Benedictine Sisters of FL

Founding Anniversary

February 28, 2024 by Holy Name Monastery Leave a Comment

135th Founding Anniversary

Each year on February 28^th we mark one more year celebrating the accumulation of years that the Benedictine Sisters of Florida have lived the words of the reading from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians (Chapter 3). “As God’s chosen ones, clothe yourselves with compassion and kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another, let peace rule your hearts, live in harmony, teach and admonish one another in wisdom, and never forget to be thankful for what God has done for you.”

We are grateful for all that God has done for us throughout these 135 years since our Founding Sisters ventured forth from Pittsburgh, PA. to Pasco County Florida. I ponder changes that have drifted “under the bridges” in those years. Some came quickly to mind: opening and withdrawing from schools – all still a credit to our transition skills as they continue in some form to serve the founding purpose. Some changes were welcome and settled in easily; some sat uneasy on the Sisters shoulders as they, responded to “the call of our times”. This included changes in attire, changes from Latin to English, all the changes after Vatican II, and the cycle of the rise and fall of hemlines.

Then I got really curious and went on-line, typed in “year in review” from the 1890, taking big steps through the 20^th and 21^st centuries in clusters of approximately ten years.

In the first decade after the Sisters first day on the job in Florida (1890) The U.S. Congress designated Yosemite a National Park; Grover Cleveland won the U.S. presidential election, becoming the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms; Thomas A. Edison finished building his first motion picture studio; a decline in the New York stock market triggered the Panic of 1893 and first Monday of September was designated a legal holiday; and Klondike Gold Rush began in Alaska.

1900 – 1920s the Oreo cookie was first introduced, SOS was accepted as the universal distress signal, the first crossword puzzle was published, traffic lights were introduced; World War I began; there was an influenza epidemic and prohibition began.

Women were granted the right to vote; the lie detector was invented; The Reader’s Digest was published; Talking Movies were invented; the first Olympic Winter Games were held; flapper dresses came into style; bubble gum hit the market; penicillin was discovered and the car radio was invented.

In the 1930s the Empire State Building was completed; the US officially got a National Anthem; air-conditioning was invented, the Loch Ness monster was first spotted; the Golden Gate Bridge opened; the helicopter was invented; the first commercial flight flew over the Atlantic and World War II began.

In the 40s our Sisters were busy handing over the administration of parish schools in New Orleans, Olfen, Texas and Slidell, Louisiana. This freed them to open new parish schools in Florida and to continue staffing summer catechetical programs in parishes where there were no Catholic schools. In their spare time the Sisters, continued attending night and summer degree courses. In the world around them, they may not have noticed that nylon stockings hit the market, the jeep was invented, T-shirts, ballpoint pens, computers, Polaroid cameras, the microwave oven, the bikini was introduced.

In the 1950s the first credit card was introduced, the Korean War began, color TV and car seat belts were introduced, and the polio vaccine was created. The first McDonald’s opened, Velcro and TV remote controls were introduced. Hula hoops and Lego toys were introduced and The Sound of Music opened on Broadway.

In the 1960s, the Peace Corps was founded, we had the Cuban Missile Crisis, the first Catholic president was elected and subsequently assassinated, the Beatles became popular, the Star Trek TV series aired, the first heart transplant was performed, and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

In the 1970s, computer floppy disks, pocket calculators and VCRs were introduced.

Moving quickly through the 80s and 90s, the Rubik’s cube became popular, the first woman was appointed to the US Supreme Court, personal computers were introduced, the first American woman rode a space shuttle and we witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall.

These are only a few of the highlights that I picked out… there were many, many more historic events. When we get our “seasoned” members talking about memories of the “good ole days” they may tell us about learning to drive on a tractor, how much cars have changed … and don’t forget to ask them why Mother Rose Marie bought PJs, rather than nightgowns, for all the sisters after experiencing a hotel evacuation order one night in New Orleans. What a sight they must have been to the onlookers below: 5 women scantily clad in white nightgowns scampering down the fire escape. The next morning Mother Rose Marie bought every Sister a pair of PJs for when they traveled. (Reminds us of Benedict’s admonition to supply each member going on a journey with clean underwear!)

