Sister Bernice Wessels
At the age of 60, Sister Bernice was sent to Rome. She wasn't going on vacation; she was going back to school. After serving 20 years as a school teacher, three years as missionary to South America, and 15 years as a pastoral associate, Sister Bernice was embarking on a new career. She was going to
study Canon Law.
"With all my lessons in Italian, I had to study three times as hard," she says. "I also had to write the thesis and take the orals. I prayed and prayed to pass."
The prayers worked. As a Canon Lawyer, she sat on the diocesan tribunal in Boise working on annulment requests. "It was a very hard ministry. It was almost all paperwork although we traveled three or four times a year for interviews with the petitioners," she recalls. "It was a good learning experience but I am glad it was only four years."
She then returned to pastoral work, which has been her favorite. After spending two decades teaching
elementary school (her first career), Sister Bernice was sent to Cali, Colombia, to work in a parish Bishop Treinen had founded. She spent three years as head of the religion program, conducting her ministry all in Spanish. "We were surrounded by 60,000 poor people," she says. "But they were some of the happiest people I've come across."
She returned to Idaho and was appointed by Bishop Treinen to administer three parishes that didn't have a resident priest. "I was shocked to the bottom of my toes when Bishop Treinen asked me. I thought 'Oh my goodness, how can I do that kind of work? That's for priests…not for me.' I really was afraid. But God was so good and the people wonderful. I loved it."
Now approaching her 60th year of Monastic Profession, Sister Bernice has made yet another career
change. She left pastoral work in 1999 and after a respite, worked for 10 years at the Historical Museum
of St. Gertrude. Recently Sister Bernice became the Monastery librarian.
Born just a few miles down the road from the Monastery in Greencreek, she knew by the time she
was in first grade that she wanted to be a Sister. "This seemed to be the place God wanted me to be and
I've been very happy." Sister Bernice knows firsthand that a life in God is a life of adventure and discovery, and her vision for her community is grounded in this perspective. "I have great hope for us. Just look at what our foremothers accomplished," she says. "We have weathered many trials through the years and God has always been there. We have to share the deep heritage we have of true Benedictine living."