For the Bernardines of Pennsylvania

This transcription was a work done for the honor of all Bernardine Sisters, especially Mother Veronica, as well as my own mother who had a fond affection for her aunt, Sister Cantalicia. Sister Cantalicia, incidently, was also the eighth grade teacher (on the right) to the Servant of God, Father Walter Ciszek (center).

CHAPTER IX: SILHOUETTED AGAINST A BY-GONE ERA

The portrait of Mother Veronica appearing in the pages of the early history of the Bernardine Sisters in the United States and recalled by memories imbued with a grateful tenderness takes on definite characteristics. There is no doubt that her early training, the conditions in her country, and the circumstances of her life helped to shape the spirit that these memories retained. Like many of the cultured members of her race migrating here in the last century she was deep and shy and found adaptation to the New World difficult. Thus the reason for the absence of a forwardness characteristic of a new venture in her early work. It must be admitted that practically she seemed unprepared for the active work she was assigned to introduce according to conditions in the United States which were at variance with those of the Old World from which she had come at the turn of the last century. But the project designed by the Holy Spirit and carried out by Mother Veronica was of supernatural origin and supernatural in scope. The most beautiful features of her character spring from the supernatural. By leaving to her Community these marks she has left the treasure of a priceless heritage to her daughters in the active work for all time.

Her faith was strong and ever present. In her early childhood she was given a thorough training in the fundamentals of the Catholic religion by her parents, who also set the example of practical Catholic living. In school she continued to increase her knowledge of revealed truth and as her mind developed she learned to see things in their true relationships to the Invisible God Who dominated all. She practiced her faith continuously at home and in school, and desired nothing more than to know God, love Him and do His will. As a young girl, filled with a longing to become His Spouse, she left parents and home and entered the Congregation of Mary at Czestochowa. When the fulfillment of this desire could not be realized because of conditions hostile to religion in her country at the time, she returned home and for twenty-two years led a life resembling that of a religious. She placed her spiritual care under the direction of a Capuchin Father and followed his teachings carefully. In order to sustain her faith she frequented the sacraments, attended public devotions in the churches of her city regularly, and made pilgrimages to the renowned shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa. Her virtue shone with greater brilliance when she left home again when opportunity presented itself of realizing her earlier desire, and joined the Bernardine Sisters at Zakliczyn. Her act of profession in the Community, sealing her willingness to be a holocaust on the altar of God’s love, was an expression of the deep faith that filled her generous heart. The same virtue prompted her to accept in obedience to her vow the command given her by her superiors to leave the country that she loved and lay the foundation for an active apostolate in the western world.

From faith radiated the esteem she manifested for Holy Mother Church and her representatives. She entered intensely into the cares of each successive Pope who reigned during her life: Pope Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X and Benedict XV. She exhibited an active interest in each Pontiff’s difficult days. She was a true daughter of the Church with a deep desire to see it propagated throughout the world, but knowing that by disposition or talent or opportunity she was not destined to do more than her duty prescribed, she remained satisfied with the fulfillment of the one demanded by her vows. One of her favorite hymns sung as the Motherhouse every first Saturday in her memory was to the Immaculate Virgin, begging her protection on the Church Militant.

She entertained a supreme veneration for all sacred persons and things. In each representative of the Church she saw Christ Himself, and gave her fullest respect. She passed on the same lesson to her daughters, teaching them by word and example a marked deference for every priest. She sought enlightenment from them in matters of community interest and in matters of conscience and tried to follow the advice given. No less was her regard for the liturgy of the Church. All prescribed prayers and ceremonies were given her conscientious attention. She allowed dispensations from the former in the early days of the Community only when empowered by her Superior in Europe to do so. She felt a peculiar interest in celebrating all the greater solemnities of the Church.

Out of an ardent faith grew her favorite devotions: to the Blessed Sacrament, her first and greatest happiness being the frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist and the possession of a chapel in each successive convent home. She spent long hours of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and a little custom of her life revealed her great respect for Christ hidden in the Sacred Host. She always retired with her face turned towards the tabernacle in the chapel. This act may also be an indication of her constant living in the presence of God. She had a very special devotion to the Sacred Heart as revealed by her external practise of venerating the image of Christ’s love. She never tired of reflecting on the mysteries of the Sacred Heart or of conversing with her daughters on this favorite subject. The first Friday devotions and the unique celebration of the Feast of the Sacred Heart introduced by her and continued at the Motherhouse attest to the presence of this lively devotion. From her great faith she poured out on the Community the same intense devotion to the Sacred Heart which characterizes every Bernardine. Many have testified to the help and consolation they have received in time of trial or tribulation after having invoked the Sacred Heart which Mother Veronica had so loved.

After Christ, His Mother held first place in Mother Veronica’s devotions. She was always a devoted client of Mary having learned of her Mother in childhood and increasing in knowledge of her worth with the years. In prayer and song, in the erection of little shrines and observing her feasts, in a special fast which she observed every Saturday till her death, she honored her Heavenly Mother.

She had other favorite saints whom she invoked and honored with greater frequency: St. Joseph, St. Francis, St. Bernardine and St. Veronica de Julianis, her patron saint whom she sought to imitate all her life.

Her greatest joy lay in the knowledge that she had assisted in her own humble way to strengthen and preserve the faith of the immigrants by the work of her Community and that her daughters would continue a work for the spread of the faith for generations to come. To the very end of her life she gave testimony to the deep faith that animated her soul; a faith steady and firm, simple and sincere, in all the circumstances and events of her long life.

Her hope was firm. The exercise of hope does not necessarily preclude all fear as to one’s salvation; in fact, the theological virtues of hope whose object is God, takes its rise in the fear of human weakness. Thus Mother Veronica expressed herself frequently: May the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the most Holy Virgin, obtain for me the salvation of my soul ... Of myself I can do nothing ... I trust myself to their power ... The will of God is my only support ... Though I can do nothing, I rely with a firm faith in the power of God ... I hope in His mercy and fold myself in the arms of His immense love and unlimited power ... I place myself in His Divine Charity with all my weakness ...

This hope manifested itself early and grew with her spirit of prayer. It remained her refuge in time of trial and temptation, especially that of discouragement which she always met with a gentle and sweet hope. In her youth she did not allow herself to be weighted down by earthly desires, but disattached herself from things of the world and looked with hope to the possession of a life rich with an eternal value. She went through life strengthening that hope, freeing herself gradually from a reliance on her own will, her own resolutions, her own judgment and her own desires. When her life drew to a close she could look with trust to a union with her Master in whom she had placed her sole confidence and her only trust.

To her heroic trust may be attributed the assistance that the Community received in the way of financial help for the acquisition of its first property, the arrival of the first vocations, and the success in transplanting the Community into the New World.

If her faith was lively and her hope profound, her love was equally ardent. It was the flowering of grace and obedience to the Divine Initiator, for the love which joins the creature to God is a gift which comes from Him alone. She loved Him in the days when she was a child, she loved Him in the days of her youth, and attached to Him Whom she had long served, she loved Him ardently to her death. Her love manifested itself first in her obedience to her parents and teachers who took God’s place in her life; it expanded with the years with her increase of virtue and knowledge of God; from her reflections on Catholic truths and the beauty of the faith, from her ardent prayer and practice of all means for attaining a blessed eternity.

The greatness of her love for her Supreme God may be inferred from her intense hatred of sin and her fear of displeasing the Author of all good. Hence her intense contrition which she displayed when subject to the slightest imperfection. Hence her constant striving for perfect purity of conscience and soul. Where she couldn’t prevent sin she performed acts of atonement and included these in the prayers and sacrifices of the Sisters.

It was the love of God, which she cherished above all natural loves, that prompted her to accept all the trials and tribulations of her life willingly, to find joy in the company of her Eucharistic King in the tabernacle, to persevere at a task which she did not choose and admitted an incapability for. That same spark of God’s love glowed in her soul creating the desire to unite in a blessed union with her Eternal Spouse.

