Poetry book filled with ‘inspired encouragement’
Patty Wood Bartle

Ninety-eight year old Sister Francis, as she is known at Manor St. Joseph in Edgeley, recently published a collection of poetry. Little Heartbeats and Daydreams is filled with inspired encouragement gathered over her 68 years as a nun.

Sister Mary Francis Schwankl says she has been writing short stories since her school days. At graduation from Edgeley High School, she received an award for best short stories. Sister Francis wrote her first poetry in college as an assignment. Through the years as thoughts came, she wrote them on whatever scrap of paper was available. She writes in the introduction of her book, “Now that I have lived ninety-eight years, I decided to get rid of all excess items hoarded over the years and I wondered “why” I saved them….” Then she came across a book of her poetry written after the Bethany convent burned. She says she lost her best works in the fire but is grateful all got out alive.

It was her sister, Irene, who insisted Sister Francis’ works be published and when Sister Francis said there was no money to cover the cost, Irene offered to pay to have Little Heartbeats and Daydreams published. Cathy Brandenburg helped find a publishing company in New York to put the book in print.

Many have received copies of the book. Sister Francis has distributed nearly 250 copies to family, staff, Manor Auxiliary and Manor board members, as well as used them for Christmas gifts. “I’ve been flooded with requests,” she says and jokes she may need to do another printing.

“Everyone who has the book has found something in it they read as if it was written for them.” Still she says, “My best works burned, these are like little table scraps.” Sister Francis not only lost her best writings, she also lost all her paintings. Only “Going Home” a three-by-four-foot oil painting, and a companion piece remain today. The companion piece, in which the Lord reaches among the brambles and lifts out the lamb, hangs at a Mount Calvary Seminary in St. Lawrence, Wis.

Sister Francis says her writings and paintings are God inspired. They come at unexpected moments in unexpected ways. She says she has always had a love of nature which she inherited from her mother and dad. She attributes her appreciation of beauty in nature to her mother who would pick purple thistles and place them in a yellow vase to brighten a spot in their home.

Little Heartbeats and Daydreams is the second book authored by Sister Francis. She labored and wrote a concise history of Manor St. Joseph in 2000 which was published and distributed for their 60^th anniversary. Her most recent project has been to compile the history of the order of Sister Servants of Christ the King. She shared she has written the first chapters of the book which brings the nuns from France where they originated to America where they landed during a snowstorm. She has stacks and stacks of material from which to draw and has sent seven three-inch binders to Mt. Calvary hoping someone there will assist with compiling the data.

Sister Francis has shared her gentleness and faith with countless people as she transitioned from teacher to nun to nursing home administrator. Now her inspired encouragement can gently touch more through her published book.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

The immense mercy of our God is seen throughout Lent and, most especially, on Good Friday when we recall the crucifixion of Jesus, who died for the sins of all. In these final days of preparation for Easter, we reflect upon our sins, seek God’s forgiveness and look forward with thanksgiving to His promise of eternal life. We recognize that we are made for God and true happiness is found in our intimacy with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God desires for each of us to live with Him eternally. Thus, He offered us Jesus and, through Jesus, His Divine Mercy is made present. Mercy is the goodness, compassion, faithfulness and love of God revealed in Sacred Scripture. Despite man’s constant sin and unfaithfulness, God remains faithful and loving toward His creatures. We see this mercy most especially revealed in the parable of the prodigal son. The love of the Father waits for each one of us to return to His complete cleansing and healing forgiveness.

Under the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, Divine Mercy Sunday was established as the first Sunday after Easter Sunday. The feast is most appropriate as it flows from God’s most merciful action toward humanity, the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

As your bishop, I encourage you to join with others throughout the Diocese of Fargo and universal Church in praying the Divine Mercy Novena beginning on Good Friday. As members of the Body of Christ, participation by each one of us is important for the strengthening and healing of the entire Church. Turning with confidence in the Father of Mercy, and to his Son who is divine mercy incarnate, I ask that each of us pray specifically for the following intentions:

I also ask you to join me on Divine Mercy Sunday as I entrust the Diocese of Fargo to Jesus’ Divine Mercy. On that day, I will be blessing the new Divine Mercy mosaic in the Cathedral of St. Mary, Fargo, and ask you to participate by entrusting yourself and your families to Jesus' Divine Mercy.

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

 Act of Family Consecration To Divine Mercy 

O Jesus, Divine Mercy,
We consecrate our entire life,
from this day forward,
to You without reserve.
Into Your hands we abandon our past.
our present, and our future.
Jesus, we ask You, from this day on,
to look after our family.
Help us to be true children of God
and children of your Blessed Mother Mary. 