From 1929 – 1959 the sisters operated St. Benedict’s Prep school for boys. Holy Name Academy provided day and boarding programs for girls from the first days in 1889 until 1964. Shifting gears, we built new dormitories and a cafeteria to provide services to Saint Leo College students. In 2014 we made the courageous decision to “begin again” the great adventure of the Benedictine Sisters of Florida – build a new house across the highway.

In our 135 years in Florida our community members have lived with 13 religious superiors. Now, that alone is endurance! And, they have had multiple careers. To name a few: classroom teacher, principal, mission superior, CCD teacher and coordinator, teacher and “mom” at Good Counsel Camp; procurator, worker in various aspects of our guest ministries, archivist and keeper of artifacts and the chronologies. They’ve been Hospice volunteers, provided service in health care, laundry and kitchen staff, seamstress and coif maker; choir director and sacristan; artist, calligrapher, musician, and champion crafter. For any I’ve overlooked, rest assured that God got it in the Good Book.

But how, you may ask, in God’s great world, did I get here from there? In the Gospel recently we heard Peter say to Jesus: “Lord, we have put aside everything to follow you.” Many years of vowed commitment sit right here in this chapel. In the midst of an ever-changing church and world. We offer an example of flexibility, perseverance and stability. Faithfulness to lectio and community exercises shows us that they know where their life in God is sustained. Their interest in everyday happenings shows their love of learning. Their many friends within and outside the community clearly pays tribute to our Sisters’ sense of Benedictine hospitality. If you listen keenly, you hear some other stories that could be told, like the Ajaxed apples, the chief of the oddballs and the day, when we first began wearing “regular” clothes, when one Sister paraded before us to show off her outfit. She was all ready to go out for a Jai- Alai game with a full-length slip hanging below her shirt out over her new slacks!

In conclusion, Sisters, heed Scripture: continue to “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God through him.”

Please join us in prayer as we celebrate our 135th anniversary of the day Benedictine Sisters from PA arrived in San Antonio (Pasco County) FL … now located in St. Leo, FL – Florida’s first incorporated township.

Thank YOU for being in our “Fan Club”

God bless

Tanzania Project

June 23, 2022 by Holy Name Monastery Leave a Comment

One of the three Sisters working with our friend S. Winny to establish a K-3 school in an educational opportunity “desert” in Tanzania. Pictured is their “classroom.” S. Winny lived with us when she was attending Saint Leo University. Pray for the success of the project. Throughout the June and July our Sisters will be supporting the effort through personal contributions matched with a donation for our community resources. You are invited to join us in this effort.

Periodically the Benedictine Sisters of FL solicit contributions to an almsgiving project that they have discerned to support. During June and July, they will be making offerings from their individual allowances (ranging up to $70 monthly) to support a K-3 project in Tanzania. We’ll be matching it with a contribution from our community collective funds. The initiative is under the leadership of S. Winny Kalamira who resided with us when she was on scholarship at Saint Leo University. Sister is now superior of the new community of three in an area deprived of educational opportunities. We are proud to promote her cause. Won’t you join us in this effort.

To make a contribution, write check payable to Benedictine Sisters of FL – note for S. Winny Project – we’ll send lump-sum donation to the project. Or you may donate through our website (link below). Be sure to select the “Tanzania” designation.

www.benedictinesistersoffl.org

Thank you! May God bless you for your generosity.

Update from the Benedictine community in Lviv, Ukraine

May 12, 2022 by Holy Name Monastery Leave a Comment

The situation with the reception of refugees remains intense. People from the eastern regions of our country continue to arrive here and seek refuge. Most of them managed to escape the bombardments by evacuation trains or green corridors and have already witnessed the explosions. They are often very stressed and need to be taken care of.

On the day of the Lord’s Resurrection, there are 117 people (44 of them children) in our monastery without monks and nuns (139 in total). We were able to increase the number of beds a little and create a more comfortable stay for them. In total, more than five hundred people during this period asked to stay overnight or stayed at the monastery for some time. Now we have mostly families who are permanent and don’t want to go any further. With some of the families we developed a warm and friendly relationship, they quickly became part of our family. At the Easter Vigil there was the Baptism of our youngest resident, Nicol Scholastica, who was only two weeks old at the time of her arrival.

Thanks to your help we can take these people in and give them everything they need, and we are infinitely grateful that you are sympathetic to our suffering and that you are close to us in such a concrete way.

