Blessed Karolina Gerhardinger

Image: By Photo: Andreas Praefcke [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

The 9th of May is the feast day of Blessed Karolina Gerhardinger (20 June 1797 – 9 May 1879). She is also known as Caroline Gerhardinger or Mother Maria Theresa of Jesus. She is the patron saint of School Sisters of Notre Dame Educators.

She was born to a working-class family in Bavaria. At the age of 15, she became a certified teacher. She started a religious order, the Poor School Sisters of Notre Dame dedicated to education. This was done, however, during the time the Bavarian government was closing religious orders. The religious sisters were sent in groups of two and threes into local villages to teach the poor young girls who otherwise would not have been able to assess education. in 1828, the Vatican negotiated the reopening of Bavaria’s religious communities and the sisters moved into a convent. Blessed Karolina took the name of Mary Theresa of Jesus as she was devoted to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. When she died, her Order had grown to 2500 sisters. Pope St John Paul II beatified her in 1985.