesmes, 1SS9), 3-3^1. We shall only mention here the most important works; Ori- oines de V Egiise romaine (Paris, 1836); Institutions liturgiques (Paris, I, 1840, II, 1841. Ill, 18.51), 2nd edition, 4 vols. Svo (Paris, 1878-188.5); Lettre a Mgr. Varchrvrque de Reims stir le droit de la liturgie (Le Mans. 1.843); Defense des Institutions liturgiqves, lettre a Mgr. Varcheveque de Toulouse (Le Mans, 1844); Nouvelle defense des Institutions liturgiques (Paris, 1846- 47); L'Annee liturgique (Paris, 1841-1901, tr. Sheph.^rd, Worcester, 1S9.5-19()3); Memoire sur la question de V Immaculce Conception de la tres sainte Vierge (Paris, 1850); Essais sur le naturalisme contemporain, Svo (Paris, 1858); Essai sur Vorigine, la signification et les privileges de la medaille ou croix de Saint Benoit, 12mo (Poitiers, 1862); L' Egiise romaine contre les accu- sations du F. Gralrg (Le Mans, 1870); Deuxiime defense (Paris, 1870): Troisieme defense, Eng. tr.. Defence of the Roman Church against Father Gratry, by Woods (London, 1870); De la Mo- narchic pontificale, it propos du livre de Mgr. VevCque de Sura, 8vo (Paris, 1870); Sainte Cccile et la Socicte romaine anx deux premiers siccles, 4to (Paris, 1874), and Riglements du novieiat pour les Benedictins de la Congregation de France, 16mo (So- lesmes, 1885). H. Leclercq. Guerard, Robert, b. at Rouen, 1641; d. at the monastery of Saint-Ouen, 2 January, 1715. For some time he collaborated at Saint-Denys in the Maurist edition of St. Augustine's works. In 167.5, however, he had to leave Saint-Denys by order of the king, who wrongly suspected him of having had a hand in the publication of " L'Abbecommendataire ", a work which severely criticized the practice of holding and bestow- ing abbeys, etc., in commcndam. His superior sent him to the monastery of Notre Dame, at Ambronay, in the Diocese of Belley. While in e.xile, he discovered at the Carthusian monastery of Portes a manuscript of St. Augustine's "Opus impcrfectum" against Julian of Eclanum, which was afterwards used in the Maurist edition of St. Augustine's works. After a year of exile he was recalled, and spent the rest of his life successively at the monasteries of Fecamp and Saint-Ouen. He is the author of a biblical work entitled " L'Abr^g^ de la sainte Bible en forme de questions et de r^ponses familieres", which he published at Rouen in 1707 (lat- est edition, Paris, 1745). Tassin, Hisloire litieraire de la Congr. de St-Maur (Brussels, 1770), 372-4; Berliere, Nouveau Supplement b. I'hist. lit. de la Congr. de St-Maur (Paris, 1908), I, 270; Michacd, Biographic universelle, s. v. Michael Ott.

Guercino, H. See Barbieri, Giovanni.

Guérin, Anne-Therese (in religion Mother Theodore); b. at Etables (Cote du Nord), Brittany, France, 2 October, 1798; d. 14 May, 1856. She en- tered the Community of Sisters of Providence, Ruill^- sur-Loire, in 182.3, received the religious habit and, by dispensation, made profession of vows, 8 September, 1824, being appointed the same day to the superior- ship of the convent at Rennes. She was transferred to Soulaines in 1833, chosen foundress of St. Mary-of- the-Woods, Diocese of Vincennes, Indiana, in 1840, and at the same time declared superior general of the Sisters of Providence in America. The " Life and Life-Work" (1904) of Mother Theodore Gu^rin reveals her to have been, in the words of Car- dinal Gibbons, who furnishes the introduction, "a woman of uncommon valour, one of those religious