Benedictine Sisters of FL

Holy Name Monastery
Founded 1889

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Wishful Waiting

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This Gospel offers us the reassurance that Jesus understands how difficult it is to wait.  Jesus is in a state of wishful waiting.  He waits for the Spirit. He’d waited for his cousin John who would baptize him.  He’d waited for the day the Father would give the go ahead to His working miracles.  He’d waited for the “three days” and His resurrection.

And we, our Sisters have lived through waiting too.   Tomorrow we will mark the 11th anniversary of the day we took up residence in our one-story home (here) on Wichers Road.  Our sisters have waited, responded, moved from Pennsylvania, to Dallas House to San Antonio Plaza to a hotel turned Convent.  Then came the move of that building to the shores of Lake Jovita where we resided until our home for deemed a fire risk.  The Academy girls and the Sisters had “sleep overs” in the parish school auditorium and the homes of local families.   We waited and waited for the Bishop’s okay to build a new home, Benedictine Hall.  Then came the call of the Spirit to down-size, build and relocate to the residence we now call home.  August 18, 2014, our friends from St. Mark’s parish gathered us and our “things” and we set foot in this our “new home.”

From the beginning of His coming on earth Jesus taught us lessons in waiting.  Mary and Elizabeth waited nine months for the birth of their babies.  The Holy Family waited three years in Egypt until it was safe to return to Nazareth. Jesus waited 30 years to begin his public ministry.  He waited three days to respond to Lazarus’ sisters’ news that his friend had died.  He waited 3 years for His Father to prompt him NOW is the right time for His last supper with friends, time for betrayal and crucifixion, time to rest in a borrowed tomb until he would be raised from the dead.  He waited for the right time to reveal himself to Mary Magdalene in the garden and later to appear to the disciples and his mother Mary huddled in the upper room drawing strength and comfort from each other. in the upper room.  He’d waited 40 days for the time to ascend and take His place at the right hand of his father.

And we? Oftentimes what do we do with our waiting time?  We look for the shortest check-out lane knowing full well that the shortest line can be the longest wait if the clerk calls for a price check.  We grit our teeth (we hope unseen) if the buffet line slows as someone goes back to read the menu; or we repeatedly hit we “print” command on the keyboard in hopes we can hurry it up.   What are the words in the hymn by St. louis Jesuits, TRUST IN THE LORD?  “Wait for the Lord, you shall not tire; wait for the Lord, you shall not weaken.  For the Lord’s own strength will uphold you, you shall renew your life and live.”

The message in the Gospel also reminds us that choosing to do good requires on-going decision-making. We all know full well that life isn’t conflict-free no matter how holy, easy-going or patient a person we may be.  We well know, living in a monastery isn’t surefire protection. We’re all still human, with human limitations.  But we are also followers of Jesus who said, “What makes you think I have come to establish peace?  I tell you I have come to sow division.”  He is alerting us to be prepared for difficult decisions.

Jesus is letting us know beforehand that He is right in the middle of the fray. Recall He said: “I have come to set the earth afire.”  He is telling us that when we make the decision to follow him, we may face opposition from some quarters, perhaps even from our peers, our family or friends.  He cheers us on when conflicts arise, and He can foresee the peace of reconciliation coming down the pike.

Consider your choices: add fuel to the fire or bite your tongue, cool your jets and exercise patience.   Figuratively, if we engage the faucet and turn on the nozzle, we can control the hose that can put out the fire between us.  The landscape may look charred. The ashes will remain.  But out of the ashes will come new life: green plants and colorful flowers – some never seen before.  And yes – peace will come!

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

 

 

First Reading:  Jeremiah 38:4-6,8-10         Second Reading:  Hebrews 12:1-4
Gospel:   Luke 12:49-53
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Make a Will Month

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Did you know August is

Make a Will Month?

 

People often put off making a will. Why? Some believe they don’t own enough to have a will. (They probably do.) Others believe that everything will automatically go to their spouse or children, so they don’t need to do anything. (It may not.) And still others simply don’t like to think about the fact that they’ll die someday. (But they will.)

August is Make a Will Month…and for good reason. If you don’t have a will, making one is the only way to ensure that everything you’ve built or been blessed with goes to those you intended to have it.

And if you do have a will, here are three quick things to check off your list:

  • Keep your will in a safe, secure place. Let a family member or two know where it is, and who prepared it for you. Be sure your Executor has a copy.
  • Pull it out every three to five years and see if anything needs to be changed. Sometimes your circumstances have changed. You may have sold some things or purchased others. Sometimes outside circumstances change. The person you named as Executor may no longer be able to serve in that capacity. You may have switched banks or insurance companies. So take a look.
  • Make sure you’ve named beneficiaries wherever you can — on insurance policies, investment and retirement accounts and so on. And check those to make sure they’re all up to date.

Here’s something else to ponder. As you think about your will and your legacy, consider including a gift to the Benedictine Sisters of Florida in your planning. There are lots of ways to do this, and all of them allow you to continue supporting the good work of the Sisters even after you’re gone.

Thank you for the love and support you’ve shown the Sisters. We thank God for you daily in our prayers. Please keep us in yours.

 

 

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Pentecost Sunday – A Tale of Journeys

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The Scriptural selections we’ve heard this Easter season are an annual reminder of Jesus’ “journey” stories.  We recall His appearance to Mary in the garden, His “beaming up” into and vanishing from the upper room where his mother Mary and the disciples had gathered, the meeting on the road to Emmaus, Jesus’ “here again, gone again, come again” ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit.

