Fr. Gauthier, First Spiritual Director

   Rev. Gauthier became the first Spiritual Director of Little Rose Ferron.
Fr. Boyer records that "the priest who was last seen by the bedside of
Little Rose before her death was Father A. Gauthier of Fall River, Mass.
This priest followed and directed Rose for over twenty years; he was no
mystic but he had all the requisites that made him sense mysticism; he
was one of her three directors but of the three, none gave Rose more
attention than Father A. Gauthier. For over ten years, he lived some forty
or fifty miles away; he never failed to call on her every week; he knew
Rose so well that his faith in her was unflinching and his zeal unbounded. Whether the storm raged or the sun brightened, Father Gauthier kept Rose from extremes; he insisted on the practice of virtue and Rose developed them to an heroic degree; when they blossomed out into a spray of charismata, his sense of mysticism, the foundation from which they sprang gave him no worries; he knew that Rose was a devout little girl with no guile in her, that she was profoundly humble and that the balm of her charity was proportionate to the martyrdom she endured. For Father Gauthier, the charismata were the blossoms of her mystical life which rested on the heroic virtues she practiced.
     At her Requiem Mass, Fathers Adrien Gauthier, Pastor of St. Roch's Falll River and the Rev. O.A. Boyer, S.T.L. of Ellenburg, New York officiated at the lateral altars. When the Remains of Little Rose were taken to the Cemetery of the Precious Blood, the new Pastor, Rev. Stephen Grenier assisted by Father Gauthier, blessed the grave and said the usual prayers. Following her burial, the crowds of mourners took with them every single flower as souvenirs of dear Little Rose. "May Jesus shake loose his "Little Rose"that her petals may cover the world."
--Source: She Wears a Crown of Thorns by Rev. O.A. Boyer, S.T.L.