A Life Well Lived

Sr. Bernadette had an evangelization charism all her own. A true blooded Italian through and through, she enjoyed people immensely and unhesitatingly offered encouragement, counsel or a joke when it was needed. Initially, new sisters here often found it astounding when Sister Bernadette received hundreds of Christmas cards each year (no exaggeration!). But after witnessing her conversations with our own family members in the parlor, or a nurse in a doctor’s office, it is clear why she is so personally beloved by numerous friends. She often remarked that she “never met a person [she] didn’t like” – a testimony to her own geniality! Perhaps the underlying reason for such personable generosity was her untiring fidelity to Christ and her vocation. Even into her 80s, she would eagerly volunteer to fill in for an extra nocturnal adoration hour when needed. The adventures and challenges that filled her 60 years of religious life, as well as the 31 years before her entrance, became for her stories and lessons that she readily handed on to us. In a way, they are the inheritance that she has left us. Our only sister in her nineties, Sister spent the first several decades of her monastic life at Sancta Clara Monastery in Canton OH as an extern sister. Then she made her way south and lived here in the cloister, making garments for Infant of Prague statues and doing her best to keep up with the correspondence of the many friends she loved. She was, and still is, an incredible blessing to us and all who have come to know her over the years. Sister Bernadette passed peacefully to her eternal reward on the night of December 1^st, 2010. May God grant her eternal rest.