The Benedictine Sisters of Florida and our donors have contributed to the refugee relief.

We thank you for your loving support to the Sisters and their missions!

Benedictine Women Send Donations to Ukraine

March 22, 2022 by Holy Name Monastery Leave a Comment

Benedictine Women Send Donations to Their Sisters in Ukraine

~Original story from Benedictine Sisters of Erie.

The Benedictine Sisters of Florida have joined with women’s Benedictine monasteries around the world in offering financial support to Benedictine Sisters who serve in the Ukraine. By way of Communio Internationalis Benedictinarum (CIB), whose members represent women’s monasteries on almost every continent, the sisters have sent more than $200,000 in dollars and euros to aid victims and refugees of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The monies have gone directly to Mother Blandyna Michniewicz, Abbess of the Monastery of Benedictine Nuns of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Warsaw and a CIB delegate for the region of Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania. She and the sisters in the Ukraine are working together to meet needs as best they can.

Sister Lynn McKenzie, OSB, moderator of the CIB, communicates information received from the sisters in Poland. “The nuns of the monastery in Zhytomyr have evacuated to another monastery in L’viv, in the far western part of Ukraine. I have learned that they are receiving approximately 100 refugees from other parts of Ukraine per day and feeding them and sending them on their way, hopefully to safety. We pray for the safety and good health of the nuns now in L’viv. Indeed, we pray for all Benedictines and people of Ukraine who have lived through this atrocity. We give God thanks for their fidelity and love.”

In addition to financial assistance, CIB sisters in Germany have also organized the shipment of medicines and bandages to Ukraine. The transport went from Germany to Warsaw and from there passed through a “well organized ‘corridor’ and transportation network in Ukraine to reach the most needy,” according to Sister Caterina Gorgen at the Benedictine Abbey of Engelthal in Germany.

If you would like to offer financial assistance CIB is collecting funds. All monies donated through this link will go directly to the Benedictine Sisters in Poland for immediate refugee relief. DONATE HERE.

Listen to His voice

November 15, 2021 by Holy Name Monastery Leave a Comment

We are called to BE the Good News

In this Gospel, Jesus offers us signs to look for that will indicate the coming of the Son of Man. Mindfulness to his words prepares us for the changes we will experience during our lifetime and at the end time. (And, just in case we miss the point, the experience of the pandemic couldn’t make it clearer that the future is unpredictable.) When you see the things happening that Jesus talks about, we know that He is near, at the gates. “But,” says Jesus, “of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Then, He assures us: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

So, as followers of the Jesus, how do we prepare? How good are you at reading signs? Can we train ourselves to be more observant of the signs? By personality do you notice signs in nature? Do you read road signs or only notice the sign on the building where you turned left? (The sign and the building may be gone the next time you pass by.) How well do you read non-verbal language? Do you work to sensitize yourself to recognize everyday signs? If not, how do you reckon you can heighten your sensitivity to spirit signs? Do you use Scripture, the Rule, the example of a favorite saint, a confessor or a friend-guide? What helps you to listen more keenly to your own heart? In the quiet of the night – when sleep eludes you – or when out walking or clocking steps on the tread mill, do you hear God’s voice? When you are traveling along a familiar road, riding alone in an elevator, passing through the hall at a leisurely pace, setting the table or sanitizing doorknobs, do you see and hear God? As communal meetings and prayer times approach what controls your schedule – the TV, the computer, the phone, an alarm, or time-honored habits? In the quiet of the chapel as we gather for communal prayer, do you head-count or leave time-space for God’s voice to invade your awareness?

God does not usually shout to us in fury or in the high winds of a Florida thunderstorm. Most of the time God speaks softly. So we are honor-bound to stay tuned at all times to that still, small voice. This takes a keen “reading of the signs.” It takes courage to “stay in the fray” and not seek to protect ourselves by ignoring the signs. Many things will happen – are happening – in our lives that are not in our goals or strategic plan. Things not scheduled by the calendar or our clock or our watches or the “ding” of a ZOOM alert. We are called by today’s Gospel to keep our hearts attuned to “read the significance of the signs of our time.”

Jesus asks us, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” The value of our response is lived out in our faithfulness to prayer, each other and participation in our corporate commitment. For example, our Thanksgiving partnership with St. Mark’s Parish and our personal contributions to meet the needs of the left-out, locked-out and dropped-out.