Mother Veronica’s faith, hope and charity further manifest themselves in the single act that dominated her life – her heroic abandonment to God. United to God, abandoned to His action, she accepted everything – duties, crosses, success and failure, beholding in them something of the divine life. Carefully she followed the duties of her state, quietly she followed the attraction given to it, and peacefully she submitted to the dealings of grace. “All is Yours,” she was wont to say, “from You and for You. I have no hand in the arrangement of one single moment of my life.” With this attitude she strove for a heavenly purity, a blessed annihilation, and an unreserved submission to God.

From her love of God flowed a love for neighbor marked by charity and zeal. Her Sisters were always her first concern, and her love for them was tender, deep and supernatural. She was a loving mother who saw to their needs of body and soul with an impartiality that stemmed from solid virtue. The sick, the lonely, the tired, or the distressed were the immediate objects of her solicitude. Many a tear was dried and shadow lifted by the kind words and consolation of Mother Veronica, and many a sorrow was drowned in the taste of a few sweets brought to the suffering one by her. But she desired sanctity for her Sisters and by word and example made that known to them. In the first few years when she was the only Mistress and guide, and in the years that followed, that was her constant refrain.

She was forgiving and harbored no ill-feelings and she betrayed a natural inability to do so. When an erring daughter came back to the fold, Mother Veronica received her with no mark of disdain, but rather, like the father of the prodigal son, treated her with courtesy and respect. She had a beautiful way of admonishing, pointing out to the Sister her duty to act differently without giving her cause for humiliation. At those times she was most kind and with her “Mine Own” – Moja Ty – preceding every address she won over the victim or disarmed the recalcitrant one. In her ingenious way she clothed the censure in words that made it accepted even by those inclined by nature to haughtiness or pride.

She had the beautiful quality of putting people at ease. When as Mother General on invitation she accompanied a very young Sister to the home of her parents, and all attention was lavished on the young Sister to the complete exclusion of the Superior, Mother Veronica joined in with the family in paying homage to their daughter in order not to embarrass the hosts.

She loved the laboring class and the poor. The latter always found in her an echoing sympathy. She loved little children and found great joy in folding their hands and teaching them to bow their heads before their Master and King. Like her Seraphic Father, St. Francis, she loved nature which revealed the omnipotent God, the animals, tress, grass, flowers and shrubs.

The same charity which influenced her dealings with the living characterized her zeal for the dead. For the suffering souls in purgatory nothing was too much for Mother Veronica, toil, prayer or sacrifice. She made the heroic act early in life so all her satisfactory works were directed towards the alleviation of the pains of the suffering souls. She encouraged the Sisters to make the offering of their daily sacrifices and prayers for the liberation of the souls in purgatory.

Two other virtues which Mother Veronica excelled in were humility and patience. The first was made manifest in the low opinion which she had of herself in thought, word and deed. Her own nothingness was the habitual subject of her reflection as revealed in her conversations with the Sisters. Her orders were always humble expressions of request rather than plain commands, and except in cases where it was her duty as superior to reprove any rebellious person for her faults her tone was always deferential. Criticism or reproofs from authority were accepted in the spirit of profound humility. Out of a sense of her own unworthiness she never undertook anything without the advice of others, including that of her younger companion. To conceal her penances and prayers, she often performed them at night in order not to attract attention. It often happened that a Sister stumbled over her prostrate form on the floor of the Ridgewood chapel long after the other members of the Community had retired for the night.

Mother Veronica was heroically patient. The fact that she endured calmly her trials without any resentment shows the existence of a very high degree of patience and forbearance. She had subjects who deviated from the path of duty; others made mistakes of judgment out of which a good deal of suffering accrued to her, yet no one ever noticed any loss of equanimity or sweetness of temper. After the first minor revelation of an irritation she returned to her steady calmness. Her admonitions were prudently and gently worded and given with kindness, firmness and love. Nowhere is her patience more greatly revealed however than in the silence which she faithfully kept all her life in regard to her physical condition. There is no doubt that there were times when she was ailing or fatigued, yet she never ws heard to complain. Her health was never robust; in fact, hers was a delicate constitution, but it was never a topic of her conversation. The special diet which was prescribed for her was faith fully kept and unchanged for many years before her death but no one ever knew the exact condition of her health.

Poverty, chastity and obedience were an integral part of the spiritual makeup of Mother Veronica. Obedience, which according to St. Gregory engrafts the whole circle of virtues in the soul, preserves them and trains them to perfection, was fundamental. It was an offspring of her humility, for none but the truly humble can subject their will and understanding to God and man. Mother Veronica subjected her intellect and will not only to God but to all His representatives, whether her superiors or her directors. Out of her heroic obedience the new Community in America was given its providential beginning.

Since the use of reason she preserved intact the virtue of chastity. With the help of prayer, the avoidance of the occasions of sin, a modest demeanor at all times she remained ever pure of heart. She had desired to take the vow of chastity at the age of twenty, but when prevented from doing so, she lived according to a private vow for twenty-two years until the opportunity was given her to pronounce her espousals publicly in the convent of the Bernardines. Her whole manner of life, approach and demeanor drew respect from all who approached her and no one in her long life ever dared make any familiar approach.

She had an instinctive fondness for evangelical poverty. It seems that she was endowed with the grace early, for as a child she was opposed to pomp and vanity. As she grew in years she advanced in the spirit of detachment in imitation of her Divine Spouse who had given the first example of the greatest poverty in His birth, life and death, and her great patron St. Francis who had espoused Lady Poverty twelve centuries later. As a Bernardine in America she was known to have few personal belongings; in fact, she retained for her personal use only the barest essentials like a few articles of clothing. When attempts were made after her death to collect these as remembrances by her loving daughters, it was revealed how few these were. Truly of Mother Veronica it can be said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

CHAPTER VIII: MOUNT ALVERNIA AT LAST

THE horsedrawn carriage of Monsignor Borneman on the Morgantown Road past Reading was a familiar sight between the years 1898 and 1905. Anyone acquainted with the Monsignor who watched him on his way would know that he was going to pay his regular visit to the Sisters at Ridgewood. The little orphans, too, knew the sound of the horses’ hoofs as they rhythmically trod the entrance road. They were always first to greet the Monsignor. Gladly they assisted n tying the animal to the post, happy in the prospect of having it to feed for an hour or two. If the weather was fair during the spring or summer or even in the fall the Monsignor betook himself to his favorite spot under the large shading elm and then Mother Veronica would come out and confer with her protector and her friend. On these occasions as on others when she had priest guests, she herself served the visitor in her delicate way.

Among the many topics of the conversations with the Monsignor one always returned for a lengthier discussion. It was the distance from the city, the cause of so much inconvenience to the Sisters and one of the reasons for the delayed progress of the Community. The inconvenience was really great. It was discomforting to make the three mile journey to town on foot, for the carriage was not always available and could not always accommodate all if a larger group had to make the trip. In the rain and sleet and cold of the winter the journey on the long stretch to town proved almost unbearable. Since the Sisters did not always have the services of a regular chaplain, the trip to town had to be made to fulfill the obligation of hearing Mass. On weekdays this was occasionally dispensed with, but on Sundays and holydays of obligation Mass had to be heard. Rain or snow, sleet or hail the group took its place in the pews at St. Anthony’s at Millmont or S. Mary’s in the city long before the morning services began. At one time the pastor cited their example to the people of his parish in a Sunday sermon, for through his parishioners living within a few blocks from the church absented themselves because of inclement weather, the group from Ridgewood was always there. No trick of the elements could deter them from fulfilling their religious obligation of being present at Mass, regardless of the difficulty of getting there.

In many ways the distance from a larger center was hampering the progress of the work of the Community. Mother Veronica agreed that though the seclusion at Ridgewood was highly desirable, she would make the transfer of the convent to a more reasonable location should an opportunity for doing so present itself. Thus it was that Monsignor Borneman suggested the present Mount Alvernia where the convent now stands. He himself gave the first ten acres of land as a site for the proposed building.

