Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Sesquicentennial of Mount Saint Scholastic Convent


Mostly on this blog I post stories from the past, but today’s is a right-here, right-now event. That is, I want to share with you my excitement over the invitation I’ve received from the Benedictine nuns at Mount Saint Scholastica Convent to gather with them this coming weekend to celebrate the convent’s sesquicentennial. All of us who lived as nuns at the Mount have been invited.
         For nearly 1,500 years, Benedictines around the world have been chanting the Divine Office and keeping alive the light of learning.  In recent years, the Benedictines in the United States have been committed to social justice.
         The Benedictine sojourn in the United States began in1852 when three Bavarian nuns braved the tempestuous storms of the North Atlantic; made port; settled at St. Mary's, Pennsylvania; and established a school for young children.
         Five years later, a group of those intrepid pioneers traveled by steamboat up the Mississippi to establish a convent in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Six years passed while they set down roots.
         Then, in 1863, the abbot of St. Benedict’s monastery, situated on the Kansas side of the Missouri River, invited the Minnesotan Benedictines to send a group of nuns to the frontier town of Atchison to teach the children there. 
          Seven Minnesota nuns traveled by train down to Missouri, crossed the river, established a convent, and began to teach children from both the neighboring farms and the burgeoning town. Sixty years later, in 1923, they opened a college for women. 
           It was that college from which I graduated in May 1958, and it was that Atchison convent I entered a month later. There, I praised the God who I believed had beckoned me to the life of a nun. Back, back, back, I could trace the path that had led to that chapel in which I prayed.
         Seventeen other young women entered the convent with me. Many of them were recent high schools graduates. Others, like myself, came from the Mount college. Still others, working forty-hour weeks at a variety of jobs, had discovered a calling to religious life and answered it that long-ago summer.
         For six months, we eighteen studied the religious life as postulants. On January 1, 1959, we received the habit—with a white instead of a black veil—and became novices.


The eighteen of us became novices on January 1, 1959.
I’m the third seated nun from the left.
 
            We spent a year studying the vows we hoped to make. The following January we embraced the five Benedictine vows—poverty, chastity, obedience, conversion of morals, and stability. We made these vows for three years. I immediately went out to teach while many of my classmates attended college to get their degrees.
         By the end of that time—January 1, 1963—only fifteen of us were left to make final vows. I was among that group. Since that time, three of us that I know of have died: Rose, Norma Jean, and Annette. Three—Marian, Roseanne, and Ann—are still nuns. They live and work at the Colorado convent established by the Mount back in the 1960s.
         Out of the eighteen of us who gathered in the Mount parlor on June 26, 1958, twelve are ex-nuns who live throughout the United States. Thirteen years ago, at another celebration, five of us returned to the Mount. So I’m eager to discover if the same five will be there this coming weekend plus the others who couldn’t make it to Atchison in 2000 for the millennium celebration.
         Unfortunately, I’ve lost touch with most of these women and yet we share truly formative years. I’m eager to see photographs of their families, children, grandchildren. Perhaps we’ll share our life stories: the paths we’ve followed in the years since we left the convent—at various times over a period of about ten years. This weekend offers an opportunity to come full circle with them. I am so looking forward to meeting them again. Peace.

26 comments:

  1. How wonderful to reunite with friends and see where their journeys took them!

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  2. I wish that your reunion will be all you hope for.

    When we’re young we make plans, even vows, as in your case, but life has a habit of throwing us off the path we thought to travel. It will be interesting to see how far away from the chosen path others in your group have travelled.

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  3. Sure sounds like a grand time will be had when you meet up with them all again,, lets hope all make it.

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  4. How exciting. I hope even more of your scattered group come and you learn about all the intervening years.

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  5. What a rich opportunity, and a lovely time for fellowship and renewed friendship.

    Wow- only three are still nuns? I did not realize the turnover was that high, although the ones who passed away may have remained nuns. I know on many levels it can't be an easy life.

