Our Story.
The story of how this Bakery came about is a real-life story of discerning the Will of God… including the trials and the triumphs. Hi, my name is Rebekah Sevigny, and I am the creator of Clare Thérèse Sourdough. I created my own scratch sourdough starter in January of 2024 and made my first loaf of authentic sourdough at the beginning of February that same year.
Rewinding the clock a bit earlier than that, during my senior year of high school, I began discerning religious life. As time progressed, the Lord made it clear that He was calling me to this vocation. After completing my senior year, I started working with Lumen Christi Academy, a new private school that my parents, Dan and Jennifer Sevigny, had opened on the grounds of Sanctus Ranch. During this time of discernment and working, I started looking into making sourdough as a way to spend my spare time and help fuel my body and those around me by making a nutritious and healthy alternative to processed store-bought bread.
As my discernment of religious life progressed, I was accepted into the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, located in Gower, Missouri. Shortly after my acceptance, Dan and Jennifer decided to start the Luminary Mission Program. The Mission Program is an opportunity for men and women to dedicate a specific time to discerning God's Will while working and living in a community with others doing the same thing. A few months later, construction was buzzing around Sanctus Ranch, with breaking ground on the Lumen Christi Academy school building. At the same time, other spaces on the Ranch would be completed, including a space called the ‘galley.’ Right before the electrical was about to be installed in the galley, I shared the idea of a bakery with my Dad, Dan. From a long-shot dream to reality, the Clare Thérèse Sourdough Bakery began to be fine-tuned and wielded to its primary purpose and mission, the formation and financial support of the Luminary Mission Program.
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The name of the Clare Thérèse Sourdough Bakery harkens back to two of my patrons, Clare of Assisi and Thérèse of Lisieux. While the reason they are my patrons still sometimes remains a mystery to me, it is also very fitting that they are the patrons of this bakery.
Our first patron, Saint Clare of Assisi, is an example of an illuminating light in her time. Clare's name also translates to bright or light. Typically, one does not observe someone being a “bright light” when they are living in complete poverty, but we need not forget that the light she shed forth was from Jesus Christ himself, living out total and radical Gospel poverty. The most famous story about Saint Clare, and the way she’s most often depicted in paintings, is the story of when she held off the barbarians from destroying her monastery by holding our Lord present in the Most Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance. It is the Lord who lightens every dark corner and purges away the evil and darkness of this world. It is in this way that the Luminaries aspire to imitate Saint Clare. Being lumens, they shine as bright lights, showing the brightness and love of the Everlasting Father to everyone around them.
Saint Thérèse is the patron saint of missionaries, and if it couldn’t be any more fitting, the literal translation of Thérèse’s name is harvester. Not only is Saint Thérèse one of our advocates in Heaven, interceding for missionaries, but her name also reminds us, while in the bakery, of how the long and slow process of harvesting the grain, then milling, then using the flour in the bread making process, to mixing, to fermenting, to the baking, really is. This lengthy process often corresponds to the spiritual life and discernment, our primary goal of the missionary program. She serves as a reminder to be faithful and cling to God at all times.
My hope is that as long as the doors are open to the Clare Thérèse Sourdough Bakery, it will be a place of brightness, joy, community, and, most importantly, a place where souls may find the quiet and rest needed to discern God’s Will.
Please visit and support us at the Clare Thérèse Sourdough Bakery. May God bless you abundantly. Saints Clare and Therese, pray for us!
- Rebekah Sevigny, Creator of Clare Thérèse Sourdough