One of the Monsignor’s hobbies, it seems, was making the best of a bargain over land whenever he could, and then donating it outright to an institution that would put it to charitable use. He had told Mother Veronica that had the Bernardines not purchased the estate at Ridgewood seven years before, he would have acquired it for a sanatorium, but the fabulous price of $18,000 which was asked of him at the time forced him to abandon the idea. He teasingly asked Mother Veronica who her intercessory saints were in heaven that she managed to acquire it for one third the amount that had been demanded of him hardly a week before she had made the deal.

Out of this interest in landed property Monsignor Borneman formed a friendship with Mr. Benjamin Owen of Reading. Mr. Owen was a printer, historian, genealogist, but what was more important to Monsignor Borneman’s interests, he was a member of the Reading Land Company. Despite the difference of religion, their friendship flourished and aided to a large extent the philanthropy of the Monsignor. With his advice and influence Mr. Owen often gave him help of an appreciable value. In partnership with Mr. Owen the Monsignor made the purchase of a section of farmland in Cumru Township a mile and a half southwest of the center of Reading, the location of Mount Alvernia today. In the document containing the grant of land dated August 24, 1905, the names of Mr. and Mrs. Owen appear for legal reasons as the sellers of the property; what agreement Monsignor Borneman came to with his partner is not known. Most probably he paid them for their share.

In accepting the gift from Monsignor Borneman Mother Veronica expressed her fear that his relatives might question the Sisters’ ownership of the land in the eventual case of his death. His answer at the time reveals the disinterestedness and the priestly qualities of Monsignor Borneman’s soul. “I did not become a priest that my relatives might be materially enriched after my death,” he told Mother Veronica. Nevertheless, Mother Veronica decided not to build on this tract, and thus assure her Community in the future from any demands. On the first of September of the same year she bought five adjoining acres from the owners Monsignor Borneman and Mr. Owen, and insisted on paying the purchase value of $1500 in cash. On this plot she planned to build. To the narrow lanes bordering the Sisters’ property she gave the names of the Franciscan saints: St. Bernardine’s which has remained as the name of the street below the convent, St. Francis to the west and St. Anthony to the east. Those two later became part of the convent grounds as a result of additional purchases of land at later dates.

In September, 1905, the building of the structure began. The convent was planned according to the suggestions of Mother Veronica and Mother Frances, but the supervision of the building was carried out by Monsignor Borneman. Mother Veronica placed her complete trust in his fatherly protection and Monsignor Borneman served her faithfully. Every purchase, every contact with the architect, Mr. Flynn of Philadelphia, and the contractor, Mr. Facht of Reading, was made by the Monsignor. Every steel girder and every wooden beam went into place under his watchful eye. Mother Veronica supplied the funds, part of which she realized from the sale of the property of Ridgewood, part from the little cash which she had on hand, and the rest from a loan that she made. Two years later the building was completed and on the second of January, 1907, the last cent of the $37,000 of the entire cost was paid to Monsignor Borneman who had been settling the bills.

The building was a two story brick structure on a stone foundation built in the shape of the letter E. A slate roof covered the whole and copper topped the spire. The interior has undergone numerous changes since it was first constructed, made necessary by the changing needs of the years. The greatest was that of the chapel, single naved originally, which Mother Veronica had modelled after the cloister chapels of Europe. The choir loft extended farther to the front in a semi-circular effect. Instead of the regular pews there now, tall stalls flanked the side walls. A large statue of the Sacred Heart held the central place on the main altar, and two statues of St. Anthony and St. Francis, now in the hospital of St. Joseph’s in Hazleton, were on both sides. But the exterior of the original building exclusive of the novitiate wing, the front entrance, and the arcade leading to the infirmary is the same.

According to the terms of the contract the building was to have been completed in June, 1906, but the summer followed and work on the construction was still in progress. In September Mother Veronica decided to move in though the interior was far from finished. The Archers to whom the buildings and land at Ridgewood had been sold were promised that these would have been vacated in June, so Mother Veronica was eager to leave the place.

There were no automotive moving vans at the time so all movable parts of the Sisters’ possessions were carried from Ridgewood to Mt. Alvernia in wagons. Many small articles were actually carried by the orphan children and young Sisters and postulants. When all was transported, Mother Veronica arranged for a procession to the new abode. The infirm or frail members and the small children rode by wagon; the rest carried portions of the inventory and walked. One of the Sisters leading the whole group carried a cross, for Mother Veronica wanted to give a symbolic meaning to the act. It was following Christ that Mother Veronica was leading her flock to their new home. In His name she had begun His work – in His name she wanted to continue and this lesson she wanted impressed on the minds of her young Sisters.

Since most of the more important events in Franciscan Communities are planned to concur with the feasts of their Franciscan patrons, Mother Veronica selected the feast of St. Clare, August 12, for the dedication of the new building. It had been in readiness for some time before, but for this reason Mother Veronica had the act delayed. The celebrant of the dedication ceremonies was none other than Monsignor Borneman to whom the Community owed much.

After settling in the new convent it seemed that a new life came for Mother Veronica. She was happy in the thought that she had heeded the advice of God’s representatives and that all her endeavors in carrying out that advice had been blessed by God. The Community began to show more rapid growth, too. Whereas in 1906 after a period of twelve years there were 31 members, of these fifteen professed, ten novices and six postulants, in 1912 at the end of Mother Veronica’s administration there were ninety; fifty-six professed, ten novices and twenty-four postulants. In half the time the number had trebled.

In 1906, because the convent building was not finished and therefore not in order for solemn ceremonies, Mother Veronica had the reception delayed until the following year. She cherished liturgical ceremonies and gave them all her attention to the minutest detail and arranged them according to the means of the Sisters in all their splendor.

With a greater supply of vocations Mother Veronica could answer the appeals of the pastors for Sisters to teach in their parochial schools, which in line with the increasing numbers of immigrants coming into the country were rising in most sizable parishes. In 1907 she accepted a school in Paterson, New Jersey, where the Sisters remained two years, and a school in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for one year. In 1908, Father Andrew Smelsz, the pastor of the Nativity B.V.M. parish, Plymouth, was favored with a response from Mother Veronica. In 1909 Mother Veronica opened six schools: St. Hedwig’s, Chester, invited by Father J. Ziolkowski; St. Casimir’s. Mahanoy City, by Father J. Poremba; St. Ladislaus, Natrona, by Father J. Kopera; Maternity of the Blessed Virgin, Wilkes-Barre, by the Reverend Theophil Klonowski; Blessed Virgin, Conshohocken, by the Reverend B. Iwanowski. In 1911 Mother Veronica sent two Sisters to the Hungarian Parish of St. John Capistrano at Bethlehem to teach English on the request of the Reverend Alexander Varlaky. He had two lay teachers in charge of the foreign language. The Sisters did not continue the next year after a new pastor came to the parish in 1912.

Whenever Mother Veronica was able to accompany the Sisters on their first trip to a newly-opened school she usually did so. She escorted them to Bethlehem, and the seemingly insignificant incident attending their arrival there helped to shed light on the spirit that animated her apostolic soul. They were met at the station by a group of little children from the parish who had been anxiously awaiting the Sisters, and one little girl, recognizing Mother Veronica as superior, handed her a small bouquet of garden flowers. With genuine sincerity Mother Veronica took the flowers from the child and carried them all the way. At the church they were met by the pastor who awaited them to give a solemn benediction. He led them down the church aisle which, incidentally, had been carpeted with a plush covering of white prepared for a wedding ceremony held that day. The altars were likewise decked with palms and ferns, expensive calla lilies and beautiful roses for the occasion, beside which the wilting garden flowers clutched in Mother Veronica’s hand looked entirely out of place. “It is for these less cultivated flowers in Jesus’ garden that my Sisters will labor,” Mother Veronica said leaving the church and gathering the little children around her, “that some day they may be transplanted to bloom in the heavenly garden of a glorious eternity.”

