Threshold Winter 2006

A Day of Jubilee
by Thomasita Homan, OSB

How does one stay committed to anything for fifty years? “You do it one day at a time.” “You roll with the punches,” “You just go with it,” are among the bits of advice from one experienced group. Three sisters celebrated their golden jubilee of monastic profession and one her silver jubilee at Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison on July 9.

Sister Mary Teresa Morris, originally from Kansas City, Kans., has spent her twenty-five years of monastic life in the health care profession. A nurse and nursing instructor, she currently lives at the Mount and works for Southview Home Care as a visiting home health nurse in the St. Joseph, Mo., area.

The three sisters who were professed fifty years ago have maintained their joyful service though a variety of experiences. Sister Rita Claire (Mary Gerald) Judge was raised on a farm in north central Nebraska and taught in elementary schools for many years. She later became involved in parish ministry and was particularly drawn to ministry to the elderly. She now does in-home care in Maryville, Mo. She also spent two years as a missionary in Brazil.

Sister Mary Beth (Francella) Niehaus has come full circle in her travels. A native of the Seneca, Kans., area, she is currently the pastoral associate in the same parish in which she was raised. In the meantime, however, she has worked in the education of children as an elementary teacher and of adults in English language programs.

Sister Trinitas Miles came to Atchison from Sedalia, Mo. She has followed a similar path to the others in having begun as a teacher and later moved into parish work. Her specialty has been social services and pastoral care, which she continues to provide as an assistant for services to the sisters in Dooley Center. She adds one more important piece of advice about living a long, faithful life. Her best advice: “Pray, pray, pray.”






Sister Mary Teresa repeats her profession first made 25 years ago.

Spotlight on the Golden Jubilarians

Sister Rita Claire Judge

“I really believe in presence. I am passionate about life with people of every age, about family, about the sisters who taught me in Atkinson, Neb., about my own teachers, about the children I’ve taught, and about sharing with their parents.” Like a litany, her words tumbled out with full energy as Sister Rita Claire talked about what she brought to community and what gives her life. To her, to live in presence is to live consciously and fully in the presence of God and God’s people. Smiling, she added “Presence is sometimes challenging.”

Music is also important to Sister Rita Claire, especially teaching singing. Father Duane of Mineiros said the people in Brazil are still singing the songs she taught them. When she was leaving one mission, the priest told her, “Two things I’m going to miss: 1) Your music! You taught even the sticks to sing! and 2) people of the parish won’t be popping in as frequently to say hello.” She treasures photos of Oklahoma children singing on the church steps, and times when she sang, talked, and prayed with jail residents. Now, music and presence continue in her visits to the elderly in the nursing home.”They go together,” she said, “the music, prayer, and presence.”

Recently. she heard of two grade school children behind in their schoolwork. “They need presence and tutoring,” she said, and she is giving it five days a week. Grades of A and B prove she knows how to be present.

Sister Rita Claire has been very present to community in her many years of teaching, in her pastoral care in Oklahoma, in caring for her mother in her last illness, and in care of the elderly. She sings her favorite song of presence “Sacred the land. Sacred the water. Sacred the sky, Holy and true...”

“Everybody in Maryville knows I’m there to help. If one job ends, people offer me another,” she smiled.

The photo above shows Sister Rita Claire helping Lauren and Jonathan Sheil with homework.


Sister Trinitas Miles

Sister Trinitas Miles sees a dynamic relationship between her dedication to seek God and her longtime interest in searching the skies with her telescope. As a girl scout in junior high, she first became interested in astronomy; in high school, she built her own telescope. She and her telescope entered community together over fifty years ago. As she was learning the ways of Benedictine life, she also found time to scan the skies from the roof of the fourth floor of the monastery. About twenty years ago, her cousin gave her a pair of good binoculars to view celestial objects, which allowed her to see a wider field of images right-side up. Two years ago she received a small refractor telescope.

She observes how planets, star clusters, and galaxies relate to her prayer life and her life as a community member. “This seeking and living is where I see the majesty of God’s creation.” she says. “We are such minute particles and, oh, how he cares for us.” She is a member of The Planetary Society and also shares ideas with astronomers in regional astronomy clubs.

“My contemplative side has grown during the years,” Sister Trinitas remarks as she looks up at the skies. “God’s power and great love become real. I’m thinking of Richard Rohr who speaks of the Divine Dance – when human beings and all of creation continue the dance with the Trinity. It is the flow of God in his creation and all becomes one: community, all of the earth and skies. We are one in God.”

Over the years, Sister Trinitas has taken her interest in astronomy to her ministry, first in education and then in pastoral care. She is now taking classes in a Spiritual Gerontology Program. One thing is certain, wherever Sister Trinitas ministers, she will be seeking God in the fullness of community and in the far reaches of the sky.

The photo on the right shows Sister Trinitas on a monastery balcony setting up her telescope.


Sister Mary Beth Niehaus

Home is important to Sister Mary Beth Niehaus. Seneca, Kans., was her first home, Mount St. Scholastica her second. In both homes, Sister Mary Beth celebrated her 50 years of vowed life. “I love my ministry to my hometown people. I grew up in Seneca, and many people I work with today knew my family,” says Sister Mary Beth. In both homes, Sister Mary Beth is a lively presence. Known for her cooking and baking, her sense of humor and adventure, her listening and creative ideas, she knows how to be at home and how to make others feel at home.

But the concept of home stretches; she also likes the roads of earth and life. “I like to travel, too,” Sister Mary Beth quickly adds, “especially to travel on country roads, roads that wind up and down hills, turn and turn and turn.” Her hands make turns in the air as she talks. “And I love to watch sunrise and sunset.” Perhaps it’s a combination of loving home, and loving the travel that leads from home to home, that best describes Sister Mary Beth.

After leaving her first home to answer God’s call to the Mount community, Sister Mary Beth began teaching in Kansas elementary schools; later, she taught English as a Second Language and adult learning in Kansas City and Atchison. After her renewal program and education, she began her parish work.

In the folds of the years to come, Sister Mary Beth will, undoubtedly, continue to be a strong presence who makes home here on earth a reality that reaches beyond sunrise or sunset.

At the parish celebration in Seneca for Sister Mary Beth: (standing) Sisters Bernadette Havlik, Rosann Eckart, Delores Wagner, Rita Claire Judge, Mary David McFarland, Mary Ann Dice, Mary Ethel Burley and Delores Dolezal (sitting) Bridget Dickason, Mary Beth, Frances Watson and Elizabeth Coffey.