Oblate Weekends
Clyde Oblates and Oblate Candidates gather three times a year for a long weekend of spiritual input and sharing, renewing friendships and feeling the support of the community.

Space is limited and registrations are accepted on a first come, first serve basis. Please register at least 10 days prior to the scheduled weekend.

For information about future retreats, please contact:
Sister Jean Frances Dolan, OSB
Congregational Oblate Director
Phone: 660.944.2221

Sister Cathleen Marie Timberlake, OSB was recently elected to the board of directors for the Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild, Inc.

Sister Cathleen is the creative force behind Monastery Scents, the Sisters’ line of quality handcrafted soaps. The Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild, Inc. is an international non-profit trade organization that promotes the handcrafted soap industry and serves as a resource and communication center among soap makers.

The guild, which includes members from all 50 states and around the world, is governed by a seven-person board of directors.

Novice Nancy Gucwa, who is in formation with the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, was honored for her official retirement from the U.S. Army during a reception July 12 at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

Born and raised in New York, Novice Nancy was a member of the first class that admitted women to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

After graduation in 1980, she served active duty for six years and continued her army career as a member of the reserves, earning the rank of lieutenant colonel. She later earned an MBA and enjoyed a career in the financial and banking industries. Heeding the call to religious life, she entered the Benedictine Sisters in 2006.

“I would encourage all women who have had careers, even in their 30’s and 40’s, to consider whether a religious vocation is right for them,” she said.

During the retirement ceremony, Novice Nancy presented remarks that provided insight to the Benedictine Sisters and compared monastic and military life.

The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have elected Sister Sean Douglas, OSB as their new prioress for the Clyde community.

During a discernment process that ended with the July 15 vote, the Sisters chose Sister Sean to lead them during her two-year term. She succeeds Sister Pat Nyquist, OSB who was recently elected prioress general for the Congregation during the sisters’ chapter meeting in June.

Sister Sean entered in 1979 and made her first monastic profession on July 29, 1982. Her most recent position within the Clyde community was as building maintenance director. Talented in computer networking, she has also been instrumental in developing MonasteryPodcast.com, a Web site that provides podcasts of the sisters’ prayer services, which has allowed them to share their prayerful worship with people around the globe.

Sister Sean was officially installed into office during a ceremony held July 16 at the sisters’ Adoration Chapel in Clyde. During the ceremony, she received the ceremonial keys to Clyde and the Rule of Benedict from Sister Pat.

Benedictine Sister of Perpetual Adoration Natalia Barela was surrounded by her community, family and friends during a celebration to mark her 100th birthday on July 8, 2008.

Born on that date in 1908 in Albuquerque, N.M., Sister Natalia entered the world before New Mexico was officially granted statehood. The first Model T Ford had just rolled off the assembly line, Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States and it would be four more years before the Titanic would make its historic plunge to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

Sister Natalia’s earliest years were spent on a small ranch outside Albuquerque. After the death of her father when she was just a toddler, the family moved to town to be near relatives. She went to pubic school until the ninth grade when she began attending St. Vincent Academy, a Catholic high school.

After graduation, she took business courses and worked in retail and insurance before entering the Benedictine Sisters in 1929. Throughout her years as a Benedictine Sister, she lived in several of the congregation’s communities. However, she is especially fond of her time spent in Arizona, witnessing the sisters’ move in 1939 into the Pink Rose of the Desert, Tucson’s lovely monastery.

Sister Natalia now resides at Our Lady of Rickenbach, the sisters’ healthcare facility in Clyde, where she continues to deepen her union with God and remains committed to the vows she professed so long ago.

“I can pray and be more attentive to God when silent,” she said. “I am grateful for and have enjoyed all these years. God has never failed me.”

Her 100th birthday celebration included a cake and punch reception, which was also attended by a family friend and several nieces and nephews who made the trip from New Mexico and Arizona.

The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration held elections for their new prioress general and council members during their two-week chapter meeting, which concluded June 12 in Clyde.

Sister Pat Nyquist, OSB was elected prioress general and Sisters Dawn Annette Mills, OSB, Cheryl Morehead, OSB and Ruth Elaine Starman, OSB were elected to the general council.