One more problem that had given Mother Veronica grave concern during her stay at Ridgewood was eased when she came to Mt. Alvernia. It was having the services of a resident chaplain. Of all the needs of a religious community this is one of the greatest. The very nature of the life adopted by the members of a community such as this demands the regular services of a priest. Without daily Mass and frequent Holy Communion life on a supernatural plane could not long endure.

At Ridgewood the Sisters were served by three different chaplains each remaining for a short time. For two full years they had no priest. In the intervals the Sisters had to go to church to Millmont or to the city. The real reason for the absence of a resident chaplain was that priests were hardly available at the time. It was the time of the great Catholic immigration and the bishops had a hard time getting enough priests to take care of the different language groups flocking to the country in increasing numbers. Mother Veronica’s pleas for a chaplain were answered by Archbishop Ryan with: “If you know of any priest free from parish duties and willing to be your chaplain, kindly notify me and the appointment will be made.” But Mother Veronica knew no priest and therefore continued in her anxiety for the spiritual welfare of her flock. She appealed to Europe for a Franciscan Father but got no positive action there.

This cross was a very heavy one and Mother Veronica never denied that it was not an easy one to bear. The one time the Sisters saw her weep at Ridgewood was when the last of the short-term appointed chaplains said his last Mass in the chapel and left it without the Blessed Sacrament. But the faith that carried her through so many difficulties was always present and commending this particular care to the Sacred Heart she patiently awaited His answer to her prayer.

Early in 1908 she learned from the Reverend A. Warol, S.J., who gave the retreat that year, of a Jesuit in Austria who was anxious for the chaplaincy with the Sisters. Mother Veronica made inquiries and Father Arnold Waszyca verified the statement. Immediately Mother Veronica made arrangements for his transportation to America and after a short time the Father was here, ready to assume the duties of a regular chaplain at Mt. Alvernia.

Through Father Arnold many of Mother Veronica’s fond desires for her dear Community were realized. Deeply spiritual and broadly educated, his help during the six years of his stay was productive. To this help Mother Veronica owed the ease with which the partial transition was made from the stricter life of the cloister to that of the active life which the Community was leading. In him she found a teacher for the postulants and novices and young professed Sisters, not only in spiritual matters but in secular studies as well. To him she owed the giving of a ritualistic form to the devotion to the Sacred Heart. Her beloved country was privileged to be the first nation to observe officially the Feast of the Sacred Heart; her convent in Zakliczyn was dedicated the Sacred Heart; she desired that the devotion be given first place in her convent with its chapel of the Sacred Heart. Father Arnold helped her carry out this plan. His conferences on the Sacred Heart redolent with praises of the glories of Christ’s love were long remembered after they were rendered by his most avid listener, Mother Veronica. The First Friday services and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at the Motherhouse, out of which the daily exposition of the Blessed Sacrament later grew, were a response to her most intimate desires.

The days of Mother Veronica at Mount Alvernia were strewn with trials just as great as during any previous period of her life. They were well calculated by her loving Faith to keep her in the state of continual dependence upon Him, and to impel her to make acts of the most meritorious kind. She firmly held with St. Augustine that God would not allow any evil to happen if He were not sufficiently powerful and good to turn it all to the greater good of His elect. But, nevertheless, the suffering was acute, and would have upset the peace of a weaker soul.

One great cross was the loss of Sister Gabriella who died at the tender age of twenty, June 26, 1908. Mother Veronica had accepted this rare vocation as a gift from God and as she watched her talents unfold she looked upon her as her greatest hope for the future administration of the young Community. Sister Gabriella entered as Marie Palcho from Patton, Pennsylvania, at the age of sixteen. She was a niece of Mother Cunegunda and a cousin of Mother Felicitas and had first made the acquaintance of the Bernardine Sisters when she came to Ridgewood to visit her relatives. She received the habit July 26, 1905, and made her first profession August 29, 1907.

God had lavishly bestowed His grace on young Sister Gabriella. In the natural sphere she was all that made her seem destined for great things as a Bernardine. She was beautiful of feature, charming in manner, gracious in approach, witty and amusing, highly intelligent, greatly successful as a teacher, and at the same time deeply spiritual and appreciative of her vocation. But Mother Veronica’s hopes were cut short when death following a short illness of tuberculosis claimed the young Sister. Her holy and edifying death was Mother Veronica’s only consolation in the grief that followed her loss to the Community. She coupled that, however, with deep confidence that the Sacred Heart on whose feast Sister Gabriella departed from this world, would grant the Community the members needed to carry on her work.

Among the many blessings of God at Mt. Alvernia Mother Veronica also counted the providential appearance of another maintenance man to take the place which Brother Erasmus had at Ridgewood. He was Mr. Venceslaus Wolak, a tertiary from Shenandoah, and though many years the junior of the Brother, was equally industrious and skillful. He took no less care of the buildings and the grounds than if he had acquired them by his own hard toil. He carved the paths on the stubborn land, shaped the gardens, planted the hedges and trees, cultivated and harvested the crops. Besides, by his pious life he was an edification to all who chanced to meet him. He was likewise a man of culture and one of his bequests to the Sisters at the time of his death in 1928 was his library of almost a thousand volumes. Mother Veronica thanked God frequently for the favor He granted her in the person of this conscientious laborer.

The second decade of the Community’s existence was drawing to a close when Mother Veronica received word that the long expected visitation of the religious superiors in Europe would take place. The Reverend Zygmunt Janicki had arrived in the United States and was authorized by the Provincial, the Reverend Joachim Maciejczyk, O.F.M., under whose direction the convent remained, to make the visitation. The notification of the intended visit was sent to Mother Veronica by a letter written by Father Janicki immediately after his arrival in Philadelphia. The Right Reverend Monsignor Masson, Father Heinan’s successor as diocesan protector, also made the announcement to her. All superiors were notified to be present for a general chapter scheduled for Wednesday, April 3.

Mother Veronica did not know Father Janicki personally, but she knew that he was one of the well-known members of the Franciscan Fathers. After his clerical studies he was ordained at a young age, and was soon entrusted with the important position of superior of the Cracow monastery which carried with it the responsibility for the young clerics of the Order. He labored for these students for many years, directing them by word and example; in addition, he served the people of the city with his sermons, hearing confessions, giving retreats, building churches, organizing pilgrimages to miraculous shrines, Rome and the Holy Land. Later he became Provincial of the Cracow branch of the Friars Minor.

The visitation conducted by Father Janicki and the chapter called by him was closed by an event which was the greatest and most unforeseen which the community experienced in the eighteen years of its existence. The Reverend Visitator had called for the election of a new Superior General by vote of the members of the so-called chapter and though most of the votes were cast for Mother Veronica he announced at the close that acting in the capacity given him by the Reverend Provincial he nominated Mother Hedwig Leszczynska, Mother General of the Bernardine Sisters in the United States. Mother Hedwig was twenty-four at the time, and but a few years before was one of Mother Veronica’s novices.

The nomination of a superior general by the new Provincial having jurisdiction over a community or by the bishop of the diocese was common in the early days of many communities. Therefore this nomination was not an isolated event. In fact, the same was done in 1915 and 1918 when Mother Hedwig was again nominated, each time for another period of three years. Father Janicki having made a study of conditions in the country at the time, and motivated by a sincere desire to further the Kingdom of God by a well administered Community felt that a younger Sister with unspent energy, having a better knowledge of the spirit of her country by virtue of being born and reared here, would be a more suitable superior of the growing band. Mother Veronica was no longer young and signs of her failing strength were plainly visible.

Subsequent rapid development of the Community proved the wisdom of his daring act. Mother Hedwig’s administration was marked by progress in many fields. She effected the independence from the European foundation, and had new constitutions drawn up for the active Community of Bernardine Sisters. In the field of education growth was immediate, too. In addition to arranging for courses at the Motherhouse, she sent the Sisters elsewhere for educational training, and the Bernardines were among the first Sisters to register at the Catholic University at Washington.