How to Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet

A chaplet, similar to the rosary and actually prayed using rosary beads, is to be said each day, along with the specific intention. For the chaplet, do the following:

1) Begin with the Sign of the Cross, pray an Our Father, a Hail Mary and The Apostles Creed.

2) Then on the Our Father beads, say the following: Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

3) On the 10 Hail Mary beads, say the following: For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. (Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all five decades.)

The largest lay Catholic organization in the world, operating in 135 countries, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul will celebrate its 175^th anniversary on April 23.

The Society is best known for its thrift stores and food pantries, and for the personal visits of its members to the homes of the poor and needy. Established in France in 1833 by a college student named Frederic Ozanam, the Society began its existence in the United States 12 years later, in 1845, in St. Louis.

There are two Society of St. Vincent de Paul thrift stores operating in the Diocese of Fargo, one in Fargo and one in Grand Forks.

The Fargo Society of St. Vincent de Paul has two aspects, the retail portion and the social service side. The retail is the thrift store. The store, established in 1968, is located at 1425 First Ave. S. It is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. They operate primarily on a volunteer basis with only two full-time employees. One of the employees is manager Dennis Grosek. He has been working with Society of St. Vincent organizations since 1993 and worked previously at a Seattle location for five years. He said the structure of how they operate and how the Society here operates varies as much as night and day. There the stores are affiliated with specific parishes and here the Society is independent of any parish; therefore, the store here is called a Society of St. Vincent de Paul Special Conference. When a Society of St. Vincent de Paul is affiliated with a specific parish, it is called a Conference.

The funding for St. Vincent’s financial assistance programs comes primarily from sales at the thrift store. They offer financial assistance for residential rent payments, mortgage payments and utility payments. To be eligible, an applicant must be a resident of Cass or Clay counties and meet requirements established by the board of directors. The Society also honors written vouchers from other agencies for material goods supplied through the retail store. This past year, they approved 489 applications for financial aid and support which resulted in $18,500 of assistance in addition to $2,100 worth of merchandise from the thrift store. “Since I started here, I feel that our donation quality and quantity has increased which in turn increases revenue generated by the store allowing us to aid more people. Also the businesses around town have been donating more and that provides good community interaction,” said Grosek. The store is always looking for donations of new and gently used items for resale.

Bonnie Kroetsch has served on the Fargo St. Vincent de Paul Special Conference’s board of directors for the past two years and also volunteers at the thrift store every week. “I get to visit with everyone when cashiering. I really like that there is such a variety of people and personalities, and that the money [from purchases at the store] is being used to help people in need,” said Kroetsch. Kroetsch has been involved with some kind of social action work since 1980 and just finished serving nine years as a board member with the St. Anthony of Padua’s Conference. St. Anthony’s Conference focuses on social outreach to their parishioners by visiting people in their homes, providing Christmas food baskets to the needy and sending a condolence memorial when a member of a parishioner’s immediate family has passed away. St. Anthony’s is currently the only Conference operating in Fargo.

The Grand Forks thrift store, 620 Eighth Ave. S., is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., and they stay open until 8 p.m. on Wednesdays. In addition to their thrift store, the Grand Fork’s St. Vincent de Paul Society Special Conference manages many programs to help those in need. They have a food pantry which serves approximately 2,050 families a month; an emergency assistance program to assist with rent evictions, utility disconnects, medications, funeral and emergency medical travel needs which provided $35,000 in assistance last year; Cars for a Cause where people have donated over a dozen vehicles to give to those who are in need and cannot afford one; the Empty Bowl program, in its fourth year, sold 1,600 bowls of soup to raise support money.

The Society has two transitional housing units (they have one more currently in need of rehabilitation) that houses homeless people from six months to two years and one permanent supportive house for the homeless. Case managers work with clients to become independent. Manager JoAnn Brundin says, “We have two people on staff with master’s degrees in Social Work who meet with the clients and determine how to help them.” She says they also have over 60 volunteers to keep the store and other programs running.

Brundin said they do a lot of grant writing to fund many of their programs. “We just got a new grant funded through the Partners Internship Program in which we will choose two parks and take sack lunches to low-income children playing there,” she said. “Our 2007 donations included 230,110 pounds of food distributed through the food pantry, and we helped 350 families with clothing, furniture, whatever they needed valued at $23,000.”

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) of Grand Forks was founded after the flood of 1997 as a way of coordinating and unifying services among the Catholic parishes in Grand Forks.

