ABOUT

Margaret Eletta Guider, OSF, is Associate Professor of Missiology at the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry and Professora Ordinaria of the Ecclesiastical Faculty.

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, she completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in education at the University of Illinois and taught in both public and parochial schools in the inner city. In 1975, she became a lay missioner and ministered in the rural interior of Goiás, Brazil, with the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate. Upon her return to the United States, she entered the congregation, and after a period of formation, she returned to Chicago and served as director of Mission Education for the Archdiocese and as chaplain for the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. These experiences informed and influenced her ongoing commitment to Franciscan life, her interest in mission and the world church, and her passion for theology and ministerial formation.

Sr. Guider holds theological degrees from Catholic Theological Union, the Weston Jesuit School of Theology and the Divinity School of Harvard University. Currently, she is working on a manuscript entitled With Hearts Broken Open: U.S. Franciscan Missionaries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa (1879-2019). She is past president of the American Society of Missiology as well as the Association of Professors of Mission. She has served as an advisor and consultant for religious institutes and missionary societies as well as a board member for a variety of Catholic institutions and faith-based organizations. Her publications focus on the Church in Latin America, Vatican II Studies, Mission Studies, Franciscan Studies, and Ministerial Formation.

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PREACHING

October 4, 2026

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

I believe we are being invited to consider not only how the metaphorical vineyard of our world – as depicted on the nightly news - is being de-created by so-called acts of God, but to ask ourselves in what ways our human hands, driven by vengeance, greed, impunity and insolence, are destroying the vineyard of Creation entrusted to our care?
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October 20, 2019

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

[Today's readings] invite us to do more than see and judge; they require us to act, to make connections and to put into practice what we say we believe...
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