THE estate at Ridgewood with its one hundred secluded acres seemed an ideal setting for a Franciscan convent. Away from the din and bustling activity of the city, in idyllic surroundings of the miles and miles of uninhabited woodland, it gave the atmosphere of peace and solitude so conducive to a life desired by most souls espoused to God. The tall ancient trees, elm and poplar, ash and locust, pine and hemlock, stood on guard like sentinels in countless numbers between the estate and the city below. Except from the highway, nothing save the light penetrating the thick and heavy foliage had access here. The only sounds besides the childish voices of the orphan children came from the gurgling brook which cut through the land, the numerous birds that nestled in the branches of the trees, the rustling leaves moved by the breeze, the hooting owl on a moonlit night or the howling wind on a stormy day. Yet it was this very distance from the city and the resulting inconvenience that led Mother Veronica to abandon it later.
There were five buildings when the purchase was made, but having been unoccupied for three years, all needed a complete renovation before they could be brought to a condition making them habitable. One of the smaller buildings was set aside for the orphans, another for the chaplain, a third for the lay helpers, a fourth for guests and the largest stone edifice of fourteen rooms was used as the Sister’s quarters. It was hemmed in by thickly planted boxwood, from under which the climbing wistaria clawed upward covering the filigreed wrought iron front.
This structure housed the chapel with the altar brought from Reading set in the bay window and the statue of the Sacred Heart in its usual prominent place. Mother Veronica set up another shrine for the Blessed Mother on the marble mantelpiece of the fireplace. She embroidered a beautiful antependium with the artistically designed letters forming the name Mary. She had a very special place for the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa which she brought from Europe. It was on the outside wall above the main entrance to signify that she placed the protection of the home in the hands of her Heavenly Mother. And the Blessed Mother proved her love. During the eight years that the Sisters lived at Ridgewood, far from the protection of the city’s police, they were never once molested y any stranger. Neither did they experience at any time the slightest fear which distance from protection usually creates. She had a belfry erected over the part of the building containing the chapel and bought a bell that would ring out the Angelus thrice daily, and when it was blessed, she gave it, too, the name of Mary. The same bell peals out its joyful sounds at Mt. Alvernia for the Angelus and services today; it tolls its mournful sounds accompanying the mortal remains of each Bernardine to her final resting place in the convent garden.
The Danish writer Jorgensen in his biography of St. Francis states that a life of “prayer and labor, poverty and joyousness” is the flower of Franciscanism. Conditions for the blooming of this plant flourished abundantly at Ridgewood.
Prayer was the very essence of Mother Veronica’s life, the alpha and omega of her every day and every action. It penetrated the very roots of her existence. It saturated every action of her life. The Sisters coming to her at Ridgewood caught the spirit without delay. She continued her love for the recitation of the breviary, she fingered her rosary beads whenever her hands or mind were otherwise idle, and she sang the hours of the Office of the Blessed Virgin, the so-called “godzinki” with a melody that only first generation Poles can recall.
Labor was plentiful for it had to be to keep body and soul not only together but willing to play their part in the order of the day. The Sisters teaching in Reading walked the three miles to school, and after a strenuous day with a group of active youngsters this was not easy. When the school closed to make room for the church that was planned for the parish, and the Sisters had no income for their support, they had to take to the labor of their hands and from the sale of produce from the farm eke out a living. Mother Veronica taught the young girls and Sisters the dignity of honest toil by providing the example.
Poverty was present, though outwardly it would seem not to be, since the landed estate was large and the abundant harvests from the farmland made hunger practically unknown. But the debt was heavy and cash income often completely lacking. There were inconveniences to be put up with, too. There was no electricity in the entire establishment and the Sisters had to depend on kerosene lamps for light. There was no running water; all was drawn from an out-door well and carried wherever required. Mother Veronica encouraged the Sisters to love a frugal life and to cultivate the joy of possessing nothing but that which is eternal. She did not allow herself, either to become ruffled by the anxiety over the community’s debts. “The Lord will provide. Have faith and confidence and all will be well. He desires that we have no more than we have at present. May His will be done.” In words like these she admonished those who were tempted to complain. “May the spirit of poverty accompany each of my Sisters wherever she may be,” was her frequent prayer.
And joyousness abounded. The originator of the spirit of joy that permeated the atmosphere at Ridgewood was none other than the one shouldering the greatest responsibility for the flock entrusted to her care. By nature gay and light of heart, no one could remain sad in her company. She had the wisdom and the tact to prevent storms long brewing and to bring the sunshine in their place. A story or a humorous anecdote from Mother Veronica was known to have very soothing effects. She could be joyous for she did not know the misery of a divided will. She knew how to meet every circumstance and happening of the day with confidence and cheerfulness, because she was not alone, but in the company of a sympathetic and understanding Friend.
