Jonesboro, AR – JonesboroRightNow.com – Early each morning, the sounds of praise and worship fill the halls of the chapel at the Holy Angels Convent in Jonesboro. It is the home of the Olivetan Benedictine Sisters, who are frequently seen walking the halls and working at various St. Bernards Healthcare facilities.
The Sisters follow the rule of Saint Benedict, which lays out when to pray, what to pray about, times for rest and relaxation, and a general structure for the day.
“You do have to have the balance of work with God’s people and communing with God so that you can bring him to God’s people,” said Mother Mary Clare Bezner. “We live this intentional life here in Holy Angels, so that when we’re able to go out and be with God’s people, we’re filled up and able to bring that out.”
Daily Schedule
The day begins at 6 a.m. sharp at the convent with Mass and individual prayer before the Sisters head to perform their various duties, usually at St. Bernards. Their day is a rhythmic balance of labor and worship, ending with communal prayer and with what Mother Mary Clare laughingly called “forced family fun” – a time set aside for games and conversation.
“It’s important, because we do have so much silence in our day, and people do go to work and they’re gone, and then we’re in prayer so much. We need to have a time set aside where we can talk with each other, so we play games,” she explained.
A night prayer, called a compline, is held at 7:30 p.m., and then the Sisters are off to bed, ready to start the next day.
Work at St. Bernards
As prioress, Mother Mary Clare acts as manager of the convent. She assigns the Sisters and various other staff their jobs for the day, ensures the convent’s infirm Sisters are cared for, and serves as the spiritual mother.
“That’s probably my No. 1 role, in this role as prioress, to take care of the spiritual life of my sisters in this and make sure that they are getting what they need on a regular basis,” she said.
At St. Bernards, Mother Mary Clare chairs the hospital’s board, reading and signing necessary documents and attending board meetings. The Olivetan Benedictine Sisters are the hospital’s religious sponsors and serve on various governing boards and committees.
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As a Catholic-affiliated hospital, St. Bernards operates a Pastoral Care team, in which several of the Sisters work. The team includes a Catholic priest, various Sisters, pastors and priests of different denominations, and pastoral aides. Sister Maria Christi Cavanaugh is on the care team and travels to St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro after breakfast to begin her work.
“You think about the word ‘pastoral,’ you think about the word ‘shepherding,’ Jesus being the Good Shepherd,” Sister Maria Christi said. “We are kind of like the spiritual beacons. We all have a spiritual need as well as a physical need.”
Sister Maria Christi, along with a team of seven to eight chaplains, works on various floors of the hospital to provide prayer and comfort to patients and their families, as well as medical staff.
Pastoral Care provides services at the Jonesboro hospital, Phil and Flo Jones Hospice House, and St. Bernards Behavioral Health. Patients in St. Bernards’ Pocahontas and Wynne hospitals are served by pastors local to those areas. The team serves all faiths, including those without faith.
“In general, most patients that we see are Christians, so we share certain Christian values, such as the Trinity and Jesus, so that’s usually the first connection point with that,” Sister Maria Christi explained. “Patients of no faith, oftentimes, [it’s] just supporting them, maybe it’d be a little bit more emotionally, or just letting them know we’re there for them if they need someone to talk to or listen to, and minister to them in that way.”
The team will pray before every meeting, respond when a patient is coding to be there for family, run snacks to medical staff, act as a shoulder to lean on, and more.
The team will try to see 50 to 60 people a day, which Sister Maria Christi said may range from just checking in with patients to spending a few hours with them. It all depends on the needs of the person she or a fellow chaplain is seeing, she said.
Community Service
Service to their community is interwoven in the Olivetan Benedictine Sisters’ history. They trace their roots back to the Convent of Maria Rickenbach in Switzerland. Five Sisters were sent to teach in Missouri in 1874. During this time, Father Eugene Wiebel, a missionary in Arkansas, persuaded a Little Rock bishop to send Sisters to a parish school in Pocahontas, where a group arrived in 1887.
After moving to Jonesboro in 1898, they were called to care for those suffering from a malaria outbreak—a mission that led to the purchase of the house that became St. Bernards Hospital in 1900. Over the decades, they have served as “seed planters,” launching vital community efforts such as El Centro Hispano and local prison ministries.
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Practices and Beliefs
The Sisters have taken a vow of poverty, meaning they live simply. None of the Sisters has their own income, and any money they earn is pooled for the benefit of the convent. In the Mother House, while each Sister has their own room, they are all the same: a roughly 10-foot-by-10-foot space with a twin bed, desk, chair, sink, and closet.
The Olivetan Benedictine Sisters wear white attire, known as habits, for which there is a special reason. Mother Mary Clare said the practice comes from a vision that Saint Bernard Tolomei (who is the namesake for the hospital system) had in the early 1300s, in which the Virgin Mary appeared to him and told him she would watch over his community, but that all monks should wear white and bear her name in her honor. As a result, the Sisters donned the white habit.
As a part of this, each of the Sisters has some variation of Mary as part of their name, whether it be Mary, Maria, Miriam, or another adjacent name.
“[The Virgin Mary] she’s really our image as women, she was the perfect disciple of Christ. She followed him with her whole heart; she gave everything she could,” Mother Mary Clare said. “We want to bring [God] to the world, and so, it is our great honor to try to be the woman like Mary was.”
Holy Week Celebration
During the week leading up to Easter, known as Holy Week, the Sisters’ schedules will change. Holy Week is a somber time at the convent, a week spent preparing for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. On Holy Thursday, the Sisters partake in the Last Supper, and then stay up until 10 p.m., sitting with Jesus in the garden before he was beaten.
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On Good Friday, there is no Mass, as Jesus is in the tomb. Instead, the Sisters hold a ceremony in which they venerate the cross and admit their faults to their fellow Sisters, asking for forgiveness.
On Holy Saturday, the Easter vigil does not begin until after sunset. The service, which the Sisters start outside in the darkness, involves lighting the Easter Candle.
From there, the congregation files into the chapel, bringing the light inside. They will read nine passages from the Old Testament leading to the New Testament and will sing “Hallelujah” for the first time since the season of Lent begins. Lent is a 40-day period of prayer and fasting that starts on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Holy Saturday.
“You have to sit there and listen to them all, but if you’re spiritually there, it’s very fulfilling,” Mother Mary Clare said.
Easter Mass will follow, which Mother Mary Clare said will include incense, chanting of the psalms, and singing Alleluia until everyone is “blue in the face.” The Easter celebration continues beyond Easter Sunday, leading up to Pentecost, which commemorates the Holy Spirit descending on the Apostles.
Everyday Life
The Olivetan Benedictine Sisters love the outdoors. They love coffee (they are big fans of Shadrachs), have friends outside of the convent, enjoy swimming in the Mother House’s swimming pool, have dogs and cats, and drive. (Mother Mary Clare noted that sometimes, people think the Sisters do not drive. They have cars, but nothing cool like the Popemobile, she laughed).
Living at the convent was described as “beautiful and difficult.” Mother Mary Clare likened the experience to the erosion and smoothing of rocks. When a rock breaks off at the top of a mountain, it is jagged and pointy, but becomes smooth after spending time rolling down the mountain and landing in a stream.
“It’s something you would want to put out for people to look at, it’s so pretty,” she said. “That’s how we’re supposed to be. When we start off, we might start off ragged with points and issues, and hopefully, by the time we get down the mountain, we’re smooth and beautiful in God’s eyes.”
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