Sister reflects on Founding Energies Pilgrimage to Bavaria

 

by Maria Friedman, FSPA

It was my privilege to be among the 25 FSPA and Sisters of St. Francis (OSF) sisters who made the Founding Energies trip to Milwaukee and Bavaria June 1-18.

We began with three days at the OSF convent near Milwaukee. Here on Lake Michigan, in 1849, 14 Franciscan tertiaries began their life in America.

Founding Energies pilgrims pose at the founders' graves. Standing, left to right, Sisters Fran Sulzer, Laurice Heybl, Maria Friedman, Carrie Kirsch, Sharon Bongiorno, Clarone Brill, Donna Storms, Ladonna Kassmeyer, Marcella Steffes, Constance Walton, Marianne Vogel, OSF, Jeanne Storms, Pat Gordon, Malinda Gerke, Carol Arenz, Juanita Hytry, Mona Brunner, FSE (in Milwaukee only), JoAnn Schmitz, OSF, Virdean Meyer, Antona Schedlo, Janet Dalton and Florence Deacon, OSF. In foreground, Marcia Lunz, OSF, Margaret Kruse, OSF, and Mary Eve Hytry and Beth Saner

The first convent is gone, but we touched the cornerstone now preserved in the convent museum. We ate our meals in the 1861 convent. We saw the graves of the two priests, two brothers and some of the early sisters. We traveled into Milwaukee to sing and pray at the graves of the six women founders.

Then we were off to Bavaria.

One gets a different sense of time in Germany. We stayed in Augsburg, its oldest city, founded in 15 B.C. by the Romans. Its town hall goes back to when the English were founding Jamestown, its cathedral, to the first millennium. We spent a day in Dillingen with the community where Mother Aemiliana may have made her novitiate. It was founded in 1241.

In Ebersbach we saw the house where Mother Aemiliana spent her first 16 years and the church where she was baptized. A highlight of the trip was our two times at Ettenbeuren, first for a reflective visit and then, our final Sunday, for an exuberant Mass and banquet.

We went to Eichstätt, a city substantially larger than the other towns we visited. At the Benedictine church where Mother Antonia attended Sunday vespers as a young woman, the sisters were chanting the office in tones as ethereal as when she prayed there over 160 years ago.

The churches were impressive. It was easy for me to imagine our forebearers drawn by the art and architecture, as well as the ceremonies, to religious life.

We saw the grave of the bishop who had given permission to the two priests to go to America. In the margin of a document he had written, “I agree!”

But the trip was other things also, among them exquisite hospitality. Twice we went to homes in groups of two or three. Several times we enjoyed 3 p.m. kuchen and coffee. We sang hymns in German and English and were impressed with the Bavarian enjoyment of singing. We exchanged gifts–and gifts–and more gifts.

We had free Saturdays when we could pick a site of interest–Dachau, Ulm, Salzburg and Friedberg, the latter a sister city of La Crosse. Seven of us toured their museum, located in an ancient castle.

Sister Clarone Brill climbs the staircase constructed by Joseph Zahler inside St. Francis Seminary, Milwaukee, Wis.
Photos courtesy of Ladonna Kassmeyer, FPA

Finally, the trip was experiencing Germany. In Ettenbeuren, a village of only a couple thousand, are monuments to those who died in war. I counted 70 names for World War I, 118 for World War II. It is a country marked by suffering. We experienced also their national pride in the European Cup, a soccer tournament taking place while we were there. Germany won.

We enjoyed the exceptionally green countryside (with no billboards). We marveled at conservation efforts, far beyond what our own country offers.

One image will stay in my mind and heart. At the seminary in Milwaukee, we walked the stately staircase constructed by Joseph Zahler (Brother Anthony) in the 1850s. It does what stairways do, carry one to the next floor. But then, on the fourth floor it opens to a bright, spacious upper room, a place to visit, reflect, dream. From there the staircase continues in a tight spiral to the tower and a striking view of the surrounding area.

Mother Aemiliana and the other founding sisters were still with the community when this stairway was built. I picture them going after a long day to admire Brother Anthony’s artistry. Did they see in it a metaphor for their lives—building a structure that would provide enduring service to the church and society but also lead its members to the deepest desire of their hearts, communion with the Divine?

They probably didn’t. They were too close to what was happening and they could not know that three religious communities would grow from their humble beginnings.

But they were courageous women. They laid the foundations for our lives and for that I sing, “Großer Gott, wir loben dich.”