They were installed during a ceremony held June 13 at the Adoration Chapel in Clyde, presided over by Abbot Gregory Polan, OSB of Conception Abbey.

The sisters will each serve six-year terms for the congregation, which includes 93 professed sisters and four women in formation. Their communities are located in Clyde, Tucson, Ariz., and Dayton, Wyo.

Sister Pat Nyquist, a native of Moorhead, Minn., joined the Benedictine Order in 1974 and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn., and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Notre Dame.

Among her earlier jobs within the Congregation were treasurer, co-manager of the altar bread department, director of novices and Clyde subprioress. She is a member of the American Benedictine Formation Conference. Sister Pat served as prioress of the sisters’ Clyde community from 2005 until her election as prioress general.

Sister Dawn Annette Mills was born in Gary, Ind., and entered the Benedictine Sisters in 1975. She completed a master’s program at the Institute for Culture and Creation Spirituality at Holy Names College in Oakland, Calif. She is an accomplished author and presents workshops on a variety of religious subjects throughout the country.

She has served as prioress of the Tucson community, as a pastoral minister and an oblate director. Most recently she headed the sisters’ correspondence department, which answers prayer requests, handles direct mailings regarding prayer intentions and keeps the records for the Association of Perpetual Adoration, an affiliation of those who are remembered daily by the sisters in their prayers and ministry.

Sister Cheryl Morehead is from Albert Lea, Minn. She earned degrees from Corbett College in Crookston, Minn., and the University of North Dakota. She made her entrance with the Benedictine Sisters in 1989 and was the subprioress of the Clyde community from 1998 to 2002 and again since 2005. She will also serve as the community’s administrator until the sisters hold elections for their new prioress in July.

Sister Ruth Elaine Starman is an Elgin, Neb., native and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and computer science from the University of Nebraska-Kearney. She entered the congregation in 1993 and has served as the congregation’s vocation director since 2005.

Spring ushered in a celebration for a trio of Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration during a jubilee ceremony on April 4 at Clyde.

Sisters Jean Frances Dolan, OSB and Lioba Hanley, OSB celebrated their golden jubilees of monastic profession and were joined by Sister Jane Heschmeyer, OSB who was honored for her silver anniversary.

While all three were called to religious life with the Benedictine Sisters and dedicated themselves to contemplative prayer and the Eucharist, each took a different path in getting there. With a great-aunt who had become a nun, Sister Lioba was familiar with and interested in religious life but not drawn to her particular community.

“But I knew there was something special about that life,” Sister Lioba said.

As a teenager, she played sports, went to movies and dances and hung out with her friends. She spent her summers at her family’s home at the lake. It was at St. Celestine’s in Elmwood Park, Ill., outside of Chicago that she would meet a young girl named Jean Frances.

They played in the same neighborhood as children. As the years passed, they attended Trinity High School in River Forest, Ill.

While different interests meant different classes, they still managed to share an interest in religious life. Drawn to a contemplative and prayerful life, Sister Lioba made plans to enter the Benedictine Sisters before telling her friend of her decision.

“I took Jean Frances to (then-community) Mundelein for a visit,” Sister Lioba said. “As soon as she walked in the door, she nudged me and said, ‘This is it. This is where I want to be.’ The spiritual connection that drew us together as children led us both to the Benedictine Sisters.”

For Sister Jean Frances her interest in religious life began when she was only 4 years old.

“I announced I wanted to be a nun when I grew up because the nuns lived with God,” she laughed. “My mother insisted I would change my mind when I got older, but I never did.”

While in high school, she confided in her chaplain that she was considering a vocation as a contemplative sister. He gave her a brochure about the Benedictine Sisters, but one look at the cover’s photograph of the beautiful chapel and she changed her mind and returned the brochure.

“I was thinking of a more simple order. The sisters’ chapel was too fancy for me,” she laughed. “Then the chaplain asked me, ‘Are you entering for the Lord or for the place?’ I answered, ‘The place,’ and he handed the brochure right back to me.”

She left her home near Chicago and along with Sister Lioba entered the Benedictine Sisters in 1955. They each made their first monastic profession on March 13, 1958.

During her years as a Benedictine, Sister Jean Frances spent time at many of the congregation’s monasteries.

