The Legacy of Our Acts of Trust

Many things had to happen for me to make my perpetual profession as a Benedictine sister — some reaching back all the way to 1863! In that year the prior at St. Benedict’s Abbey, Augustine Wirth, decided that a school was needed for the rapidly growing town of Atchison. One hundred families formed a society and pledged to pay 50 cents per month to pay for the new building. My great-great-grandfather, Lambert Halling, an immigrant from Frankfort, Germany, who worked as a carpenter for the Abbey, started swinging his hammer, and seven Benedictine sisters from St. Cloud, Minnesota, agreed to move to Kansas to staff the school. Lambert met the sisters at the Ferry on the evening of November 11, 1863, escorted them to their new convent and school, and stood guard until morning to protect them from harm. Thus the community of Mount St. Scholastica was established — the place where, 159 years later, I have found a home for my vocation.

Prior Augustine, the townspeople of Atchison, my great-great-grandfather, and the sisters from St. Cloud had no idea if their efforts in this frontier town during the Civil War would be successful, but they saw a need and came together to act on it. We can take inspiration from their story to do the same thing in our own time. Not many of us can build a school out of our own resources or meet any of the other pressing needs of our society alone. However, when we are united in the Body of Christ, we have the power to improve the lives of others, and our efforts come back to us as a blessing,

My great-great-grandfather cannot have known that in 159 years, his great-great-granddaughter would take vows in the community of sisters he helped to house and protect. None of us can foresee the effects of our actions, but as American Civil Rights leader Ralph Abernathy said, ““I don’t know what the future may hold, but I know who holds the future.” When we act on behalf of others and leave the outcome in God’s hands, we can be at peace, a peace the world cannot give.