But the Sisters who had been with Mother Veronica since the beginning were never able to accept the change meekly. For many years, long after the death of Mother Veronica, they still voiced their regret at having lost the mother whom they had so loved. But Mother Veronica, in the true humility that was hers, in the childlike obedience to the authorized superiors of the Church, immediately after the reading of the nomination by the Visitator handed over the keys, the symbol of her position, to the new Reverend Mother, and falling on her knees in genuine Franciscan fashion was first to pay her homage and express her willingness to obey in all things her rightful superior, and to respect her as such in word and deed.

This climactic scene brought to a close Mother Veronica’s active work for the community. For four years more she was still a bodily part of it, but her spirit hovered high above. Most of her time was spent in the chapel in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament in prayer for the Community and its works, occasionally answering the invitations of the Sisters in the nearby parish schools who were anxious to provide Mother Veronica with the rest they wanted her to have. “Verily, verily, unless the seed dies, there will be no flowering of the plant.” Fashioning His instrument to fit the designs of His Eternal Wisdom, casting it aside when the work was done, the Lord proved the truth of these words in the life of Mother Veronica. She had made no plans for a new community of Bernardine Sisters in America; she had been simply obedient to the promise of her vow; now when the success of that work was evident and her first efforts were fruitful, she was gently removed to make way for other minds and other hands. She had made a sacrifice of all as a holocaust to the love of her Divine Spouse and she would not retreat now. She knew that her end was not far off and she desired it to be a happy one – one that would bring her life-long desire to fulfillment – complete with her Master.

The end came four years later January 13, 1916, the commemorative date of the closing of the beatification process of her patroness, St. Veronica. She had long been ailing, but beyond admitting that her strength was failing, she made no one know the seriousness of her state of health. She bade the Sister in charge of sounding the bell for early Mass who had occasion to meet her on the way to chapel to keep silence about her helplessness. On the morning of the eleventh after she had risen and dressed for Mass she had an attack of apoplexy. The chaplain and the doctor were called immediately, and the latter stated that nothing could be done to save her life. Mother Hedwig summoned the members of the Community to her bedside and in their presence Father Kucharski, the Community chaplain, gave her absolution, Extreme Unction and the last blessing. As though she had a premonition that her end was near, although she had gone to sonfession the day previously with the Community, she had later asked again for the confessor. Her last act of gratitude was the offering of a precious relic of the True Cross to the one she considered her greatest benefactor, her confessor. She still lingered for two more days never regaining consciousness. The bells of the evening Angelus were ringing the glories of her Mother as her soul took flight to join the hosts of the members of the Church Triumphant.

Her funeral took place three days later from the convent chapel at Mt. Alvernia. The Requiem Mass was said by the Right Reverend Monsignor Masson and the eulogy was pronounced by the Reverend Adalbert Malusecki. He called attention to the virtues of Mother Veronica by which her daughters had known her, her great faith, her deep hope, and her warm charity, her humility and her submission in all things to the will of God.

The funeral cortege made its way to St. Mary’s cemetery, for the Sisters had no cemetery of their own in 1916. Ten years later her body was transferred to the grave where it now lies. The day of the funeral was intensely cold, the bitterest within the memory of all present, but that did not hinder her loving Sisters and the friends of her Community from coming from far and wide to pay their last respects to the first superior general of the Bernardine Sisters in America.

Chapter VII: RIDGEWOOD SO FAIR

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.

CHAPTER VI: AT THE BEND OF THE SCHUYLKILL

THE city of Reading is one of the oldest cities in Pennsylvania, having been laid out by Richard and Thomas Penn, the two sons of the founder of the colony. It takes its name from the city of the same name in the county of Berkshire in England. Originally it covered 600 acres of Penn's woodland, but in time it continued to expand its boundaries which in 1950 were still not permanently fixed. In 1748 there was one dwelling house in Reading; in 1752 the population reached 378 and the settlement was listed among the more prosperous ones of the colony; in 1820 there were 4332 people here, and one hundred years later in 1920 the census figures showed the population to be 107,784. Its phenomenal growth may be due to the foresight and wise political views of William Penn, based on individual equality and freedom which drew many settlers to the region. More important for its growth in the past century and the present one is the geographical position of the city, with its enormous possibilities for physical expansion and its proximity to the chief communication lines. The railroads coming into the city facilitated the transport of coal from the anthracite section which was a natural feeder for the power consuming factories here. Immigrants came to the city in ever swelling numbers assured of finding work and settlement here. It is interesting to note that the greatest stimulus to the growth of the population was the discovery of minerals in the neighboring parts of the state.

For esthetical reasons Reading also holds a prominent place. According to the judgment of many artistic minds it is one of the most beautifully located cities in Pennsylvania. Nature was extremely generous in her gifts to the locality surrounding it. The scenery all around is very colorful and characteristically beautiful, and artists and poets often find inspiration for their work here. One author was so in love with the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside that she noted in one of her descriptions: “If at any time in the future the white man would be condemned to spend the rest of his days in reservations, grant God, that these would be here.” And Bayard Taylor one of Pennsylvania’s greatest novelists wrote: “For one familiar with the grandest aspects of nature must still confess that few towns on this side of the Atlantic are so nobly envisioned.”

The town nestles among the South Mountains which have their beginning in the State of New Jersey and continuing into the State of Pennsylvania gradually narrow their width to five miles near the Schuylkill. This river, compared by many of the German settlers to the river Rhine in their homeland, forms the western boundary of the city. The plain upon which the city is built gently falls from the majestic summit of Mt. Penn rising one thousand feet at the southern edge and rimming the southeastern. On the northern side there is a vast stretch of gently undulating land allowing for an interminable expansion in this direction. On the western side of the river bank conditions are also favorable for expansion. Beyond the city in the distance as far as the eye can reach, lies a veritable paradise of farm land presenting to the onlooker a never-to-be-forgotten sight. Here in the late summer lies a waving field dressed in the beauty of ripening wheat and clover, corn and rye, swaying in the breeze, one farm beating against the other for a distance of fifteen or twenty miles, with crests of silvery foam, until broken by the bounding peninsula of slightly elevated countryside.

When the Sisters came to Reading in 1895, it presented a picture vastly different from the one viewed today. It is true that the horsedrawn tramways were a thing of the past, having made their last rounds of the city the preceding year, after which the horses were given a farewell tour before they were harbored in their stables on Cotton Street. A humorously sad adieu was paid to the ashes of the carriages on June 30, 1894. But the streets were unpaved, with the exception of the main one in the center, and they were dimly lighted at night. During the day the ladies with their long sweeping skirts and their brightly colored parasols in the spring and summer added a picturesqueness lacking during later years.

St. Mary’s Church to which the Sisters came was one of the four Catholic churches in Reading in 1895. The other three were St. Peter’s on Fifth Street founded in 1791, St. Paul’s on Ninth dating from 1860, and St. Joseph’s established one year before St. Mary’s. This one was located where it now stands on Twelfth Street near Spruce and was founded by Polish pioneers in 1888. They were for the most part emigrants from the Prussian occupied section of Poland and had found labor in the steel and iron mills of the Reading Company.

The pastors whom the Sisters met had just been transferred to St. Mary’s from the parish of St. Lawrence in Philadelphia where he had been an assistant priest for a few years before. He was an energetic young priest and early saw the wisdom of establishing a school for the children of his parish. At first he had taught them in the rectory; later he extended the basement rooms of the church which he was planning to build and used these for classrooms. Here Sister Frances and Sister Catherine began classes in Polish; Miss Klaniecka, a lay teacher, taught the English classes.