“My family jokes – Join the Monastery, See the World,” she said. “I’ve loved the transfers because each was a new adventure. You are changed by every place you go and everyone you meet.”

She currently serves as the congregation’s director of oblates, lay people of any faith drawn to the Benedictine life who adapt monastic practices to their own lives.

“I meet these beautiful people who are sincere in sharing their desire for something deeper in their lives,” Sister Jean Frances said. “To walk with them has been such a gift and one of the biggest joys of my life.”

Sister Lioba has served the congregation in a variety of ways such as a pastoral minister, in the finance department and formation and now works in the low-gluten altar bread department.

“I enjoy making the wafers because I like how much they help people. I unite with them in prayer,” she said.

Unlike Sisters Jean Frances and Lioba, the Lord took a bit longer to call Sister Jane to religious life.

It was on the banks of a river in Germany on a glorious autumn day that Sister Jane felt a call to religious life. A college graduate who was backpacking her way through Europe, she had not thought much about monastic life until that very moment.

“I experienced something that day. There were no words but a strong interior sense that God wanted me to consider religious life,” she said. “It all just came as softly and naturally as an autumn breeze.”

Her parish priest helped her explore options with regards to active or contemplative communities but it was the life led by the Benedictine Sisters that attracted her the most. She entered in 1980 and made her first monastic profession on Aug. 20, 1983. She received degrees in sociology and psychology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in addition to monastic studies at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn. She serves as a general councilor for the congregation and was also instrumental in helping develop the sisters’ low-gluten altar bread.

While they traveled a different path, they each found a home, a sacred place, that they discovered by listening to God with their hearts.

“We are a microcosm of society at large,” Sister Jane said. “Among us you’ll find incredible talent, wisdom, knowledge, skill, strength, weakness, health, illness, compassion, joy and sorrow – the scope of human existence. God has called us to live this life together because he wants to do his work in this particular group of people.”

The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration formally welcomed Mary Hastie to their congregation when she entered during a ceremony held March 3 in the Adoration Chapel in Clyde, Mo.

Postulant Mary grew up in Tabor in the Loess, a town located in western Iowa, and was drawn to nature at an early age.

“At home you could find me out wandering in the hills. I love nature and was always seeking adventure,” she said. “I dug caves into canyon walls and tried to build little huts and rafts. I played in the creek and climbed trees.”

As the daughter of Protestants, she didn’t hear the word “Catholic” until she was in the seventh grade.

“I was drawn to the word and wanted to learn what it was all about. I went to the school library and looked it up in the encyclopedia,” Postulant Mary said. “From that point on I knew I had to become Catholic, and I read everything I could get my hands on about God and Catholicism.”

As she entered her teenage years, Postulant Mary began thinking about religious life. She realized that becoming a nun was how she could give her entire life to Jesus.

“I wanted a whole-hearted surrender, and this was it,” she said. “Even though I wasn’t Catholic and I had never even seen a religious sister, I knew it was the answer for me.”

She was 16 when she finally entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil, one of the happiest days of her life. After attending the Monastic Experience in Clyde when she was 18, her desire for religious life was strongly re-awakened.

Postulant Mary, who worked as a nursing assistant and in a critical care unit in a hospital before entering, was also active with the National Catholic Youth Conference and taught faith formation to younger members of her parish.

“I want to become a sister because I aspire to a deep relationship with Jesus Christ and want to spend the rest of my life praying for others,” she said. “I am striving to make God the center of my life and to seek his will in all things.”

Women who enter the postulancy spend the first year exploring a religious vocation under the guidance of a spiritual director. Postulants will develop and deepen their prayer life, take classes that aid in the transition to monastic life and work in various jobs throughout the community. If she is accepted into the novitiate, she will observe stricter enclosure for the sake of her discernment and study the Benedictine vows of stability, conversatio and obedience in preparation for her First Monastic Profession.

Sister Mary Esther Elbert, OSB, 96, died April 11, 2008, in Clyde, Mo. She was a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.

She was born Sept. 4, 1911, to Michael and Clara Belle (Kanappel) Elbert in Sedro-Woolley, Wash.

