An Uncommon Friendship

This year, 2025, has given us at Saint Benedict’s Monastery many occasions for remembering and celebrating! One outstanding event was our celebration of the 200th birthday of the foundress of Benedictine women in North America, including our very own monastery here in St. Joseph, Minn.—Mother Benedicta (Sybilla) Riepp, born in Waal, Bavaria, on June 28, 1825. She would go on to be credited with the foundation of 47 monasteries of Benedictine women in North America.

There is a sense in which M. Benedicta may have been “resurrected” for us in the 20th century with the publication of books by two of our sister historians. Sister Grace McDonald wrote our centennial history, With Lamps Burning (1956), and Sister Incarnata Girgen expanded S. Grace’s history in a work entitled Behind the Beginnings (1981). It seems that these works eventually led to the beginning of our community’s lasting friendship with M. Benedicta’s people in Waal. S. Grace’s book gave us our first formal introduction to M. Benedicta, and S. Incarnata actually visited Waal in the late 1970s and introduced our community to some of the townspeople there. These people were thrilled to know that a woman from Waal was famous for beginning many monasteries of women in the United States.

In 1987, a group of women and men from Waal, led by a woman named Maria Eberle, visited Saint Benedict’s Monastery, desiring to visit the gravesite of M. Benedicta Riepp. Thus began a treasured friendship that has lasted up to the present day.

After their visit to the U.S., Maria interested her women’s church group in the life and accomplishments of M. Benedicta Riepp, and she eventually proposed that they commission and fund a local sculptor to create a monument for their town in her honor. When Sisters Ephrem Hollermann and Eunice Antony visited Waal in July 1992, the monument being created by Otto Kobel was nearly completed.

By September of that same year, the Waalers (as they referred to themselves) scheduled an event to bless and place the monument in the churchyard of St. Nicholas, the town’s earliest church. Representatives of Saint Benedict’s Monastery were invited to attend, and we sent Sisters Mary Cecilia Kapsner and Andre Marthaler, both of whom were able to speak German. They reported that it was a glorious event. With this event, it seems, the friendship was sealed! Periodically, delegations of Waalers have come to celebrate important events at Saint Benedict’s Monastery. In 1994, the president of the Federation of Saint Benedict, now named the Monastic Congregation of Saint Benedict , invited a delegation from Waal to come to St. Joseph to celebrate Heritage Day during the triennial meeting of the Federation Chapter at Saint Benedict’s Monastery. Ten citizens of Waal accepted the invitation and came. Again, in 2007, a group from Waal came to Saint Benedict’s Monastery to celebrate the 150th anniversary of our monastery’s founding.

Periodically, the Waalers have their own celebrations at the site of the monument in their city, usually in the month of September, to remember M. Benedicta Riepp and the blessing of the monument in her honor. In 2025, upon Waal’s invitation, three of our sisters traveled to Waal to celebrate the 200th birthday of Mother Benedicta Riepp at the monument site—Sisters Nancy Bauer, Marlene Schwinghammer and Colleen Quinlivan.

Ephrem Hollermann, OSB

This article was featured on page 12-13 in the fall 2025 issue of Call