THELEAVEN.ORG | VOL. 45, NO. 15 | NOVEMBER 17, 2023
‘Your word is a
LAMP FOR MY FEET, And a light to my path’ — Ps 119:105
When Mount St. Scholastica was founded in Atchison on Nov. 11, 1863, threats were made against the fledgling community. So that night, two men kept a lantern vigil outside the convent to ensure the seven Sisters’ safety. The lantern remains a symbol of the protection and partnership of the Sisters and the lay faithful.
Novice Dorothy Herring, a member of the Benedictine Sisters community, leads the lantern procession from Benedictine College in Atchison to Mount St. Scholastica Monastery to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the Benedictine Sisters’ arrival in Atchison. Assisting her by illuminating her paper is Meredith Doyle, director of service learning at Benedictine College, and one of the event organizers.
Sisters, supporters re-enact lantern procession from the founding of Mount St. Scholastica STORY BY JACK FIGGE / PHOTOS BY JD BENNING
A
TCHISON — A family of seven eagerly waved from the Holiday Inn’s hallway window, trying to attract the attention of the 40 pilgrims carrying lanterns across the Fifth Street bridge. One pilgrim, Ronald Rodenbaugh, seeing that it was his grandchildren waving, held his lantern high above his head and waved back. Rodenbaugh and the other pilgrims were marching from Benedictine College in Atchison to Mount St. Scholastica Monastery to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the Benedictine Sisters’ arrival in Atchison.
Hostile beginning Seven Sisters arrived in the tiny town on the Missouri River in 1863, where they were met with hostility and violence. Local citizens were opposed to having a group of Catholic Sisters settle in the town. Threatening to burn down the Sisters’ new convent and chase them out of town, Lambert Halling and James Kennedy, employees of St. Benedict’s Abbey, led the Sisters to safety with lanterns. In her opening talk, delivered before the march, Sister Judith Sutera, OSB, reflected on the >> See “TONIGHT” on page 4