Telling stories of miracles involving cows, coal, a missed train and a very memorable food delivery, the Bernardine Franciscan Sisters on Saturday gave a tour of Alvernia University and spoke of their history and longtime mission.
The tour on Saturday replicated the footsteps of Mother Veronica Grzedowska, the founder of the sisters’ community, and highlighted important aspects of its life and ministries.
About 50 attended the “pilgrimage,” as the sisters called it, which was held inside due to the weather and gave information about the sisters’ work locally, across the country and around the world.
The Bernardine Franciscan Sisters date to 1453 in Poland, where a group of laywomen took public vows and formed a cloistered community.
In 1894, members of the cloister received a request for sisters to travel to the United States to teach the children of Polish immigrants. Four sisters, including Mother Veronica, made the trip to St. Joseph Convent in Mount Carmel, Schuylkill County.
A year later the sisters received orders to find a new home in the U.S. or return to Poland. They relocated to Reading a year later.
During the 1920s, Mother Veronica was gifted a 10-acre parcel of land on which to build a motherhouse. The site became known as Mount Alvernia and is the present location of Alvernia University, which was founded there in 1958. Also on site is Sacred Heart Convent and St. Joseph Villa. A building on Alvernia’s campus is named in honor of Mother Veronica.
In Reading the sisters took in an orphaned girl named Mary and continued to take in and raise children who had lost their parents, over time caring for more than 1,000 orphans.
None of that would have taken place in Reading, though, had several sisters not missed a train returning from the city to Mount Carmel during their search for a new home. The sisters were invited to spend the night at St. Mary’s Parish in Reading, which led them to remain in the city permanently The Bernadine Franciscan community views it as divine intervention.
Other events the sisters view as miracles are:
- On a snowy night in the 1800s when no one could walk to get food and the community grew hungry, the sisters prayed for help. A man knocked on their door to deliver sacks of rice and flour but then quickly vanished and left no trace of tracks in the snow. The sisters believe it was St. Joseph who delivered that food.
- After the community’s cows died suddenly, a group of people from Shenandoah, Schuylkill County — where the sisters had set up St. Casmir’s school — walked 50 miles from Reading to deliver three cows and three goats.
- With a coal strike leaving the Bernadine Franciscan community without fuel for its stoves, the people of Shenandoah volunteered their time and wagons to deliver 25 loads of coal to the sisters.
“The Lord works in strange ways, and as Mother Veronica, we continue to trust in divine providence,” said Sister Carol Ann, who hosted the event.
The sisters spoke about how they continue to serve people at schools, orphanages, hospitals and retreat houses through the U.S. and through their mission and ministries at home and in Brazil, Liberia, Dominican Republic and Mozambique.
For a group of four that drove to Alvernia from Shenandoah for the event, it is their respect for those good works that draw them to the campus every year.
Shenandoah has contributed more than 100 sisters to the community over the years, and their work is inspiring, said resident Joseph Selvocki.
“We love the sisters,” he said.
Source: Berkshire mont
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