Thanks to contributions from some of our donors, the Rosary Steps leading up to Our Lady of Fatima Shrine near the top of Grotto Hill have undergone an “extreme makeover.” Workers replaced the original steps of sandstone blocks and gravel built in 1948 with aggregate concrete. They also installed new wiring for electricity and light fixtures and hope to complete the landscaping within the next few weeks. We invite visitors to the monastery to enjoy the serene, sacred setting of Grotto Hill. Other devotional shrines there include Stations of the Cross, Our Lady of Lourdes, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, added in 2007.

We sisters and our employees and their families enjoyed an evening of games, food, prizes, conversation, and friendship during our annual employee family picnic. While the adults played bingo and Euchre, or just socialized, some sisters took the children outside for other games and activities. 

Founders Day

On this date, 141 years ago, our monastery was established in the small village of Ferdinand. 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, 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, and within two weeks, they took charge of the school and began teaching the 125 students enrolled.

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

From 1957 to 2004, Sister Wilma Davis ministered at the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, especially at St. Ann’s Parish, in Belcourt, North Dakota. She also helped establish Queen of Peace Monastery in Belcourt. One of her roles for many years was director of the Benedictine Oblate program. After returning to the Ferdinand monastery in 2004, she was asked to help with the Oblate program here. Today, she was once again ministering to the Oblates in the Belcourt area, while sitting in front of a video camera.

Sister Wilma Davis sits before a video camera, taping two conferences she prepared for a Benedictine Oblate retreat that will be held in September at Queen of Peace Inn in Belcourt. The coordinator of the Oblates in Belcourt encouraged Sister Wilma to give talks for the retreat. She did that, choosing “mindfulness” as her theme, and will send the tape, along with her prayers and blessing, to the Belcourt group. Last May, at 87, Sister Wilma moved to the monastery’s Hildegard Health Center, but she hasn’t “retired” yet. She continues to be interested and involved in various activities and ministries.

Four weeks from today, on September 8, the Sisters of St. Benedict Dome Golf Classic will be underway at the restored Donald Ross Course at French Lick, Indiana. The 2008 Gala at the historic West Baden Springs Hotel on Sunday evening, September 7, will be history.

If you want to be a part of these exciting fund-raising events for the sisters (and meet some special guests), check the information on this web site. You can also participate in the Dome Classic and Gala raffles with mega-prizes totaling $20,000 and an Indianapolis Colts football package. See that information on this web site also.

Sister Dolorita Libs shows a quilt that she, with the help of other sisters, made and contributed to the raffle. The 100 x 88-inch quilt has embroidered lavender daisies in blocks bordered with print and dark green pieces. The quilting was done primarily by Sister Dolorita.

*Kordes Center, our monastery guest facility, is available for rental for groups and organizations needing meeting rooms, dining facilities, food services, and overnight accommodations. Call 812-367-1411, ext. 2901, or 800-880-2777.

Monastery tourism director Sister Christine Kempf gives a brief talk about the Ferdinand monastery and the Benedictine sisters to educators on a pilgrimage from Dayton, Ohio.

Maybe these could be called the "garden" days of summer. We don't plant the huge gardens with great varieties of vegetables that we did in years past, but it seems that gardens are making a comeback here at the monastery, as well as across the country. About a dozen sisters, sort of "leisure-time gardeners" who like to spend time in the early morning or evenings, are now harvesting some of the vegetables they planted and tended through the summer. Still to be harvested in the fall are sweet potatoes and Job's Tears. 

Sister Dolores Folz, and a few other sisters, supply fresh tomatoes and zucchini for our meals these days.