Читать книгу A Tree Rooted in Faith - Alberta Dieker - Страница 6

The Benedictine sisters who arrived in Oregon in October of 1882 probably did not think of themselves as heroines of history, or even as participants in events that would have long-term significance. They left few records. Certainly each one played a part in her own way, with her own motives and dreams. These may have been passed on by word of mouth, but for those of us who are living a century later, they survive only in the works the women left behind, in a few letters that have been preserved, and in scattered records. Even the diaries and annals tell only of some events, leaving out personal details that would be interesting. Putting their story together is a challenging and sometimes frustrating task.

The sisters who came from Switzerland to Oregon by way of Missouri were a part of what historians today consider a mass migration of peoples from Europe to the Americas. The Land of Opportunity beckoned all kinds of Europeans for many reasons. The reasons that inspired a particular group of sisters to emigrate to the United States and to make a permanent settlement in Oregon are important to our story. A brief look at the historical background from which they came may be helpful.

The history of Western Europe in the late nineteenth century presents a mass of contradictions. Science and technology pointed to a new world of speed and efficiency, with railroad tracks and telegraph wires carrying cargo and communication to distant places at speeds unheard of a century earlier. At the same time, romantic poets and painters portrayed quiet pastoral scenes or recalled the better days of the past, when human beings were greater and more powerful than their machinery. The nineteenth century European, for the most part, looked forward to a wondrous future, and at the same time attempted to recover the past and, in some instances, to breathe life into what was already moribund.

Contradictions and their accompanying tensions were certainly present within the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had, for better or worse, thrust the institutional church into a new and uneasy position. No longer could churchmen depend upon royalty or feudal privilege for material or moral support. The diplomats who met at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 could restore kings to thrones and redraw the national boundaries which Napoleon’s armies had obliterated, but they could not restore the pre-revolutionary way of life nor wipe out the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity those same armies had carried with them. Scattered bishops could return from exile or hiding, surviving monks and nuns could straggle back to what was left of their monastic buildings, but life would not be the same again. Much of the history of the Catholic Church in nineteenth century Europe is a story of struggling for position, of learning to live in a secular state and to survive in a new political world.

While this serious and not always edifying struggle was taking place on the hierarchical level, a groundswell of popular piety gave evidence that faith was still alive among the masses of Europe, both Catholic and Protestant. The need for new forms of expression and a popular revival of religious fervor was evidenced in the pietistic movement, in spiritualism, in the foundation of new preaching and teaching orders, and in an active and intense missionary movement to the unchurched peoples of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Somehow starting anew, with Rousseau’s noble savage in mind, seemed more challenging to some devout Christians than attempting to cope with the complex religious and political issues in what seemed to be a tired and corrupt Europe.

One aspect of the renewed popular piety was a reassertion of the mystical and the miraculous, an affirmation of direct, intuitive, and emotional religious experience, in contrast to the “pure reason” of the Enlightenment. This affirmation took on many forms: new interest in traditional places of pilgrimage, creation of new shrines and saints (Lourdes in France, for example), and a heightened emphasis on adoration and contemplation, often stressed as the opposite of activity and external works. Another manifestation of popular piety was the creation of new religious orders, some specifically for missionary and so-called active work, and others as centers solely for prayer and adoration. The nineteenth century also witnessed the revival of traditional religious orders, sometimes involving the return to ancient monastic sites, in other cases building anew on what were believed to be old traditions.

It is not surprising that this religious revival coincided with and grew upon the renewed interest among European scholars in the history of the Middle Ages. Medieval Europe was a predominantly Christian Europe, and in many ways a Benedictine Europe. New Benedictine monasteries were established with the precise purpose of returning to a pristine form of monastic life. Beuron in Germany was an outstanding example of this effort. The prevailing idea seemed to be that monasteries which had had a continuous existence had become soft and lax, if not corrupt, and therefore could not easily be reformed. Starting anew would guarantee a fresh view. Obviously, contradictions, even rivalries, abounded, and the history of European monasticism in the nineteenth century attests to the uncertainty, even bitterness, fostered by the conviction that there was only one true monastic ideal. The controversy came to America with the early monks and continued well into the twentieth century.

Religious houses of women were also affected by the tensions and excitement of revival. A new demand for charitable works was fostered by the demand for literacy and education—even for women. Furthermore, the dissolution of convents and religious houses during the French Revolution and Napoleonic period all but destroyed the network of charitable and social work institutions—hospitals, orphanages, and asylums for the mentally disturbed—which had existed in Europe up to that time. In many instances, work was left undone since social services had not yet become the prerogative of struggling and uncertain governments. At the same time, the mystic, pietistic movement called for removal from the world and a life devoted entirely to prayer. The tension created by this apparent contradiction also emigrated to America with the early Benedictines and followed them into the next century.

