Benedictine sisters have new home

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This article was published 10/11/2023 (699 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Just minutes into a tour of their new Winnipeg monastery, the sisters of St. Benedict reassure visitors they have not forgotten where they came from.

“We brought most of our furniture from 225 Masters (Ave.),” explains canonical administrator Dorothy Levandosky of the light wood lectern, altar and chairs in their new chapel.

“We’ve brought everything we could.”

That includes some artifacts of Mother Veronica Zygmanska, such as the three-tiered silver pedestal bell given to the first mother superior in 1924 on the 25th anniversary of her vows.

One of the four founding sisters who travelled from Duluth, Minn., in 1903, Zygmanska led the growing order to work in Manitoba schools, orphanages and hospitals, eventually establishing their motherhouse in Arborg in 1923.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was used in the Arborg chapel many years ago,” Sr. Mary Coswin says of the cross-topped bells now used to signal the start of chapel three times a day.

In 1961, the sisters built a bigger monastery on a riverfront acreage on Masters Avenue in West St. Paul, featuring a large chapel and bell tower at the front, dozens of rooms for the sisters at the rear, and classrooms and dorm rooms for a girls’ school. A decade later, the school closed, and they converted the space into a retreat and conference centre.

Two years ago, they sold that property to Southeast Resource Development Council and began planning their next home in Winnipeg.

Designed by Winnipeg architect and environmental gerontologist Robert Wrublowsky, the new single-level, 10,000-sq.-ft building at 419 Youville St. pays homage to their former home in West St. Paul, while accommodating the needs of the remaining nine sisters, ranging in age from 71 to 95.

“They are coming from a very organic environment in the woods,” says Wrublowsky of the incorporating many wood elements into the chapel, entrance and bedrooms.

“We’ve taken what they’ve come from.”

The design brings some unexpected blessings, including the intimacy of spaces for their smaller household, says Levandosky.

“We went from a huge chapel where we had to shout or yell to be heard into a smaller room,” she says of the new chapel.

“We learned how to be in a smaller space.”

Their new monastery features 10 bedrooms, each with a private bath, sitting area, desk, and patio door to the exterior, a great room with cathedral ceilings, open plan kitchen, a dining room for 12, a parlour for hosting visitors and a TV/media room. A medical room adjacent to the kitchen will soon be equipped with a hair salon sink, bathtub and massage table. A chapter room for meetings and several small offices for the business side of the monastery are located off the front entrance.

Still to be decorated with stained glass windows, tapestries and artwork, the interior is meant to reflect the openness and hospitality of the Benedictine sisters, says Wrublowsky, who resigned from his architectural firm recently to research and advocate for better designed long-term care homes.

“The building itself is more of an instrument for their vision and philosophy,” he explains of the wide corridors and tall ceilings.

The sisters have already welcomed many guests into their new home, located in a residential area at the eastern edge of St. Boniface, holding open houses recently for neighbours, friends and associates.

They have mixed feelings about the lack of room for overnight guests, but they plan to live out their call to hospitality, service and prayer in creative ways, says Levandosky.

“I think we bring the world inside in the way we pray,” she says of gathering in their new chapel three times a day.

“Our days of going out are behind us.”

Their recent move means adjusting to urban sounds of traffic, sirens and train whistles and learning to live on a smaller scale, having cut down their staff to three people from the former roster of 32, says Levandosky. They have also relinquished ownership of their monastery, now leasing it for a 10-year term from Réseau Compassion Network and contracting out some of the business duties.

Even as they settle in, the sisters also consider their future, pondering long they will stay in the beautiful, spacious home designed just for them, especially after one sister died just three months after moving in.

“There is a question of whether we live here until the last person (dies),” says Coswin.

“We’re a household of elderly people.”

But that may also be a mixed blessing, says Wrublowsky, since after the sisters leave, the building can be easily converted into a long-term care home for people with memory loss or those needing end of life care.

“It is the perfect size for a small house model personal care home,” he says.

For now, the sisters continue to settle into their new monastery, welcoming visitors and adapting to city life. They plan to be good neighbours from their new location on the short end of Youville Street, says Levandosky, providing a ministry of presence and being open to what’s next, no matter how many years they have left together.

“We’re also preparing for the journey home,” she says, referring to heaven.

“It’s day-by-day, capturing as much life as we can.”

brenda.suderman@freepress.mb.ca

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