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The History of the Ferdinand Benedictines

The story of the Ferdinand Benedictines actually begins in sixth-century Italy at the time St. Benedict wrote his Rule for monks. The sixth century was a period of great chaos. The Roman Empire was in decline, and barbarian hordes were invading Europe. Famine and disease swept through the cities, and families were uprooted.

To a time of chaos, Benedict responded with a call for stability and rootedness. To a society in which the family structure was decaying, Benedict offered a model of community based on love and respect for one another. To a world which had forgotten the love of God, Benedict called for prayer and study of Scripture in order to listen to God's word.

As Benedictine monasteries spread throughout Europe, they carried with them a desire for learning, a sense of family, and a message of God's love. Western civilization was preserved, and Western monasticism was born.

Over the centuries, Benedictines adapted themselves to the needs of the church and culture in which they found themselves, including that of the American wilderness.

In 1851, Rev. Boniface Wimmer, OSB, superior of the Benedictine monks in America, visited St. Walburga Abbey in Eichstätt, Germany, to ask the sisters to begin a foundation in the United States. A year later, on July 4, 1852, three sisters arrived in New York Harbor to start their new lives in America. The three, Sisters Benedicta Riepp, Walburga Dietrich, and Maura Fleiger, settled in the small town of St. Marys, Pennsylvania.

Despite hardships and poverty, the community grew and began to branch out to other locations. In 1859, one of St. Marys foundations, a community at Erie, gained its independence. That same year, three sisters left Erie for Covington, Kentucky, to serve in that diocese at the request of the bishop.

The Covington community grew rapidly. When the dwelling that served as both convent and a girls' school became too small, the sisters constructed a new building they dedicated as St. Walburg Convent.

It was to this convent that Rev. Chrysostom Foffa, OSB, came when he needed teachers for a school in Ferdinand. On August 20, 1867, four sisters from St. Walburg—Sisters Mary Benedicta Berns, 21, Mary Rose Chapelle, 19, Mary Xaveria Schroeder, 23, and Mary Clara Vollmer, 33—arrived in Ferdinand. Two days after their arrival, they received their first postulant.

These four Benedictine women were makers of history, as much pioneers as the trailblazing figures we usually think of bravely heading out into unknown territory.

From this beginning has grown a vibrant community of sisters, which gave rise over the years to eight additional monasteries and a retreat and conference center that provides a warm and caring haven for the soul's journey.

From this beginning has come forth an endless succession of ripples—waves of energy, spirit, and faith—that have touched and changed people's lives.