Another sign of tension was the awakening awareness among women of the possibility of new roles and demands within the church of the future. The need for education and vocational training for the poor as well as those who were wealthy and protected became more apparent. Industrialization was changing the economic world as drastically as revolution and democracy were changing the political world. Within the church, the hierarchical structure still remained exclusively male. Prelates and parish priests, missionaries and religious superiors, all had ideas about what women religious should be doing, what prayers they should be saying, and whether their lives should be active or contemplative. Obviously, these ideas did not always coincide with what the sisters themselves thought or wanted. In some instances, it apparently did not occur to the men in the church hierarchy to consult the women about their own destiny.

The Benedictine convent at Maria Rickenbach in Switzerland is a good example of nineteenth century religious revival and popular piety. The story has been told many times of the shrine on the mountain containing a statue of the Blessed Virgin. A shepherd boy had found the image and saved it from destruction by fire during the religious wars of the sixteenth century. By means considered miraculous, the statue had remained in a tree on the mountainside, and eventually had been enshrined. This almost inaccessible place became a pilgrimage spot for the hardy souls who could make their way up the mountainside.1

Among the people who made this pilgrimage in the spring of 1853 were two young women who were members of the Society of Divine Providence, an almost clandestine religious order, dressed in lay clothes and making vows a year at a time. The women dedicated themselves to the education of country girls and to the care of orphans and the aged. Sister Mary Vincentia Gretener was in poor health and in need of rest. Her doctor recommended fresh Alpine air, so she proceeded to Maria Rickenbach, accompanied by Sister Mary Gertrude Leupi, who was selected by lot to be her companion. As the story goes, the two sisters climbed the mountain to the shrine, whereupon Sister Gertrude was inspired to make the spot her new home—specifically, a convent dedicated to the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Again, the contradictions are apparent—two members of an institute founded specifically for external works now believed themselves called to a cloistered and contemplative life. That their convent would also become a Benedictine house was almost an accident, or an act of providence. The confessor appointed for the group was a Benedictine priest from the nearby abbey at Engelberg. Sister Gertrude took him into her confidence, and he encouraged her in her ambition to found a new religious house on the mountain.2

The contradictions show themselves even here. The desire of Sister Gertrude to found a community of Benedictine women near that of the men at Engelberg was zealous and sincere. So was her overwhelming conviction that the sisterhood should be devoted above all to perpetual adoration. A Benedictine community founded expressly for this purpose was without precedent in the Holy Rule or in the traditional concept of the Order. Apparently, this fact did not deter either the enthusiasm of the women or the approval of the men. There was a question about whether the sisters should be reciting the Divine Office (which apparently they did not even consider at the beginning). The men settled the question for them, pointing out that the sisters were oblates, and not really members of the Benedictine Order.

Within a generation of its foundation, the convent at Maria Rickenbach would send sisters to the United States, and eventually to Oregon to establish the first Benedictine motherhouse in the Pacific Northwest. The signs of contradiction evident in many of the church leaders of the nineteenth century were noticeable also in Mother Bernardine Wachter, the German girl destined to become the foundress of a Swiss-American community of Benedictine sisters. The pioneer sisters of the convent in Mt. Angel, Oregon remembered Mother Bernardine as a brilliant woman, and revered her as a saint. Her carefully written commentaries on the Holy Rule and her instructions to the novices reveal a serious spirituality. At the same time, other evidence points to a strong-willed, if not stubborn, woman unable to be deterred from a given course once she determined it was right for her. Some of her contemporaries, including Ignatius Conrad, founder of New Subiaco Abbey in Arkansas, considered her impossible to get along with, inconsiderate of others, and totally under the influence of the Benedictine priest Adelhelm Odermatt. According to some accounts, Sister Bernardine was sickly and frequently took to her bed while others did the work. Mention is made of screaming fits when things did not go her way.

In spite of these acknowledged weaknesses, this same sickly, hysterical woman was selected to be a part of Adelheim Odermatt’s missionary group to America. She was assigned to teach the German-speaking Swiss sisters in Maryville, Missouri how to instruct their American pupils. She was also chosen to be the assistant to Mother Gertrude Leupi, founder of Maria Rickenbach and herself a missionary in Missouri. When this intrepid woman went on to the Dakotas to work among the Indians, she took Sister Bernardine with her. Finally, when Adelhelm Odermatt obtained permission to establish a Benedictine convent in the Far West, he asked for Sister Bernardine. Out of these contradictions and conflicts was born the first motherhouse of Benedictine sisters in Oregon.