Seeking and finding second hand treasures
Cherylynn Fausel

One of the things my mom and I used to do together for entertainment was to go “junk store-ing.” Whenever she would visit me, we would go shopping at the second hand stores in town and see what kind of treasures we could find. For a mere pittance, I could buy some household item or piece of décor and she would come home with a sack-full of books to read.

I grew up shopping at the second-hand stores. It was a treat when I was a girl to go with mom shopping at St. Vincent de Paul’s. Funny thing is, I never realized we did it because we were poor. I always thought it was an adventure to rummage through all the stuff people would discard and donate to these charitable redistribution centers. My first place was furnished with items from these eclectic boutiques.

"If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”(Luke 9:23).

My mother, Becky, faithful wife, mother, and grandmother, led a simple life raising her seven kids in quiet obscurity in the small town of Maddock. Married to Gary Wald for 33 years, she had watched six of her seven children graduate from high school and leave Maddock. Over the past few years, mother had spent much time praying about her new role in life, as her kids were mostly grown and did not “need” her like they used to. Through her prayers, she felt especially called to accept the daily trials that befell her, uniting them with Christ’s cross for the salvation of souls.

Last Easter Sunday, mother was given the opportunity to accept her biggest cross yet, as she found out that she had incurable liver and colon cancer. Although this news came as a shock to the entire family, mother was not about to fall into self-pity and become angry at God. Instead, she used her battle with cancer as an opportunity to reach out to others.

While we were still in the hospital, one of my sisters set up a Web site for mother through CaringBridge, where she could post updates and visitors to the site could leave her messages. She used this Web site to publish a journal, which she updated every couple of days keeping visitors to the site informed about her day to day health, but also spreading the message of Christ’s love and mercy and the importance of accepting suffering for the salvation of souls. She felt very strongly that this was to be her mission during her cancer journey, and her CaringBridge journal was her means of spreading this message.

I remember early on during her journaling, she was very concerned about making sure it was God’s words that she was typing, and she wanted to act out of humility and subordination to Christ. She would pray that Christ’s words would be made known and that she would simply be the messenger of these words. The message that Christ wanted the readers of mother’s journal to hear was a message of his redemptive love, and a call to accept daily suffering for the salvation of souls.

This message was able to reach thousands of people, as over 40,000 visitors came to mother’s Web site during her 7-month battle with cancer. Family and friends of course often visited the Web site, but she also received letters or gifts from people she had never previously met, who had heard of her Web site through a friend of a friend, and were drawn to the message of Christ’s love. While mother’s Catholic faith was instrumental to her life, she touched not only Catholics but Protestants, as well. The notion of redemptive suffering for the salvation of souls was new to many people, and both Catholics and Protestants needed to hear it. A Lutheran pastor even informed her that he used her journal for his daily meditations. This outpouring of love and encouragement that mother received helped give her the strength to continue the work that Christ was asking of her throughout her cancer journey.

However, on Nov. 16, after seven months of painful chemotherapy, her body could not take any more and her doctors gave her only a couple of weeks to live. Almost immediately upon hearing the news, friends from the community decided to gather together in front of our house to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for mother every day at 5 p.m. This prayer had been revealed to St. Faustina by Christ to pray for the salvation of souls, especially for the dying. Mother had a special devotion to St. Faustina and the Divine Mercy, particularly during her cancer journey.

The prayer group began with just a handful of friends from our local parish, but as news spread of mother’s worsening condition, more and more people from the community kept coming to pray the Chaplet each day. On Thanksgiving Day, almost 20 people from the community came to our house to pray and visit mother. While the Chaplet of Divine Mercy is a very Catholic prayer, there were actually more Protestants than Catholics who came to pray and sing songs around mother as she lie in bed. This is an amazing testimony to the work that Christ was doing through her, a work to bring people of different creeds together under the one love of Christ.

Mother passed away on Nov. 29, 2007, just seven-and-a-half short months after receiving the news that she had cancer. Although her cancer journey was short, Christ used her to touch countless lives and spread a message of incalculable value. Although mother is no longer with us, Christ’s message remains: accept suffering out of love, be filled with Christ’s mercy in your weakness, and abandon yourself to the cross. This message is especially important during this Lenten season and as we near Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday. May each of us deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow Christ.

-          For more information on the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy or Divine Mercy Sunday, visit www.DivineMercySunday.com.

-          To visit Becky Wald’s Web site and read her journal, go to www.caringbridge.com and type in her name.