RIP Brinktown native Sister Marie Boniface Lischwe
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Brinktown native Sister Marie Boniface Lischwe, 101, a 77-year member of the Medical Mission Sisters, died on May 10 of this year.
Fellow sisters remember her for her valiant, unyielding faith and “her pragmatism, hearty laugh and radiant smile.”
She was born on April 30, 1922, the sixth of nine children of Joseph Bernard and Katherine Wiegers Lischwe, and was given the name Marie Elizabeth.
Her family was close-knit, with daily prayer being built into the daily schedule.
She and four of her siblings — Sister Anita Marie Lischwe of Bridgeton and the late Sister Tarsilla Lischwe, both of the School Sisters of Notre Dame; the late Sister Michael Marie Lischwe of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary; and the late Redemptorist Father Bruno Lischwe — entered religious life.
Marie described her father as an adept farmer and her mother as a good homemaker, enabling the family to help neighbors who were less fortunate during the Great Depression.
As was the custom, after eighth grade, all four girls left the farm to find jobs in St. Louis.
At age 16, Marie first worked in the maternity ward at Incarnate Word Hospital in St. Louis.
Soon thereafter, she worked with several families, caring for the children, doing housekeeping and traveling across the country with them.
Marie’s mother was prayerful and subscribed to missionary magazines, which Marie also read.
She was intrigued by the Columban Sisters and thought she would like to help children in China. However, travel to Ireland to join the Columbans was not possible due to World War II.
The superior of that congregation recommended that Marie write to Mother Anna Maria Dengel of the Medical Mission Sisters (MMS), a religious congregation that provides medical care to people who are poor and in need in the overseas missions.
“I found time to write and ask for an application,” she recalled. “When it arrived, I answered promptly.”
Not hearing back from Philadelphia after a while, she worked up the nerve to make her first long-distance phone call and asked to speak to Mother Dengel.
Marie explained that she had to give notice to the family she was serving as an au pair, and that she needed to purchase her required clothing and wanted to visit home.
Mother Dengel told her that she had been accepted and that the sisters would pick her up once they knew when she would arrive.
Marie entered the Medical Mission Sisters on Aug. 10, 1943, at age 21 — “bringing her rich, practical insights and experience from the school of life, a solid work ethic, faithfulness to God and service, and her innate kindness,” fellow sisters stated.
Feeding the hungry
The first 20 years of Sr. Boniface’s religious life were spent in support services at the MMS motherhouse in Fox Chase.
She started in the kitchen but was soon assigned to tend the land — work she loved.
She was entrusted with care of the chickens and soon also took on milking the cows on the motherhouse property.
She received the habit and the religious name Sr. Marie Boniface on Feb. 11, 1944.
She took temporary vows two years later, on Feb. 11, 1946, and professed final vows on Feb. 11, 1951.
Because she did not have the opportunity for schooling beyond primary school, she appreciated assistance with Church history classes and spiritual life from Sr. Helen Beatrice.
“I am ever grateful to the Holy Spirit, who never let me lose my self-respect among all those educated ladies around 10 years my senior,” Sr. Boniface once wrote.
Sr. Boniface excelled in manual labor. She was an intrepid worker, her great faith sustaining her through all adversity.
For two decades, she held primary responsibility for feeding the many sisters in Fox Chase.
Food and supplies were in short order due to the war.
Besides organizing the workforce for feeding and caring for the animals, Sr. Boniface also had to train city girls just coming into the Society how to garden, churn butter, and perform similar tasks.
She drove the tractor and supervised all the work.
“l learned to live in the Society in the years when its growth was greatest,” she once recalled, “cooking with help for up to 150 sisters to 200 at meetings and the 1947 Chapter.”
“My gifts as developed”
Sr. Boniface was assigned in 1963 to the MMS House of Studies in St. Louis, where about 24 sisters were attending various universities and nursing schools.
She did the shopping, cooking and housekeeping while students helped with cleaning the house and after meals.
St. Louis was much closer to her aging parents in Brinktown, which enabled her to help them.
A highlight of this time was her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.
Sister had time to study for her GED and earned her high school equivalency credentials in 1970.
She was an avid reader and maintained a keen interest in world events.
She kept up relationships built up over the years by correspondence.
After nine years in St. Louis, Sr. Boniface was invited to join the MMS community in Los Altos, California.
Marymeade was a large property of houses and gardens.
She wrote: “I value having a chapel, attending daily Mass, having time and quiet for contemplation during work hours in the house and garden.”
Before long, she was in charge of property maintenance and the gardens.
“All my gifts as developed are used,” she wrote. “Only God knows which are neglected. I trust God fully, if we keep our vows and live them, God will care for us.”
“Grandma Marie”
When Marymeade was sold in 1986, Sr. Boniface again researched how she could best fulfill her purpose.
She moved in with the Religious of the Heart of Mary in Cupertino, California, for four years and then to Sunnyvale, from which she could easily travel to her two volunteer ministries.
At age 77, she began volunteering with the Foster Grandparents, accompanying one child with disabilities at a time at the Chandler Tripp School in San Jose.
The children called her Grandma Marie.
In the afternoons, Sr. Boniface served as office manager and attended to all the clients at the Fremont Society, a Catholic center for pregnant women in crisis.
Bishop Patrick McGrath of San Jose wrote a commendation to Sr. Boniface upon the closing of the Fremont Society:
“We express deep appreciation for your years of dedicated service to women in crisis pregnancies over the past 15 years. Unselfishness has a way of gaining entrance to even the most hardened of hearts. By your obvious concern and devotedness to those in need, you have touched many.”
A time to remember
In January of 2001, Sr. Boniface joined several other MMSs at Regina Residence, a home for religious sisters in Orange, California.
There, she spent her time serving in the dining room, delivering daily newspapers and reading to other residents.
She served as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion in the infirmary and led the daily Rosary.
She flourished in this time, closing out four decades of life and mission in California.
In October of 2012, at age 91, she transferred to St Joseph’s Villa in Flourtown, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia.
She gradually noticed her memory failing and wrote herself notes, trying to keep up with family dates and events.
Her conversation gradually lessened over the years, yet her smile never diminished.
One of the highpoints of this time for her was the celebration of her 100th birthday in April 2022. She cherished the toy tractor she received as a gift that day.
“I want Jesus”
Sr. Boniface’s prolific writings contain many valuable life lessons.
“I speak Jesus’ mercy to all,” she once wrote. “To those God has given much, much is expected.
“I have not found a cure for lifetime prejudices in others,” she continued. “Therefore, I learned to accept others’ limitations, and thus mitigate stress in all such encounters.”
In writing on her 25th anniversary in religious life, she recounted how God had used her as an instrument to bring baptism to a dying patient at Incarnate Word Hospital.
“He nodded to the cross, ‘I want Jesus,’” she recalled. “I, too, want Jesus — his will for me — and I rededicate myself to Mary, his Blessed Mother, who by accepting the motherhood of Jesus, became the cause of our joy today and forever.”
Shortly after celebrating her 101st birthday, Sr. Boniface started showing signs of declining health.
She entered hospice care on Friday, May 5.
She died peacefully in the morning five days later.
“You have been such a witness of fidelity and commitment,” a friend told her at that time. “Your inner joy was visible by your smile. You were steadfast, so down-to-earth, so practical.
“May we also hold fast to our commitment and be that same witness of faith and hope for others!” her friend stated.
Sister Suzanne Maschek MMS is a member of the Leadership Team and coordinator for community for the North America Unit of the Medical Mission Sisters, headquartered in Philadelphia.
