During an in-service program today, sisters and monastery employees were given tips on how to keep healthy and well.

Sister Kate Willegal, director of community health services for the monastery, presents the program on “Health and Wellness.”

Founders Day — Today we celebrate the 140th anniversary of our founding.

"The western sky was aglow with a brilliant sunset, the Angelus bell in St. Ferdinand church tower was pealing forth its joyful message, when on that memorable day, the Feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, August 20, 1867, four Benedictine pioneers with their Mother Superior drove up the hill to their future home near the stone church in Ferdinand. This was no uninhabited region or desolate town that the Sisters found, for the hamlet was composed of log huts and some frame houses interspersed with cornfields and cow pastures, a sprawling village extending north and south at the foot of a gently sloping hill."

Thus begins The Castle on the Hill, a book relating the first one-hundred years of the Benedictine sisters of Ferdinand, Indiana, written for their centennial by Sister Frederica Dudine, OSB, in 1967.

It was August 19, 1867, when four young sisters and their superior arrived in Loogootee, Indiana, from St. Walburg Monastery in Covington, Kentucky. Sisters Mary Benedicta Berns, 21, Mary Rose Chapelle, 19, Mary Xaveria Schroeder, 23, and Mary Clara Vollmer, 33, and Mother Alexia Lechner had traveled by train to Loogootee, the railroad station closest to Ferdinand. Early the next day, August 20, Father Chrysostom Foffa, a Benedictine monk and pastor of St. Ferdinand Parish, arrived in Loogootee to transport the sisters to Ferdinand, a day’s journey by horse and buggy over 35 miles of rough and bumpy roads. It is that date — August 20, 1867 — that we celebrate as the founding of the Sisters of St. Benedict of Ferdinand, Indiana.

The sisters came to southern Indiana at Father Chrysostom’s request for teachers for the children of the German-speaking settlers. Only two days after their arrival, the sisters accepted their first postulant into the convent. The Ferdinand Benedictine community currently numbers 180 sisters.

• A Chronicle of Founders' Day
• Take a historical tour of the monastery.

Today is a golden day – a golden jubilee day of awe, gratitude, and reverence for our sisters celebrating the 50th anniversary of their monastic profession. We honor and celebrate their years of faithfulness and perseverance in their commitment to the monastic way of life. Like gold, tried and purified by fire, these jubilarians have been made strong and beautiful by the joys and challenges of life these 50 years.

Sisters Mary Agnes Sermersheim, Corda Trouy, Christine Kempf, and Jan Youart read and renew their monastic promises they made 50 years ago, recommitting themselves to "stability in this monastery, fidelity to the monastic way of life, and obedience."

Fifty-five sisters from Canada, Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Indiana, all 55 years old or younger, gathered at our monastery these days to be “fired up.” The purpose for the "Gathering of 55 and Younger" event, sponsored by the Federation of St. Gertrude, was "for those sisters to get better acquainted with each other because they are the ones who will carry the Benedictine charism into the future," according to Sister Kathryn Huber, Ferdinand Benedictine and president of the Federation.

At the closing ritual on Saturday evening, each sister put a piece of wood on the fire to symbolize the theme of the gathering, "Stoking the Fire." They committed their energy, wisdom, experiences, and enthusiasm to continue the Benedictine life and charism through their monastic communities.