    I wish you the best on your trip, and look forward to hearing about it when you return!

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  6. Dee, I think it's wonderful that the nuns have invited you all back for this special celebration and I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time. Like Friko I will be fascinated to hear what paths your former religious sisters have taken since leaving the convent.

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  7. How special, Dee, to get to meet back up with old friends... You will have an awesome time. Can't wait to hear all about it.

    What made you decide not to continue along that road????? Maybe you have blogged about this---but if you did, I missed it.

    Hugs,
    Betsy

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  8. I also am looking forward to hearing about your reunion and hope all are doing well. Perhaps now and with all the technology, you will be able to keep in better touch.
    Have a wonderful time.

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  9. I hope everyone you want to see is there and that you have a safe journey.

    Love,
    Janie

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  10. Ooh how exciting!!! Please post of the experience...gotta share!!! Hard to imagine 1863 Atchison and the hardships they endured. Oooh the history...

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  11. I gladdened for you reading this. I imagine it will be a wonderful, very interesting time. You've had so many internal achievements since then. ~Mary

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  12. How wonderful to see your old friends again. I know you will have much to share.

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  13. I, too, am surprised that only 3 are still nuns. Have an absolutely marvelous time!!

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  14. Hello to all of you who have been kind enough to leave a comment and to wish me well this coming weekend. As I posted, I'm so eager to go to Atchison this coming Saturday. I'll be there overnight and come home late Sunday afternoon. A friend from convent days who left about three years after I did is coming to my home tomorrow and staying through Monday. She and I will room together at the Mount. This will be the first time I've seen her in twenty years. We weren't in the same class, but we taught together for two years as nuns.

    Next Wednesday I'll share with you what happened at the celebration! Peace.

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  15. What a fortunate weekend to meet up with old friends and compare chosen paths.

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  16. How exciting this is for you, Dee, and I see that you also have had a friend there with you. I look forward to hearing about your time as you celebrate together. It is always fun, with just a wee bit of trepidation, when these reunions in life come along. I always leave feeling good about having attended and reconnected and I'm sure you will as well.

    Nothing for you to worry over, but, I'm still not getting my email subscriptions to your blog, which is why I'm so late to this post. So, I will do it the old fashioned way and check more often (or, at least on Wednesdays).

    So, dear Dee, I wish you safe travel.

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  17. I hope that this reunion is all that you could hope for - and more. I am really looking forward to hearing about it in your next post.

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  18. Dee,
    You're going to have so much fun :)
    I hope you'll write a post about this next week so we can all read about it :)
    -E

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  19. I am wondering if there is any fall out from leaving? Do they generally accept that many will leave the convent and bless them on their way? Or are there repercussions? I am glad there is a reunion and an opportunity to stay in touch and I hope you have a wonderful time.

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  20. I thought of you when I watched the last episode of "Call the Midwife," where a nun left the convent. She had fallen in love with a man and realized that the place she called "home" had changed. I look forward to hearing about your reunion with your old friends, Dee.

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  21. Enjoy this wonderful experience! And get addresses and phone numbers!! ;)

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  22. Have a wonderful weekend, Dee!

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  23. I was wondering if you or the other nuns have ever had moments of doubt about the existence of God. I know that Mother Teresa did, for a short period of about five years in her life. Would a reunion ever reveal such a thing among you all or is it so personal that it would not be discussed?

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  24. That's a fascinating story. Travel safe and I hope your weekend is blessed.

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  25. I'm so glad that I didn't miss this post, although I almost did apparently! As I write you are away with your wonderful friends from the past, and I'm so glad to envision that reunion. I just know this time is going to be nourishing to you, and I'm so happy that you have the opportunity. I'll eagerly look forward to your next post and then to hear all about it! Blessings. (www.breathelighter.wordpress.com) Debra --I've had trouble leaving a comment again! LOL! Gremlins!

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  26. Oh, Dee, I do hope you have a wonderful weekend! A very exciting event!

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