Threshold - Summer 2006

Spotlight on 2005 Golden Jubilarians

Sister Berlinda Gallegos loves helping others. She was raised in the mountains of Southern Colorado in the rural community of Antonito, with seven brothers and sisters. A teaching career of forty years meant helping many children, especially in elementary school.

She recognized and had a special compassion for those with greater needs and eventually received a master’s degree in special education. She worked in both Catholic and public school systems, with expertise in education of the mentally challenged and in reading. After her years of teaching ended, she knew she still had to be helping. Her second career has involved giving home care to elders in their homes. This is a field for which there is great demand and too few caregivers with the energy, patience, and true concern of Sister Berlinda.

After fifty years of religious life, she still describes herself as “happily active, finding fulfillment in the daily prayer that helps deepen my faith.”

Photo above: Sister Berlinda (standing) currently cares for Mrs. Barry Scanlan in Mrs. Scanlan’s home in Kansas City.


Sister Sharon Murray was recently honored at a retirement party for her 14 years as administrative assistant at the All Faith Counseling Center in Atchison. This ministry, supported by Mount St. Scholastica, offers affordable professional counseling on a sliding fee scale. The staff also works with youth development initiatives in the schools.

This was not Sister Sharon’s first retirement party or first retirement. She began teaching in elementary school, then high school and college. From rural Iowa to the urban core of Kansas City, she has brought her love of history and her love of young people. To work in a counseling center was no great stretch from a life of listening to her students and helping guide them through their struggles.

Taught by Benedictine sisters in her home town of Chicago, Sister Sharon notes that her father wondered how she could be content “in the country.” Country to city, mountains to plains, classroom to office, she has found contentment. She sums it up: “So here we are 50 or more years removed from Chicago, and it has been a truly grand journey. It is clear that in this whole operation the grace of a very patient God has been working overtime! Thanks be to that God!”

Photo above: Ollie Winzer (left), another assitant at the counseling center, was one of many congratulating Sister Sharon at her retirement.

Sister Julia Wilkinson brought her experience in the community’s oldest ministry to one of its newest. She, too, had a lengthy career as a teacher. Like Sister Sharon, she served in Colorado, at Lillis High School, and at Benedictine College.
Educated in sociology and criminology, she also found that teaching is about counseling and listening as well. With further study in spirituality, she became a chaplain at the Valley Hope Center in Atchison, which assists persons with chemical dependencies.

Although no longer employed there, she offers spiritual direction at Sophia Center and is especially sought by those who want a Twelve-Step approach in their spirituality. She works with the Souljourners program to train others who want to give spiritual direction.

Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, and later living in Kansas City, Sister Julia was much closer to home than some of her classmates, but the journey to a religious vocation and fifty years of fidelity is always a long and involved one. “I feel very blessed to be a Mount Benedictine,” she says. “My life has been enriched by so many people and God has blessed me abundantly.”

Sister Julia recently led retreats for volunteers who assist in the work of
the Keeler Women’s Center in Kansas City, Kansas. She is surrounded by (seated) Patricia Errington and Shirley Chenoweth and (standing)
Pat Callaghan and Martha Lavan.