The first residence of the Sisters was on the corner of Thirteenth Street opposite the St. Peter’s cemetery. It was small but since it was to be a temporary residence the Sisters were satisfied. But the distance to school and church caused them a great deal of discomfort. Mother Veronica found it extremely tiresome to make the steep grade up Thirteenth Street to daily Mass and to visit the Blessed Sacrament. The Sisters had to take their breakfast with them, heat their coffee at the rectory and then partake of their meal in the classroom. So when they learned that there was a vacant home on Spruce Street larger and more comfortable than the one they were living in, they planned to move there. They offered to pay the rental charges which exceeded the amount the parish had been paying, but the pastor promised to foot the monthly bill.

Mother Veronica was very much pleased with the new residence. She immediately began to arrange things in order to provide the atmosphere of a Sister’s dwelling place. Her first concern was the chapel which she planned in the largest room on the first floor. She covered the double windows with beautiful curtains with a lily design which she had gone herself to buy. She had the floor overlain with a colored covering. She had a small wooden altar built, which was done so well that it later served the chapel in Ridgewood and is still in use in the Chapter room in the present convent. Four priedieus built by a parishioner, Mr. Ratajczak, painted and varnished by Mother Veronica and used in the chapel, are also still seen in the convent. She wanted everything in the chapel to be the best that her poverty touched purse would allow. But the Sacred Heart was not to be outdone by her generosity. Evidently the Lord wanted to make known His pleasure with her willingness to provide him with a beautiful home, for within a comparatively short time she had all that was needed. Vestments, linens, ciborium, candelabra, altar-cards – all came from donors. The chalice was a gift from the parishioners of St. Mary’s and is still used in the St. Elizabeth infirmary. The monstrance was used for a long time at St. Francis Home; later it was given to St. Ann’s Hospital chapel in Watertown, South Dakota. The statue of St. Joseph, a gift of the late Father Marion Kopytkiewicz, went to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hazleton. Thus, the reminders of Mother Veronica and the early Sisters are shared with each new establishment to serve as sentimental ties with the beloved foundress and the original spirit of the Community.

When all was ready and arranged in harmony with Mother Veronica’s artistic taste, Father Malusecki offered Mass in the little chapel and the Blessed Sacrament was given a home with the Sisters. The house on Spruce Street in Reading was thus the first which Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament shared with the Sisters in America. This presence under the same roof made them feel that they now had a convent home. Spirits rose more readily now, worldly cares took wings of flight sooner, the burden of labor seemed lighter and trials were made easier to bear. No one more than Mother Veronica appreciated this blessed part of her home. When the Sisters were in school and the work in the little house taken care of, she spent most of her time here; and when they had gone to their repose for the night, her shadow against that thrown from the flickering sanctuary light on the wall, made known that she was still there keeping her tryst with her beloved Spouse.

It was to the house on the corner of Spruce Street that the Lord brought Mother Veronica the first orphan, thus giving rise to the well-known St. Francis Home at Mt. Alvernia today. She was always known for her kind and tender feelings for those in need; her contact with the Franciscan spirit having behind it centuries of traditional corporal works of mercy, strengthened further those sentiments of charitable love. Care of orphans, the maimed and the sick, giving refuge to the infirm and aged was not new in the Franciscan family. When little Mary Wojtalewicz, a nine year old motherless child, was presented to Mother Veronica, she could not refuse the charity which the child’s need prompted. Mary was given a home and another aspect of Franciscan charity was given concrete form. Little Mary was the first of the almost eight thousand children that have been given care and shelter in the Community’s charitable institutions during the next half century. St. Francis, St. Stanislaus, Little Flower, Holy Child, Our Lady of Fatima institutions – all are outgrowths of Mother Veronica’s love for Christ’s abandoned children.

But little Mary cherished the distinct privilege of being cared for by Mother Veronica alone. It was Mother Veronica who prepared her for her first holy Communion and dressed her for the occasion in immaculate white and made the wreath of rose buds that crowned her little veiled head. And Mother Veronica’s first little orphan remained ever grateful to the Sisters all the years after she left them from Ridgewood. Her last visit to the Sisters was planned from Camden after she had married, but an attack followed by an operation from which she never recovered, prevented her from carrying out her plan.

It was to the house on Spruce Street that the Lord brought the first vocations to the Bernardine Sisterhood in the United States. They were the daughters of the immigrants for whom Mother Veronica had made the heroic sacrifice to leave the country and convent which she had so deeply cherished. In August 1896, Anna Szulc came from Shenandoah; in September, Mary and Veronica Grzybowski from Glen Lyon. These were young girls of school age so Mother Veronica arranged for their admission to the academy of the Immaculate Heart on Fifth Street. In February 1897, Rosalie Wisniewska entered, and in November of the same year Frances Borrowska, Agnes Glinska and Melanie Bejgert. Of these three only Frances remained for Agnes was found ailing and Melanie left seeking admission elsewhere.

In the meantime, however, Mother Veronica lost a very helpful member when the tertiary, Barbara, left the Sisters in Reading. Mother Hedwig had selected Barbara for the pioneer group because she knew they would need a reliable person for the household tasks when the Sisters settled here in America. When Mother Veronica could not allow her to make her profession as a Bernardine because she did not have the necessary permission for the act from her superiors in Europe, Barbara left Reading and went to the Immigrant’s Home in New York from where she applied for admission to the Felician Sisters. She was received by that Community January 19, 1898, and remained there serving the Lord all her life. She died November 16, 1947, at the age of eighty-five.

All signs pointed to the fact that permanent establishment of the Bernardines in America was a possibility. Mother Veronica saw parishes arising all around in the neighboring towns of Pennsylvania, immigration continuing in a never ending flow, and consequently children deprived of the education which only a parochial school can give. Vocations were presenting themselves therefore the erection of a novitiate and a motherhouse for the new community would soon be one of her urgent needs. In 1897 she procured permission for the new foundation from her authorities in Europe; they left the rest to her judgment and ingenuity. Naturally her greatest need was necessary funds, if the possession of an adequate building was to be realized.

The Sisters had no known great benefactors in the early days of their history in America. Besides the few Polish priests who gave them encouragement to go on with the work, they only knew the laboring class of immigrants and it was to these that they appealed for help for the new convent that Mother Veronica was planning to build. They went among these common working people, all staunch Catholics from the Old Country, and solicited funds, going from town to town when the school term was over, Mother Veronica herself leading the way. She appreciated every coin or paper dollar that was handed to her knowing that it was gained from hard though honest toil. Later she often repeated that each brick in the convent building was paid for with the sweat of the miners’ brow. Her own fatigue seemed to vanish at the sight of the generosity and good will and faith of most of those of whom a request for funds was made. She would never admit that it was her kind and gentle way of pleading that often melted the most callous heart of many that she met and resulted in a heavier purse on her way home after a tiresome day.

If the funds for the contemplated building were important, so too was a site on which it was to be built. Sometimes, Mother Veronica’s eyes drifted towards the hill across the river which today bears the name of Mt. Alvernia, and then an indescribable longing for this spot took possession of her. She never could explain why this elevated spot seemed to her to be the ideal place for a Franciscan convent. But it was nevertheless true that whenever her gaze fell in the path of the mount, it held out to her a charm that no other place ever before or after did. But Mt. Alvernia in 1898 was to remain still an unfulfilled dream. Meanwhile she left to the Sacred Heart and Divine Providence her newest and latest concern.

She did not have long to wait. Within a short time she was informed that a building which had formerly been used as a rest home for convalescents and a hundred acres attached to it about three miles from Reading were for sale. Mother Veronica visited the place and satisfied with the location particularly, agreed to make the purchase. May 6, 1898 the deal was made. A down payment of $2,000, one third of the cost of the land and estate, was accepted by the owners. All legal transactions were made in Mother Veronica’s name.

CHAPTER V: IN THE LAND OF THE FREE

ON Tuesday, October 16, 1894, a clear cool autumn day, the steamship Ems cast anchor in the harbor of New York. Ten days had passed since it had last sighted land, and they were days of alternating serenity and turbulence. Small wonder then, that as the ship stood there in the dock, with the ocean’s foam dripping from its damp, mucky sides, it tenderly hugged the land that gave it hospitality anew.

