Benedictines plan retreats
for academy students

By Mary Ann Wyand

A popular longtime teacher at the Sisters of St. Benedict’s former Our Lady of Grace Academy in Beech Grove is returning to the “classroom” to present three weekend retreats for academy alumnae during 2006.

Benedictine Sister Mildred Wannemuehler, who taught at the academy for 13 years, will present “Finding Grace” retreats for alumnae on Jan. 20-22, March 31 to April 2 and June 2-4 at the Benedict Inn Retreat and Conference Center, 1402 Southern Ave., in Beech Grove.

“We haven’t seen some of the women for 40 years,” Sister Mildred said. “The all-school reunion last August was well-attended.”

During the retreats, Sister Mildred said, “I’d like to take what they learned back at the academy—the basics of how God works in their life, how God is always present—and take that into their home life now then into their work world and the Church.”

After dwindling enrollment forced the sisters to close the academy in 1978, they prayerfully discerned a new use for the academy buildings and later opened the Benedict Inn to provide educational programs for people of all ages, races and religions.

Sister Carol Falkner, prioress of Our Lady of Grace Monastery and an academy alumna, said the sisters are looking forward to the retreats as opportunities to meet their former students as adults.

An academy reunion held last summer was well-attended and inspired the sisters to offer the series of alumnae retreats.

The retreats will address “Finding Grace” in January, “Grace and the Workplace” in March and “Grace and the Church Community” in June.

“It’s very exciting,” Sister Carol said, “because these women, back in their high school days, were rooted in our Benedictine life. Knowing that the Benedictine life offers so much to our world today, to bring them back and to share that as adults is very exciting. It will be a relationship that will have ongoing influence in our world so it’s important that we be about it.”

She said the Benedict Inn Retreat and Conference Center is now older than the academy.

“I think that it was a natural ministry to go to because we were in the ministry of education at the academy,” Sister Carol said, “and it was a concentrated education in that we were working with high school students, but now we’re able to offer a broader education to people of literally all ages, races and creeds. It really was a branching out, and it’s been one that has had a terrific influence … because we’ve had people from all over the world come to the Benedict Inn Retreat and Conference Center.”

Sister Carol said the retreat ministry has been a wonderful way for the sisters at the monastery to extend the Benedictine charism to others and provide opportunities for shared prayer.

“To have people come and pray with us and to be a part of our life has enriched us,” she said. “It’s an interactive relationship that will have no end. The heart of the Rule of St. Benedict is prayer, work, study and hospitality in a stable environment. It always thrills me to be able to say to people that the sisters have gathered for prayer since 1955 every day of our existence, and we bring that prayer to the world and for the world.

“That is such an important contemplative presence that we can offer during these 50 years [since the monastery was founded],” she said. “We have been so blessed. We’ve had so many people come into our lives who partner with us in our ministries through their generosity as well as being able to assist the Church of Indianapolis and the wider Church through our many ministries to the elderly and service to people at the Benedict Inn.”

Sister Carol said she could not have guessed what God had in store for the sisters after they had to close the academy.

“I just know that as we move into the next 50 years that will be made known,” she said. “It will look different, but it will also be as Benedict would want us to serve the Church where the Church is today. That’s what we must be about. We must change as the Church changes so that we can continue to take Christ to the world.”

(For more information about the alumnae retreats, call the Bene-dict Inn Retreat and Conference Center at 317-788-7581.) †