Sister Helga Leija Makes Her Monastic Profession

*Sister Helga chants the “Suscipe” prayer (“Receive me, O Lord, as you have promised that I may live; disappoint me not in my hope”).*

On March 25, 2025, Sister Helga Leija stood before the community at Vespers and made her monastic profession of obedience, fidelity to the monastic way of life (conversatio), and stability, thus becoming the newest sister of Mount St. Scholastica. 

Sister Helga began religious life as a member of an apostolic community, the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament of Corpus Christi, Texas. After 15 years, she began discerning a call to a different way of living religious life in a more contemplative setting. Her exploration eventually led her to the Mount in July 2021, and two months later she entered into a formal transfer process.

*Sister Helga removes the ring of her former community as the prioress, Mary Elizabeth Schweiger, places the ring worn by the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica on Sister Helga’s finger.*

As she became immersed in a new culture, landscape, and charism, Sister Helga struggled at first with the Benedictine practice of stability — the commitment to remain in one place, with one community, through all its trials and joys. Yet she chose to remain and eventually learned that stability can become a path to grace and that the discomfort of the ordinary can be transforming. She said, “My monastic community slowly began to transform before my eyes and heart. Their same faces and voices, over time, became instruments of God’s presence, and I realized that stability was not about doing the same thing every day in the same place for life, but about trusting that God is present in those faces, in those things we do, in this place we live.”

Sister Helga gained a grounding in Benedictine life by studying the Rule of St. Benedict, the history of the Mount, monastic history, the spirituality of the desert mothers and fathers, and monastic practices and vows in classes conducted by Sisters Patricia Gamgort, Cecilia Olson, and Judith Sutera. She also found it very helpful to attend online meetings with other sisters transferring to Benedictine communities. They were assisted in their exploration of grief, change, transition, letting go, and integration by Sr. Anne-Louise Nadeau, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur who is a transfer specialist.

*Sister Helga is covered with a pall as a sign of her mystical burial with Christ and rising to a new life.*

Along the way, Sister Helga, who has a bachelor’s degree in translation studies, began to work part time for “Global Sisters Report” (a division of the National Catholic Reporter) as a freelance translator and sister liaison. She now works there full time as Columns Editor, helping sisters from around the world tell their stories of how they live a consecrated life and serve others through their ministries. At the Mount, Sister Helga serves as a member of the schola, a small liturgical choir; as a Board member of Keeler Women’s Center; and as a companion for Sister Elaine Gregory, who lives in Dooley Center. She also is pursuing an online Certificate in Benedictine Spirituality through Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Sister Helga says that through her years of discernment and transition from an apostolic to a Benedictine community, “I am learning to remain true to myself and to God’s call for my life.” We at the Mount are grateful that this call led her to seek God with us in the “school of the Lord’s service” that is our Benedictine life.