Reflection given at the Vigil for Sister Fabian Dekat, O.S.B.
December 30, 2007
by Linda Herndon, OSB

Readings: Song of Songs 2:8-13; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 17:24-26

“I can’t wait to get to heaven.  Won’t it be great!”  Sister Fabian shared this wish with me several times in the recent years. Just a few days before she died, one of the nurses told me that Sister Fabian told her that she just wanted to "go home."  And so very early on a cold, snowy morning, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Jesus came to get Sister Fabian. He said to her, "Come!  Your advent is over. For you, winter is now past—the snow is over and gone.  Come, enjoy the reward that I have prepared for you from the foundation of the world." The one for whom Sister Fabian longed had come at last and she did not hesitate.  She went to meet him and did not delay. For her it is now Spring, the beginning of a new life with the one for whom she longed, the one for whom her soul was thirsting.

My favorite image of Sister Fabian in her later years is one that many of you witnessed: St. Lucy’s Chapel has no lights on and Sister Fabian sits alone there reading the Bible.  Before she was confined to a wheelchair these last couple of years, whenever I wanted to find Fabian, I always knew where I could find her. I’d go to St. Lucy’s Chapel and more often than not, there she was.  Fabian loved to sit and pray. I was not surprised to find that the quote she wanted on her memorial card was from Psalm 63, “O God, you are my God, for you I long: for you my soul is thirsting." As she grew in age and in holiness throughout her long life, it became more and more visible that her entire life was truly lived in praise and glory of God alone.  Her inheritance was Christ and her very being longed to go to heaven to be with God.

Both Paul and John tell us that God loved us and chose us before the foundation of the world.  How strongly and certainly Sister Fabian must have experienced being chosen by God. First, when she was baptized on the Feast of St. Scholastica in St. Joseph's Church in Flush, Kansas—a special place for her since her family helped to build that church. As she grew up, she learned from her parents, Sebastian Fabian and Margaret Dekat, of the riches of God's grace that was bestowed on her. When she was one month over the age of 15, Helena Margaret and her 17 year old sister Clotilda came to the Mount.  She, who was first sealed with the promised Holy Spirit at her baptism, sought to share the gifts that God had lavishly given her as a vowed Benedictine. Sister Fabian (as Helena became known) was so young when she came to offer her life to God that she could not make perpetual vows with her sister, Sister Sebastian, but had to wait two additional years until she was old enough.

Whether in her youth or in her elderly years or in-between, Sister Fabian shared the gifts she had been given as lavishly as God had shared them with her. She taught for 57 years in both elementary and secondary schools.  After she "retired" and came home, she continued to serve in a variety of ways, including rocking the babies to sleep each afternoon in The Mount Community Center daycare. She touched the lives of countless children, from infants to high-schoolers, and their parents. Sister Fabian also touched the lives of those with whom she lived and taught. As a first-year scholastic, I lived with both Sisters Fabian and Sebastian in Maryville. It was then that I witnessed first-hand Sister Fabian's commitment to prayer and community not as much by words but by her actions. She was patient with an idealistic young sister, loving, accepting, always willing to help wherever she could—truly a model of how to live the monastic life. John could have said of Sister Fabian as he did of  Jesus, "I made known to them your name …that the love with which you loved me may be in them."

Sister Fabian's death marks an end of an era for us at the Mount. She was a link from our founding in Atchison to the present. During her many years at the Mount, Sr. Fabian witnessed so much of our history.  When she and her sister entered our community on February 11, 1922, there were over 370 sisters here and Mother Aloysia was prioress. Sister Fabian lived under all but our first two prioresses and the last of our founding sisters, Sister Gregoria, died after she entered. In reflecting on Sister Fabian's long life and her nearly 85 years as a vowed member of this community, I am in awe of her faithfulness to her vows and her ability to embrace with openness all the changes in the Church and community life that came with Vatican II. For her, all life was gift to be treasured, reverenced and shared.  I do not know how she was able to do so with such grace, peace, and love, except that she knew deep in her heart what John tells us in the gospel—that she truly had been loved by God since the foundation of the world. May she continue to be an inspiration and model to us of how to live and love in the midst of changing times.

Before Sister Anne, our prioress, left for Brazil she shared with me that she had greeted Sister Fabian with "Merry Christmas" on Christmas morning. Sister Fabian was not speaking much, but she did wrinkle her face and look back at Sister Anne as if to say, "Are you sure it's Christmas today?"  At the time, I did not understand her questioning look. Now, I do.  For Sister Fabian it was not Christmas that day.  She must have known that Jesus was not coming for her on December 25.  Her Advent extended a few days longer than it did for the rest of us.  As we sing our Christmas hymns for the funeral liturgies for Sister Fabian, let us rejoice that Jesus came on Christmas day over 2000 years ago and that Jesus came for Sister Fabian on her Christmas Day of December 28. 

Now, Sister Fabian, we your sisters and your family thank you that you made known God's name to us with the love with which you loved us. It is because of your love for us that we will miss you and that we can rejoice with you that your beloved has come for you. Yours now is the fullness of all spiritual blessings in the heavens for all eternity. Your body and soul no longer thirst since you are with the one for whom you longed for nearly 101 years.  You are at home at long last!
Gaudeamus!  Alleluia!

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