Within the boat, the sailors and officers’ efficient haste demonstrated an activity indispensible to the early release of its one hundred forty-six passengers. The latter’s eager gleaning of their last belongings indicated their reluctance to prolong their stay unnecessarily aboard. At the first signal of the ship’s blasting sound which blended with the shrill whistles of the city’s thousand factories’ sirens, they hastily descended the gang-plank dividing them from the sidewalks of New York and their floating home of ten days, filled with an overwhelming joy that they had safely attained their goal.

The New York Times of the day carried the names of the passengers of the Ems, but few readers scanned the column on page two bearing the news. In the foreign news section the condition of the czar of Russia wasting away gradually from cancer highlighted the news; of local interest were the concerts held in the city in honor of the silver jubilee of the Viennese waltz master Johann Strauss’ first appearance, thirteen being held in New York alone, each featuring his American waltz.

Among the names of the passengers, still less would the name of Sister Veronica attract the readers’ interest, for surely it indicated no connection with any family illustrious or renowned. Had they a vision of the future on that October day of 1894, they might have halted there, for despite the seeming insignificance of the name, here was a member of an illustrious family indeed. She was a daughter of the great Franciscan family, bringing to the United States the beautiful traditions of the past seven centuries of Franciscan life.

Although they did not know the new language which the Sisters heard in New York, they had little difficulty in making their way. The steamship agent gave them all the necessary help. He telegraphed Father Jachimowicz in Mt. Carmel and then on their request drove them to the rectory of St. Stanislaus church, where they were to meet Father Strzelecki, like Mother Veronica a native of Warsaw, who was in the United States since 1885. The priest was known for his protection of Polish immigrants, and most of them were reminded in the old country to stop at his rectory, for his wise advice and sage instruction were known to have saved many a new-comer from the ravages of a dollar-colored existence. The sisters agreed to spend the night at the rectory having received word that their new pastor would call for them the next day.

The following morning Mother Veronica went out into the city to make her first purchase in America. She had little money, for her poverty-stricken convent back home had little to give. The agreement had been made with Father Jachimowicz that they would be recompensed for their work in his parish after they had commenced teaching in his school. So very small was the sum that she had at her disposal that she would have to use it for what was most indispensable at this time in the new world. Did she have a premonition of the future sacrifices that the Lord would demand of her that she put out her hand first for a crucifix? Was her act of embracing the newly purchased image of the Sacred Heart for which she laid down her last pennies, a symbol of the affectionate attachment to the Sacred Heart of her Community, whose growth was still hidden in the womb of the future?

The crucified Lord and the Sacred Heart – these two were most important. The crucifix and the image of the loving Heart were to be acquired first on the threshold of the new world. “I am the door; if anyone enter by me, he shall be safe,” (John 10:9). In the shadow of the cross she was to plant the seed of her new community whose full growth her bodily eyes were never to see. From its ardent attachment to the Sacred Heart, the source of all love, it was to imbibe the lessons of a sacrificial love for God and neighbor, to which purpose it owed its very being.

The Sacred Heart! It had loved her so tenderly! In the chapel of the Sacred Heart in the convent of Zakliczyn she had dedicated herself to it; her tongue to proclaim its glories, her mind to think of it, her will to desire it, and her heart to love it alone. She had offered a countless number of times all that she was and had; now she was offering it this project so new and unknown, to be guided by that Most Sacred Heart; her toils and labors that they be blessed by it; all her sacrifices and those of all future Bernardines to be sanctified by it. In the love of the Sacred Heart she placed all her hope and confidence. She wanted it to be the sole object of her love, the center around which she moved, according to whose example she would mould the lives of her daughters. All her life she had clung to the Sacred Heart as she clung to that new image which she bought in a New York shop. She clung to it with a passionate love; now she was devoting herself entirely and solely to its service to gain souls to its love. That Heart would also be her strength in temptation, and her only consolation in the days of tribulation and sorrow that unknown to her were awaiting her in her new land.

The cross and the Sacred Heart! The act of purchase of the two objects at the very dawn of the Community’s life in the new world were a synthesis of the life of their superior and her work with which she was still closely allied for twenty years. The majestic monument before the convent’s main entrance, placed there in 1911 on her initiative, is a lively reminder of Mother Veronica’s spirit. The “In Hoc Signo Vinces” in gold on the cross in the hands of the Savior was literally fulfilled in her life. The “Ecce Cor Adeo Dilexit Mundum” found its most beautiful reflection in her interior life and exterior deeds.

Father Thaddeus Jachimowicz, the pastor from Mt. Carmel, arrived as he had promised, and after a slight delay another trip by train was resumed. There was no convent ready for the Sisters when they arrived in Mt. Carmel, so they received hospitable shelter in the rectory for a few days until their own home was ready. School was already in session for it was the middle of October, a lay teacher and the organist being in charge. The Sisters immediately in true Franciscan fashion buckled down to work, and the following day saw them in school, too. There were almost three hundred children enrolled, which was a large number for the two to handle, so grouping them into four classes, Sister Frances, Sister Catherine and Sister Gertrude gave a helping hand.

Love for the new work made the labor light, and joy that they were called upon to perform a work of such merit eased the otherwise heavy burden. To teach little children the fundamental truths of their religion, to train them in habits of goodness and truth; to imbue them with an appreciation for all that was beautiful and holy and true, to cultivate within them an attachment to Holy Mother Church, to hand down to them and preserve for them the beautiful traditions of their Catholic native land – all this made light the strenuous days in their new school.

There were difficulties, it is true, their inability to speak the language being the greatest, but in the light of existing conditions in 1894 it was not unbearable. They were in a parish where immigration was fresh and where all spoke the native tongue including the children. The mother tongue was in demand by the parents and the pastor. The English part of the curriculum was taken care of by the lay teacher until the Sisters would be ready to assume the task. In order to remove the difficulty of the language, however, they began a serious study of English and the younger two soon showed signs of remarkable progress.

Occasionally a feeling of loneliness clutched at their hearts. It would be evoked by the voluminous voices of the men singing at the High Mass the Holy, Holy, Holy God Almighty, God Immortal, which was an echo of the hymn sung by their fathers across the ocean blue; it was called forth by the scent of fresh incense before benediction, recalling memories of the glorious moments spent in their convent chapel in the old world; it arose at the sight of waves and waves of ripening grain in their agricultural homeland, or the sound of the nightingale or the whippoorwill – which loomed up in their memories at time of leisure or pensive mood. But time is a successful healer and gradually it erased the scars which separation from all that was dear to them had left.

The first letter from their Provincial Superior back in the homeland with its expression of fatherly concern bolstered their courage, shot new energy into their lives, and gave a new impetus to the work undertaken.

“My dearest Sisters in God,” it began. “I have long awaited news from you. Thank God that you have arrived safely at your destination.

“I extend to you my most cordial wishes and my sincere blessing on your new work. May the Lord Jesus grant you health, a long life so very important for His glory and for your new home in America.

“When my dearest Sisters were making preparations to leave I feared most for the health of the Reverend Mother Superior, Mother Veronica; now my fears are allayed since, despite the storms on sea you have happily attained the object of your journey.

“I need not remind Mother Veronica how much the new venture depends upon her. Our whole Province, nay – the whole Order looks toward its success. I have hope that you will respond well to the trust placed in you. Do not say that it is above your strength, for since the Lord sent you, He will not refuse His help and grace. From heaven you are blessed by our Patriarch, St. Francis, St. Elizabeth, and all the saints of the Franciscan family. To be assured of help from above you must faithfully fulfill your vows and the promises you made to God. Therefore despite all obstacles, remain attached to the spirit of your rule.”