The Lord never left the Sisters lacking in friendly hearts. The people from St. Mary’s parish did not forget their sisters when they left Spruce Street and came to Ridgewood, and frequently came to their aid when in need. The buildings, with the exception of the chapel room, were heated by woodburning stoves; the men from the parish kept the Sister’s woodboxes always filled, sawing or cutting the wood in the forest long after their day’s heavy work. During the harvest they generously donated their time and labor, often working long after dark since they commenced the Sister’s work after coming home from the factory or the mill. Mr. Adalbert Jankowski was one of these magnanimous souls; he had a night job in the factory after which he walked the three miles to Ridgewood, worked until two in the afternoon, walked back home, rested a few hours and then went to his work in the mill. He took care of the farm, planting and harvesting – all without ever accepting any recompense for his time or work.
The people from Shenandoah encouraged by their pastor, the Reverend J. Lenarkiewicz, generously provided in their own way for the Sisters’ and the children’s needs. They donated the coal at all times that was needed, and when Mother Veronica voiced her concern over the children’s health, they furnished a cow for milk which two older men led the fifty mile distance from Shenandoah to Ridgewood.
Mother Veronica’s need for a handy man at Ridgewood was providentially taken care of when a Brother Erasmus from an Order dispersed by the same decree that had earlier made Mother Veronica an exile, had been recommended by the pastor of St. Joseph’s parish in Philadelphia. He was advanced in years but his agility and skill at all types of work essential in an establishment like that at Ridgewood were unrivalled, and his devotion to duty made him appreciated enormously by Mother Veronica. She acknowledged God’s goodness in being able to gain his services for her convent.
The Lord sent Mother Veronica her two greatest benefactors during her stay at Ridgewood in the persons of two priests of the archdiocese of Philadelphia. The first of these was the Very Reverend George Borneman, a pastor of St. Paul’s, a man of great vision, keen social interests and an eager fisher of souls. To his fifty years of pastoral care at St. Paul’s, his founding of St. Joseph’s Hospital in 1872 during the epidemic of that year, his establishment of two orphanages, St. Catherine’s for girls and St. Paul’s for boys, his gift and foundation of the Neversink Sanatorium, the origin and structure of the Home of the Good Shepherd for Girls, help in the development of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, the erection of St. Paul’s parochial school and convent for the Sisters – to all these may be added a great share in the foundation of the Bernardine Sisters in America.
Monsignor Borneman aided the Poles in Reading when St. Mary’s parish was forming; he became interested, therefore, in the Bernardines when they appeared there to take over the school. When Mother Veronica moved to Ridgewood his interest in the Sisters followed them there, and he offered to give the advice and protection she so badly needed at the time. His great apostolic soul discerned the future possibilities for the spread of God’s kingdom on earth through the community; he reckoned the countless number of souls that will be saved through the zeal of its members, thus his solicitude for its firm foundation and subsequent careful growth. He was Mother Veronica’s chief advisor and fatherly protector during all those years. And she was ever grateful to Monsignor Borneman for the support he gave.
It was Monsignor Borneman who introduced Mother Veronica to her second great benefactor, Father Heinan. Resembling the Monsignor in his missionary zeal, Father Heinan was equally influential among the Catholics of the Lehigh Valley when he was appointed to his pastoral duties in the sparsely settled region in 1868. First from Lehighton and later from Mauch Chunk his apostolic endeavors reached out among the immigrant Catholics who labored in the coal mines, cement quarries and steel mills in that section of the state. He had shown his ability to cope with unsurmountable difficulties as a law student at the university in Germany; later as an officer in the German army. The same degree of energy was put to use in his missionary engagements in America. These stretched out to the very margin of the archdiocese and were carried on interminably between 1868 and 1910, the year of his death. During this span of time he organized about nineteen parishes for the Slovak population in the diocese. As vicar-forane he gave an immense amount of aid to the non-English speaking Catholics. Mother Veronica’s correspondence of 1899, 1900 and 1901 shows his instrumentality in settling important affairs for the Bernardine Sisters Community. His advanced age did not hinder him from travelling the great distance between his parish and Ridgewood, thence to Philadelphia to the Archbishop to help the young Community. The permission to accept schools in the entire archdiocese in 1899 and the granting of diocesan approval to the community in 1900 crowned his earnest efforts in Mother Veronica’s behalf.