After graduating high school at 16 she attended Holy Names Normal School in Seattle. When her older sister entered the Benedictine Sisters, she became interested in their contemplative life and dedication to the Eucharist. She entered in 1932 and made her final monastic profession on April 22, 1939.

Sister Mary Esther once said, “I just knew I wanted to be a bride of Christ. I am grateful for the beauty of our monastic homes and the peace and quiet that has helped our seeking closer union with Jesus and one another. I recall the awesomeness of adoration, especially at night when in the quiet stillness and semidarkness God seemed so near.”

During her years as a Benedictine Sister, she lived in the congregation’s communities in Mundelein, Ill., San Diego, Tucson, Ariz. and St. Louis. She served in a variety of ministries including work in the printery, the altar bread department, garden, library, maintenance and the reception room. She was as a chronicler, a councilor, an oblate director and worked with the Benedictine Guild and as a pastoral minister.

She was preceded in death by her parents; two sisters, Sister Mary Johanna Elbert, OSB and Josephine Elbert Smernoff; and three brothers, Paul, Anthony and Bernard Elbert.

Sister Mary Esther was known for her joy and her appreciation of beauty in nature, in life and in others. She was generous, gracious and loving. Now one with the Lord whom she adored, she delights in the fullness of joy and beauty.

A Mass of Christian Burial took place on April 14 in the Adoration Chapel, Clyde, followed by burial in Mt. Calvary Cemetery, Clyde.

Memorials can be sent in care of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, 31970 State Highway P, Clyde, Mo. 64432-8100.

Our Lady of Rickenbach, the healthcare facility for the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, was damaged during a fire on Easter Sunday, March 23.

The fire was discovered around 8 a.m., just as the sisters were gathering for prayer services. With assistance from guests, staff members, neighbors and first responders, each of the 25 sisters in residence were evacuated safely to the motherhouse.

While the fire was detected and extinguished quickly by the building’s automatic sprinkler system, much of the interior received extensive water damage.

“Even though the sprinklers put out the fire, the responders were a godsend,” Prioress General Sister Ramona Varela, OSB said. “They immediately went to work cleaning up the water, which was ankle-deep on the floor. If they hadn’t done that, then we would have suffered much more damage to the walls, the floor and contents inside the building.”

Our Lady of Rickenbach, which opened in 2001 to provide a wide range of the sisters’ healthcare needs from recuperative to long-term care, will be closed until restoration efforts are complete. In the meantime, the sisters have been moved to a wing of the motherhouse where they will receive proper medical care under more challenging conditions.

“The sisters are all settled in an area that coincidently used to be the infirmary many years ago,” Clyde Prioress Pat Nyquist, OSB said. “However, we’ll have adjustments to make. There are several people to each room, the restrooms are quite a distance from the bedrooms and the area is not handicapped accessible.”

Investigators will spend the next few days examining the building to determine the cause of the fire and assess the damage, which includes charred trusses in the roof. Insurance will cover much of the repair cost, but the sisters will be responsible for a $5,000 deductible.

It could be several weeks or up to two months before the residents will be able to move back in. In the meantime, the sisters have been deluged with offers of assistance from kind-hearted people throughout the area.

“At this point a walk-in bath tub would be wonderful to install in our temporary infirmary as it would be safer for the sisters to use,” Sister Pat said. “Since there is no designated recreation area at that location, it would also be nice to have volunteers visit to take the sisters for a walk, to enjoy the spring weather.”

When repairs are completed and the sisters can move back to their permanent home, it would be a blessing to have someone help coordinate those relocation efforts, Sister Pat added.

“We’ll need to transport sisters, heavy hospital beds, records, food and other supplies,” she said. “It will take a lot of people working together.”

A fire wasn’t the Easter celebration the sisters were expecting, but they are grateful no one was injured and the building was saved. The outpouring of help from those in the area that morning and afterward has served as another reminder of the miracle celebrated each year.

“Beginning with our heroic guests and ending with generous neighbors, we have been humbled by the kindness we received and know we have been incredibly blessed,” Sister Lynn Marie D’Souza, OSB said. “We have seen with our own eyes the resurrection, where death and destruction do not have the last word and the living spirit of God rises up in God’s people.”

For a list of requested donation items or other ways to help, please contact the Benedictine Sisters at (660) 944-2221.