In this, our 135th community anniversary of our founders’ journey from Pennsylvania to Florida, I invite you to join me in taking a long backward look at the “journey history” of our community.  The reflection is longer than usual but remember, it covers 135 years.    It is evident that we and our Florida Benedictine ancestors have made many and varied journeys.  We’ll start with Benedict and Scholastica who skipped happily along the hilltop path from their home in Norcia, Italy. Perhaps they stopped in to visit with the hermits who lived in hillside caves along the path on their trip to their grandparents’ summer house on the outskirts of town.  When still a young boy Benedict journeyed to Rome for classical studies.  Before long, he journeyed into the hills for a little sanity.   A few years later, Benedict’s followers – and Scholastica’s too – traveled from Italy to Germany, England, France, Switzerland, and Austria – and from there in 1852 to the United States.  You probably know the story of the monk shouting at Abbot Wimmer that his “wagon load of trouble” (the Benedictine Sisters arriving from Eichstätt, Germany) had been spotted on the horizon approaching the abbey in Latrobe.  Like spotty fires that can’t be contained, Benedictine women’s houses sprang up across the continent.

Our own history brings a “wagon load” of five Sisters from Pennsylvania to San Antonio, Florida. It wasn’t long before the Sisters were operating schools in their own home, in the local parish and three miles down the road in St. Joseph.   Over the years, our Sisters would journey each school year to/from places as far away as Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.  They also they made a mark for our community in Miami, Miami Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Ocala, Sarasota, Venice, Lakeland, Apopka, Dade City, Zephyrhills, and San Antonio, New Port Richey, St. Joseph and right here in St. Leo. For many years every June the Sisters brought all their worldly possessions back to Holy Name Convent.  They never knew for sure where they’d be “missioned” the next school year.  Before it was in vogue, this practice was a built-in system of “spring cleaning” and downsizing.

During the summers, the Sisters continued on their journeys to complete, or extend, their educations.  To name a few places I know about, they traveled to Cullman, AL, Notre Dame, St. John’s in Minnesota, Belmont College, New York, Louisville, Yankton, South Dakota, Barry College in Miami, the Mount Saint Scholastica in Atchison, Kansas, Wisconsin and St. Louis.  Sometimes they packed up a few necessities along with two habits and headed up the road to Good Counsel Camp where they squeezed in 2-week sessions of religious education for children that did not have the advantage of parochial schools.

In addition to staffing parish schools, Sisters packed into cars – sometimes with volunteer drivers – to teach weekend catechism classes in Floral City, Brooksville, New Port Richey, Eustis, Arlington, Ponte Vedra, Masaryktown, Belleview, Reddick, West Ocala, Fruitland Park, Gainesville, Clermont, Dade City, Zephyrhills and the Girls’ Reformatory in Ocala.   I’ve never checked out the veracity of this story but I’ve heard that there was one Sister who used to travel to weekly college classes with her typewriter on her lap finishing up an assignments.

All this journeying from home to classrooms to college to camp to parish halls were mini-versions of the grand moves, the memorable journeys, that immersed travel in our Florida Benedictine genes.  The move from Pennsylvania to the mission territory started with five valiant women.  There followed in the years to come the move of the monastery building from the San Antonio plaza to the top of the hill overlooking Lake Jovita.  In 1959, we saw the demolition of the wood-frame convent and the rise of a structure made of concrete and steel.  And, then there were the years of discernment that concluded with our decision to move body and soul in 2014 across the highway to the structure we now call home.

And, you’ll recall we’ve moved not only our persons – we’ve moved buildings to our property. This included the barracks buildings delivered for a boys’ school, a canteen for the academy girls, cabin for Camp Jovita, and building for the day care.  We can point to where these buildings used to be: the kindergarten and coif room, the laundry at the lake, Scholastica Hall, barns, the home economics house, the bus shelter, a hitching post on Hwy 52 and basketball courts where we hosted chicken dinners and danced around the May Pole.

Journeys are not a new phenomena for Florida Benedictines. For some of us a journey is an adventure; for some it is a dreadful thought.  For all of us it can be a great risk, a scary thought, or a step into a future that unfolds as we walk the path God holds out to us.  When we took our first journey from womb to the light of day, we were completely naked, vulnerable, squalling and fighting the loss of the comfort of 24-hour warmth, unending nourishment, periods of activity and times of quiet floating.  Journeys are nothing new for any of us!

In conclusion, for today, I suggest you think about some of the journeys you’ve taken – moves when you were a child, the move to join our community and the journey that our Sisters of happy memory have traveled to their eternal home.   May they rest in peace!  Recall Gregory Norbert’s hymn, “Journey Ended, Journeys Begun” that we sang during our good-bye procession through Marmion-Snyder halls down to the cafeteria for our final meal there.  We pray: O God of the journey, show us the path to life.  Angels of God, lead us along our path.  Amen.  Alleluia!

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

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Founding Anniversary

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135th Founding Anniversary

Each year on February 28th 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 20th and 21st 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

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Christmas in July!

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If Virginia were to write to the Benedictine Sisters of Florida to ask the question, “Is there really a Santa Claus?”, the Sisters would respond with a resounding YES.  They would add that he lives in the hearts of the Columbiettes of St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Parish in Tampa, Florida.

On July 16, 2022, the Sisters were graced with a visit by the Columbiettes to celebrate “Christmas in July”.  The Columbiettes hosted a barbeque luncheon in the monastery dining room.   Sisters and members of the Columbiettes enjoyed getting to know one another as they ate.   Each sister received a personalized gift bag.

The Columbiettes are a witness to the loving generosity of our God.  They find joy in giving to others as St. Nicholas did so many centuries ago. May their example inspire us all to achieve ever greater heights of virtue!

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