These years were trying ones for Mother Veronica and the state of uncertainty that she labored with was enough to break down a less intrepid soul. Father Heinan was her God-sent guardian to carry her through the difficult years. It is hard to get a complete picture of these times but this much is certain. When the Sisters were sent to America no plans had been made for the erection of a separate motherhouse in the United States. The first school was considered a daughter house of the convent in Europe and the Reverend Father Provincial of the Friars Minor decided all matters of importance. After the Sisters had been settled in Reading and Mother Veronica saw the urgent need of a novitiate here, she appealed for the necessary permission from her superiors which she immediately received. But the permission from the Archbishop of Philadelphia was necessary and when the appeal was made, approval from Rome for the venture was asked for. She presented the state of affairs to the Provincial in Poland who in turn was to settle the matter with the Sacred Congregation in Rome. When the reply came, a commendation from the Archbishop was made the first requisite and none could be had at the time. In the meantime, vocations were being lost, and those girls waiting for their reception were growing impatient with the delay. The Franciscan Father acting for the Provincial in his absence in Europe, not having known Mother Veronica, laid the blame for the delay in gaining the approval of the Ordinary on her inefficiency and inability to settle matters properly. However he did succeed in getting the necessary permission from the Minister General in Rome.
This must have been a heavy trial for Mother Veronica. Added to this was the fact that the Sisters during that year had no employment in school, for the construction of the new St. Mary’s church on the basement foundation used as classrooms, forced the pastor to close the school temporarily. The Sisters now lived from the produce of their lands or the alms which they received from kind friends. The future certainly looked dark again for Mother Veronica and only her great faith and deep confidence in the patient and loving Heart of Jesus kept her from losing courage. The Lord, it seems, wanted her sacrifice and suffering that a solid foundation be laid for the structure she was to build. The hours she spent prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel at Ridgewood entreating the Most Sacred Heart for deliverance from that uncertainty were abundantly repaid later. For it was then that Father Heinan took matters into his hands, picked up as it were, all the loose threads of the new establishment and effected all that was necessary for the erection of a novitiate and the development of their work. The community remained, however, under the jurisdiction of the Friars Minor in Europe; not until the First World War which disrupted communications with the Old World did it become completely independent of the European foundation.
The end of October marked its gentle passage in the golden autumn of the year 1901 when the first reception in the Ridgewood chapel took place. Six young ladies were ready to receive the habit of the Bernardine Sisters, Frances Borowska, Rosalie Wisniewska, Mary and Veronica Grzybowski, Marciana Szyrynska and Anna Szulc. In bridal gowns and veils, each accompanied by a little flower girl, they entered the chapel and the Mass of the day began. No one’s heart throbbed with greater joy than Mother Veronica’s at the sight. Those were her first brides of Christ to appear before the altar ready to profess their desire to become Bernardines.
As the priest sang the offertory prayers the autumn sun pierced the diamond shaped panes of glass in the bay window, caught the deep-yellow chrysanthemums on the altar and shot them through with a tinge of purplish-red. The young brides encircled the altar making offerings of their symbolic gifts: a coin, signifying renouncement of worldly goods; a gold ring, the sacrifice of their will; and a wreath, their choice of perpetual virginity. Mother Veronica joined in the psalm JESU CORONA VIRGINUM chanted during the offering in sincere prayer:
Jesu the Virgin’s crown do Thou
Accept us as in prayer we bow
Born of that Virgin whom alone
The Mother and the Maid we own.
Amongst the lilies Thou dost feed
By virgin choirs accompanied
With glory decked, the spotless brides
Whose bridal gifts Thy love provides.
They whereso’er Thy footsteps lead
With hymns and praises still attend
In blessed troops they follow Thee
With dance and song and melody.
We pray Thee, therefore, to bestow
Upon our senses here below
That grace that so we may endure
From taint of all corruption pure.
All laud to God the Father be
All praise, Eternal Son to Thee
All glory as is ever meet
To God the Holy Paraclete.
When they received the habit her joy knew no bounds. They would wear it as a symbol of mortification and as an armor against the world, flesh, and devil. They accepted the cincture that they may live as perpetual lovers of the Lord and bound by obedience; the veil that they may always guard with undefiled purity mind and body and that when prepared by the Lord’s inspiration they may approach Him in the ranks of the wise virgins for the eternal reward of the blessed. They then changed their bridal gowns and veils for the garb of the Bernardines. From now they would be Sister Marie, Seraphine, Hiacynth, Clara, Rose, and Antonine. These were her first Bernardines.
Through the transparent panel to her right she saw the fluttering amber leaves fall to the ground. Summer with its blistering heat was over and the harvest time was at hand. Here were the signs of her first harvest, a chosen few, who like her would be willing to tread the same path that she had been following for many years. These would be Franciscan lovers of the Sacred Heart, ready to serve their Lord and Master, ready to make the sacrifice of their ardent souls to labor for the glory of that Heart and the salvation of souls.