The remaining part of the letter is an explanation of how the activity of the new life may be substituted for the mortifications of the cloister; how the parts of the lengthy breviary may be replaced by prayers recited at times free from active duty. There is a gentle reminder of offering their prayers and works for the needs of the Church, before the letter closes with the beautiful Franciscan blessing.

Mother Veronica did not help with the teaching, but she did all else that needed to be done in addition to her duty as superior. But she had occasion to meet the parents of the children who were taught and the little children, too. She loved these immigrants with all her mother’s love. She looked forward to meeting their fair smiling faces every time they appeared on the field before school each day. She knew that their parents had come from a land where hardships were great and advantages few; where it was a crime to speak the language of your fathers and a sin to profess your faith in the one church you knew was the true one. She had lived for many years in the domain of the czar and therefore knew conditions there well. In Mt. Carmel there were numerous victims of that despotic rule. The Kulturkampf of Prussia was the indirect cause of many others’ presence here; adverse economic conditions in Austrian-controlled Poland many more. They were all people of her own nationality, culture and race and her spirit reveled in all that was akin to her Slavic origin.

The greater number of Polish immigrants in Mt. Carmel founds means of sustenance by their labor in the coal mines in the vicinity, for the town lies in the rich anthracite section of the state of Pennsylvania. She often watched the miners on the way back from the mines with their clothes all covered with grime and soot. Then she would commend each one with his family to the care of St. Barbara, the patroness of miners in her own country. All around her were grim reminders that her people worked well, and that the land was exploited perfectly; the rising collieries silhouetted against the azure sky; the conical hills of coal dirt as black as night, like sleeping volcanoes or magic dreams rising above the clouds. The naked land, bluntly cut and stripped, exposed here and there wide yellow scars on its surface. Between these were marks of large patches of green, resembling remnants of a gorgeous green tapestry cut by a sharp sword, or blown up by a powdery blast, remnants of the beauty of this land. The coal mine workings did not add to the charm of the countryside with their ravages on its beauty, but Mother Veronica knew that they furnished the means of support for many people in the town.

As the year wore on, the shadow of Mother Veronica’s first cross in America began to appear on the low horizon of her otherwise contented life. Conditions in the agreement upon which the work was accepted, at close range began to appear to militate against the observance of the rule which was Mother Veronica’s chief concern and responsibility, and having notified her superiors in Europe of the same she was ordered to abandon the place and seek the establishment of a center elsewhere or else return to Europe. Once more she had to feel the pangs of suffering in the insecurity which this command brought her, for giving up the convent in Mt. Carmel left the Sisters without resources and literally with no roof over their head.

Before making any definite plans for the future, Mother veronica went out to the Middle West to Wisconsin to meet Sister Bruno, Felician, whom she had known back in Warsaw. Sister Bruno knew conditions in America better and would be in a position to give Mother Veronica the advice she sorely needed. Whether it was from Sister Bruno or others moved by charitable concern, it is not known, but she received advice to return to the East as the need for Sisters was just as great here.

Since the Sisters were leaving the diocese, Mother Veronica sent Sister Trances and Sister Catherine, both having a command of German and therefore always used for settling official business, to the Most Reverend Bishop McGovern in Harrisburg, to notify him of their departure, for it was with his permission that the entry into the diocese the year before was made. Bishop McGovern opposed their leaving at first, but when the Sisters made clear to him the reasons for doing so, he agreed, and gave them his blessing on their way, veiled densely by the unknown future. It was to this Episcopal blessing that Mother Veronica attributed the immediate help which God sent them, a help which anticipated their most glorious hopes.
Strange are the ways of God’s Providence! Mysterious are the means He chooses to advance His designs! What may at the time seem an ordinary act of chance, has been planned by an all-knowing and an all-loving Father! This is brought out strikingly in the planting of the Bernardine Sisters Community in the United States. Father Thaddeus Jachimowicz who had extended his plea to the convent in Europe for Sisters for work in his parish in Mt. Carmel had accepted the appointment as pastor in February, 1894. The Sisters responded and commenced the new work in October of the same year. The following summer, 1895, the Sisters departed from St. Joseph’s and a few months later, December 1, 1895, Father Jachimowicz left the parish for Chicago never to return to the East.

To Mother Veronica the bishop’s blessing presaged a happy turn of events. Following in the footsteps of her Father, St. Francis, her imitation of the Saint was in many ways striking. Not only did she imitate him in the intense love which she bore for the most Sacred Heart, whence radiated every external work undertaken by her, but she bore a resemblance in the many manifestations of the Founder’s practical virtues. Like St. Francis who refused the Sacrament of Holy Orders out of his great feeling of unworthiness to be an “Alter Christus” and who was known to have kissed the very footsteps of Christ’s priests, she, too, showed the greatest reverence and esteem for the priesthood and every priest servant of God. Her actions and attitudes, her conversations and conferences all revealed the deep respect which she bore for every priest, regardless of whether he was a humble assistant in a poor, lowly parish, or one having episcopal authority over a vast diocese. In her presence no one ever dared make the slightest derogatory remark about one whose position marked him as one dedicated to be the mediator between man and the Almighty. But if she saw God’s hand raised in benediction each time she knelt for the blessing of a priest, greater still was her appreciation of the blessing of the bishop who enjoys the fullness of the priesthood.

Meanwhile the Sisters, having left the episcopal residence in Harrisburg, walked out into a heavy thunderstorm which had been ironically awaiting them and which appeared as a counterpart of the one figuratively raging over them at the time. From dark leaden skies the rain beat unmercifully the parched ground and everything that occupied space on its surface. It poured in torrents from rainpipes forming flooded streams widening out and covering the streets of the town. The wet and glassy world from which all vestiges of life vanished having taken shelter under every reasonable cover, took the place of the one which but an hour before held out its smiling countenance to the bright sky. Out into this storm emerged two Bernardines, fortunately to be met by Sisters from one of the parishes, who, taking them into their home, provided them with shelter and a little convent spirit before they were again on their way.

Leaving these good Sisters they turned their steps towards the railroad station where they were to take the train to the town which held what they still called their home. They did not then know that they were to meet a disappointment on the way which at the time seemed almost disastrous, but which the Sisters for all time would call blessed. They arrived at the station in Reading where they were to change trains for Mt. Carmel at late evening only to learn their train had left just a few minutes before their arrival. There was nothing to do but seek shelter for the night in Reading, and resume their journey the next day, for the railroad station was surely no place for the Sisters to remain for the night.

The logical thing to do was to inquire at the closest rectory where lodgings for the night could be had, and since they learned that the Polish rectory was not far away, they turned their steps in that direction. God’s Providence directed them here for with the meeting of the pastor here, the last turn of the key opening the way of the Bernardine Sisters into the work of the Church in America was made. For this Church the Community was now to begin a work in its efficacy reaching far into the ages ahead. The difficulties and hardships in making its way were all necessary for God’s plans for the building of the Community. There would be many more before it took the shape which He desired it was to have. It was not to tower magnificently above the others, but standing apart in the shade it was to serve in a humble way its Omnipotent Master. Its meek beginnings were to be a perpetual reminder that it was not the creation of gifted minds and outstanding intelligence but a part of the profoundly wise scheme of the all-knowing Divine God. It would never boast of a foundress whose judgment swayed events and destined outcomes that were a wonder for all time, but rather admit that it was begun by a pliable though weak instrument in the hands of God for a work that was distinctly His.

Father Adalbert Malusecki, the pastor of St. Mary’s in Reading, accepted the Sisters for the night; what was more, the following day he made the proposal for them to come to Reading to help with the teaching of the children of his parish. He had at the time the services of two lay teachers. When they returned with the news to Mother Veronica her only answer was “Magnificat! This is the Lord’s will.” Without delay preparations commenced for coming to Reading and on September 6, 1895, Mother Veronica, Sister Frances, Sister Catherine and the tertiary Barbara were there. Gertrude Widmunt, not having been able to endure the rigors of the new life and greatly disturbed over the uncertainty of the future of the Bernardines in the United States, returned to Europe.