Founders Day

       Today (June 1) we honor the Benedictine women who arrived from Erie PA to establish a Benedictine community in Covington, Ky. (We usually celebrate the feast on June 3 but this year we transferred it to June 1 because the Feast of the Sacred Heart falls on June 3.)  Three sisters arrived at St. Joseph Parish on June 3, 1859. They were the third group of Benedictines to establish a community in the United States. It may be interesting background to note that the first Benedictines to arrive in the United States from Eichstatt, Germany in 1852 settled in Elk County, PA. In 1856, a group from Elk County established a monastery in Erie, PA, the community of our direct origin. 

       On June 3, 1859, three sisters from Erie, PA, arrived at St. Joseph Parish. These sisters lived in a rented house on Bush Street with few possessions and only a genuine trust in God to sustain them. It is hard to imagine the hardships they faced in a new land with a new language, and little preparation for teaching the children of Covington’s German immigrants’ girls’ school.  How grateful they were that the parishioners of St. Joseph Parish came to their aid with food and clothing. 

       Only two months after their arrival Mother Alexia Lechner (pictured below) was sent as prioress. We give special honor to her as we celebrate our Founders Day. In addition we celebrate the many forebears who planted the seeds and tended the foundation of the monastery we dearly love and call home today. 

       The first reading for today’s Mass from the book of Hebrews honors our forebears well by comparing their faith to that of Noah, Abel, Abraham, and Jacob. We ask God for a similar faith and ask their intercession as we seek to respond to God’s call today. We ask that God continue in us the good work God began in them.        

        As I wrote this blog, I began to feel closer to Mother Alexia and our early forebears than ever before. I attended elementary school at St. Joseph Parish where the founders of our community arrived. It was from the Sisters at St. Joseph School that the first seeds of my vocation were sown. Praise God—a personal reason for me to celebrate!

Sister Victoria Eisenman, OSB