Three more similar scenes were enacted in the Ridgewood chapel in the years 1902, 1903, and 1905. In 1902 the chapel was the scene of the first religious profession in the Bernardine Community. Vocations trickled in, slowly, it is true, but the souls came, in search of what Mother Veronica herself had found. The young community had no vocational directress in charge if sponsoring vocations or making known the existence of the Bernardines; it still had no numerous works providing contact with the youth of the day, but somehow girls came, and entered and stayed on. The foundation was from God and therefore had a magnetism that drew souls. The Holy Spirit secretly at work through the fundamental channel of grace in the Divine economy of the Church influenced her daughters with a profound efficiency. Christ’s call, “Come follow Me” first spoken to the rich young man of the gospel – echoed through the centuries – spoke in the hearts of these girls who turned away from the glitter of the world’s tinsel because the warmth of the love of Christ urged them to a life of sacrifice.
In the matter of her early vocations Mother Veronica, too, had her trial. Her new community was looked upon with distrust and many promising vocations were deliberately turned away by well-meaning individuals with the advice that they seek a well established Order or an older and proven one. There were instances where the parents of those who had entered and were really happy with the Bernardines were visited by the clergy and advised to recall their daughters because the Community gave no promise of a fruitful future. Mother Angela, third Superior General of the Bernardines, was one of those whose parents were visited shortly before she made her profession of vows. Mother Veronica’s heart bled as she saw the young girls who would have been real assets to the young community and its apostolic work dissuaded from joining its ranks, but in her sweet characteristic way she repeated with submission: “God rules here as He does elsewhere in His universe, and when He shall see fit to increase our numbers, without doubt He will do so.”
After permission had been granted to Mother Veronica to accept schools in the entire diocese, calls came to Ridgewood faster than the supply could be filled. In 1899 father Joseph Lenarkiewicz from St. Casimir’s in Shenandoah filed his application and the Sisters went there to teach. This school is therefore the community’s oldest. Mother Veronica sent Sisters to Trenton the same year but they remained there only three years. In 1900 at Father Tomiak’s invitation they went to St. Josaphat’s in Manayunk, Philadelphia; in 1901 answering Father Olesnicki’s request they accepted St. Stanislaus school in Shenandoah. In the Scranton diocese, the parish of St. Stanislaus in Nanticoke through its pastor Father Ignatius Gramlewicz succeeded in having Mother Veronica send two Sisters to take care of the First Communion class in 1900; in 1903 they went there to take over the school. In 1904 St. Mary’s parish in the same town opened a school; in 1905 the Sisters went to St. Stanislaus parish in Hazleton, at the request of the pastor, Reverend Richard Aust. In the Altoona diocese, the Reverend James Saas, pastor of St. John Cantius parish of Windber, invited the Sisters in 1904.
The first Sisters embarking on their teaching career in the early days of the community were far from being adequately prepared professionally for their duties in the classroom, even though educational standards at the turn of the century were still low and the majority of immigrants were satisfied with only a meagre elementary education for their children. The Sisters were few in number and calls for their help were great; in fact, many pastors waited a few years before Mother Veronica had the Sisters to answer their appeals. She would have liked to have the Sisters undergo a longer preparation for the serious duty of educating the young, and signs point to the fact that she made attempts to do so, but she was hampered in her best efforts by obstacles over which she had little control. She sent the first young girls that entered for a number of years to the Immaculate Heart Academy; later she hired the services of a secular teacher to come to Ridgewood. In comparison with the advantages which the Sisters enjoy today frequenting the higher seat of learning in the country, the little preparation seems very meagre, but in the year 1900 and before, it was the mark of an earnest beginning and the spirit of the one in charge, Mother Veronica, in her love for goodness and beauty and truth.
The classes in the early schools were very large, sometimes numbering a hundred children or more to the grade. Naturally, the demand on the limited capacity of the teacher was great and the effects were sometimes unfortunate. The first victim of these conditions was the young Sister Catherine, the companion of Mother Veronica from Zakliczyn. She had known the immediate need of a knowledge of the language and had set herself the task of gaining its command as soon as she arrived in the States. Her progress was surprising and with the advantage of her youth it was noticeably great. Mother Veronica appointed her to the school in Trenton and it was here that her health gave way. After an attack of pneumonia, lung trouble remained and on June 24, 1900, she went to her eternal reward, the first Bernardine Sister to give her life for the noble cause.
Mother Veronica made known her grief following the death of the first of her daughters but remained completely resigned in her religious way to the will of God. She was always more visibly affected when anyone whom she had admitted into her group turned away and went back into the world. She appreciated the greatness of God’s gift to be a consecrated soul very deeply; thus her extreme concern over a refusal to abide by the demand made on the soul by the Master. But, strangely, when any candidate gave proof that the vocation was lacking, or if her behavior indicated any determination to refuse cooperation with grace, she was able to waive her gentle ways and dismiss the unworthy servant. Her graciousness, kindliness and consideration for her charges paralleled her courage and firmness in the right.