We know we are called not so much to DO the Good News – though faith-in-action is important. We are called to BE the Good News – a model of all that is implied when we call ourselves Christian, Catholic, monastic, Benedictine, a Benedictine Sister (or Oblate) of Florida.

~ Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress

Have a good week. Jesus tells us in the Scriptures as we near the close of the liturgical year: “Read the signs of the time!”

Stay safe – be healthy – know peace!

Summer Feast Day of Saint Benedict

July 8, 2021 by Holy Name Monastery 1 Comment

Summer Feast of St. Benedict 2021

July 11^th we Benedictines normally celebrate the summer feast of St. Benedict. However, since this year the 11^th falls on a Sunday, the 14^th Sunday of Ordinary time takes precedence. So at Holy Name we will celebrate on Monday, July 12^th.

A few years ago, in an issue of the journal from the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration there was a good article by Sister Bede Luetkemeyer. What follows is an abbreviation of her words:

“Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.” Saint Benedict, in the Prologue to his Rule, addresses those who “long for life. His advice is “Keep your tongue free from vicious talk and your lips from all deceit; turn away from evil and do good; let peace be your quest and aim. Once you have done this, my eyes will be upon you and my ears will be open to your prayer.”

If we were to abbreviate this quote, we might say: “God will hear our prayers when we put away vicious talk.” This can be a surprising and disturbing thought: having our prayers heard depends on how we use our tongue.

The gift of speech is one of the most powerful gifts God has given us, but it probably evokes less gratitude than any other. Habitual use of speech bends to make us unconscious of the many times our speech verges on being critical, or, to use the adjective in the psalm, “vicious” talk.

Not many of us are humble enough to make amends for wounding words. We depend on time and the good will of others to wipe out what has been said, but the wounds of hurtful words can never be totally erased. Despite our best efforts to heal relationships, the scars remain.

Perhaps the first step is admitting that we are burdened with the habit of speaking without paying attention to what we say. Jesus goes literally to the heart of the problem. He speaks of the words that “come from the heart.” These are the words that are first formulated in the mind and take on the emotions that issue from them. Hence, controlling our thoughts is our first task. Discernment of our thoughts in the manner of the early monks cuts off the evil before it reaches the heart. If our words do not come from a humble heart they will fall on deaf ears.

One of the familiar practices from the past is the daily examination of conscience. Recalling our conversations and labeling them as hurtful or helpful becomes habitual. We can train ourselves to think before we speak, to take a prior account of the possible consequences of our speech. It is better to judge ourselves than to hear Jesus’ warning, “I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.” (Mt 12:36)

Another effective way of learning how to use the tongue is learning the virtue of silence. The recommendations for the practice of silence are frequent in Scripture and in the ancient rules of the Desert Fathers. Although the Desert Fathers sometimes practiced perpetual silence, we are not called to that extreme. Rather, Scripture describes moderate speech that flows from wisdom. Benedict lists four qualities of such speech in his chapter on humility: serious, brief, gentle, reasonable.

The teachings of Benedict are taken from the Scriptures and so are meant for everyone. One of the reminders Benedict uses in his chapter on silence is taken from the Book of Proverbs: “In the multitude of words, there shall not want sin.” (Prv 10:19) One of the Desert Fathers (teaches): “A person may seem to be silent, but if s/he is condemning others, she is babbling ceaselessly. But there may be another who talks from morning til night and yet she is truly silent, that is, she says nothing that is not profitable.”

External silence is impossible until we learn to control the unending conversation that is going on in our (heads). A 20^th century Russian Orthodox monk wrote about prayer and the Christian life, “When we listen to someone we think we are silent because we do not speak; but our minds continue to work, our emotions react, our will responds for or against what we hear … The real silence towards which we must aim as a starting point is a complete repose of mind and heart and will.”

We might wonder what happens to spontaneity, to having a chat without having to think about every word we say. Jesus assures us that out of the contents of our heart our mouth will speak. If we guard our hearts from evil and our minds from negative thoughts, our words will arise spontaneously without guilt, reflecting the goodness we have stored away.

God alone utters the perfect word, the speech without fault. By pondering the perfections of Jesus, we come to own the good word of which the Psalmist speaks: “My heart overflows with a good theme; my tongue is ready like the pen of a scribe.” (Ps 45:1)