Sister Bertha wears the customary light pink habit worn by all the sisters who live inside the Blessed Sacrament Convent on Shoreline. She uses a walker and looks at the world through large round glasses.
When the thought first dawned on her to become a certain kind of nun, Sister Bertha was just a teenager. She recalls looking up at the monstrance and praying during the 40-hours of adoration and thinking, “what in the world is more important than the Incarnation and the Eucharist.”
She was born in January 1925; her parents died before she was a year old. Her maternal aunt and uncle adopted and raised her as one of their own and she became one of their seven children in Springfield, Missouri. They were her “mother and daddy.”
“Mother had plans for me to go to a Benedictine College,” Sister Bertha said. But when Sister Bertha spoke to a priest who was her spiritual director, he told her, “God calls–that’s the time to go.”
She entered Mount Grace Convent in St. Louis, Missouri in May 1953 when she was 18-years-old and has been in Perpetual Adoration ever since. She has lived in houses overseas and three houses in the United States. Along with learning a little German, she learned to play the organ in the Motherhouse in Steyl, Holland. She spent most of her years as an organist, a librarian and a correspondent in the correspondence room, which requires lots of attention.
“We get many requests for prayers. I help to assure people that we are praying. People call a lot,” she said.
Retired from being an organist, Sister Bertha now attends to the convent’s library. The library consists of mostly religious books and the books about the saints. On special occasions—such as, a recent biography of Pope Francis and the coverage of the pope’s visit to Mexico—they watch television.
Most of the sisters arise at 5:15 a.m., but like many elderly people, Sister Bertha does not sleep well at night, so she says—sheepishly—that they let her sleep-in a little later in the morning.
“We sing and pray a lot all day at different times of the day and we talk to each other during evening recreation,” she said. During recreation they can participate in community sharing, hobbies, arts, games, music or outdoor activities like gardening. “The garden is beautiful,” she said.
“The Lord takes care of me. They [her congregation] take good care of me,” Sister Bertha said. She is happy.