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COMMUNITY PROFILE
 Sisters of the Visitation, Rockville: a cloistered contemplative community
By Steve Neill
of The Catholic Virginian
While some might see members of a cloistered religious community as retreating from the world around it, members of the Sisters of the Visitation who live in a rural area of Hanover County don’t see it that way.
“We’re not retreating in the sense of how most people see retreating — running away,” said Mother Mary Emmanuel Stahl, superior of Monte Maria Monastery.
“We don’t run away,” she said emphatically. “We run to embrace a life which brings us closer to our Lord.”
The number of sisters has dwindled in the past 10 years. Currently there are only 12 members of the community, the smallest number since the Sisters of the Visitation first came to Richmond in 1866, the year after the Civil War ended. They moved out from Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood in 1987 to a rural setting in the Rockville area of Hanover County, 30 miles northwest of Richmond.
 The Visitandines live on a property of 257 acres, much of it wooded and with a lake on three sides of the property. There is a cemetery where the sisters are buried, including those who were previously buried from the Richmond monastery.
The community has been hard hit by the recent deaths of three sisters who played a prominent role in the life of the Visitation Sisters — Mother Margaret Mary McGuire, who was superior for several terms; Sister Daniel Regina Scullin, who also was once the superior and served as liturgist and organist, and Sister Cecilia Mullen, who was sacristan. All died within nine months of each other from July 19, 2004 to April 9, 2005.
Today Monte Maria’s 12 sisters range in age from 33 to 86. Sister Mary Paula Zemienieuski, a native of Portsmouth who came in 1950, has been there the longest with 58 years.
Sister Marie Helene Fabiato, the youngest member, graduated from Collegiate School in Richmond and the University of Virginia. She had planned to attend medical school and become a physician like her father when she felt the strong call to religious life.
 Her constant smile is evidence that she feels at home in the life she has chosen.
“It’s not an escape from your problems,” Sister Marie Helene said. “It’s more of a call to do something beautiful for God.”
But lest anyone see the Visitation sisters as tending to their own needs, Sister Mary de Chantal Keck speaks out.
“I would never come as something just for myself,” she said. “You see it as a vocation within the Church with service to the Church.”
Although they live within the cloister and live the contemplative life, the sisters have visitors every day of the year. Mass is open to the public and is celebrated Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. and on Sunday at 10 a.m. Msgr. R. Roy Cosby, a retired priest of the Diocese of Arlington, who lives near the monastery with two sisters and two brothers, presides at Mass most days. Another frequent celebrant is Bishop Emeritus Walter F. Sullivan.
“We have a good daily Mass crowd, probably about 12 who come every day,” the superior said.
People from all over Virginia telephone the monastery and request prayers for various needs, usually related to illness or surgery. “And, of course, we are permitted to have calls from friends and relatives at necessary times,” Mother Emmanuel told The Catholic Virginian.
There are 12 Visitation monasteries in the U.S. The closest to the one in Rockville is Georgetown Visitation in Washington, D.C., which has a school as an outside apostolate.
“In 1952 the monasteries were grouped into federations, with each monastery retaining its autonomy but joining together in a federation to assist one another and to foster unity,” Mother Emmanuel said.
“Our 400th anniversary is coming up and the order is publishing a book which will portray the Visitandines all over the world.”
 Each of the sisters has her own story about what drew her to Monte Maria. Mother Emmanuel, who grew up in Philadelphia, points out that she was a Sister of Mercy for 23 years and had taught at Walsingham Academy in Williamsburg.
“I had no intention of becoming a Vistation sister,” she said, explaining that she had come to Monte Maria, then located in the Church Hill neighborhood of Richmond, to make a retreat.
“But throughout the retreat days, I began thinking ‘I wonder if God is calling me to come here,’” she said.
“But then I thought that’s crazy and I just dismissed the whole thing — but it just wouldn’t be dismissed.”
She made her profession as a Visitandine in 1977.
The newest member of the community, Sister Marianne du Sacre Coeur, who was temporarily professed May 30 on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, entered the community as a widow with two sons and two grandchildren.
“I couldn’t be happier and feel totally at home,” said Sister Marianne, now 73. She is quick to point out that she was happy in her previous life in Narberth, Pa., where she was married until her husband died of cancer. She had been active as a volunteer with Hospice and the RCIA at her parish and also took classes at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.
“But when God calls, you know it and He doesn’t relent,” she said.
 She said that when she realized she wanted the religious life, she wrote to the superior at a Carmelite monastery to apply, and received a kind reply but was told that the cut-off age was 35. “I was about 65,” Sister Marianne said.
“I said to the Lord ‘Of all the people in the world, you know how old I am so why would you ask me to be something you know I can’t be?’” she said.
“I thought I was off the hook,” she continued.
To make a long story short, she entered the Visitation monastery in Frederick, Md. on June 27, 2003. She came to Monte Maria in Rockville when the Frederick monastery closed June 30, 2005.
Besides the daily prayer life in the chapel, the Visitation sisters are kept busy baking, cutting, sorting and packing more than 25,000 Eucharistic hosts three or four days a week. A UPS delivery truck arrives each day to pick up orders and deliver them to parishes which place an order.
“They are sent to many churches in the Richmond diocese, Arlington diocese and other points beyond,” Mother Emmanuel said. “We just got a call from a Minnesota church which asked for more hosts.”
 Sister Clauda is the habit keeper and also serves as sacristan and organist.
Sister Mary de Chantal, the infirmarian, tends to the needs of the two sisters currently in the infirmary.
“Then there’s the food department,” Mother Emmanuel said, explaining this is the domain of Sister Frances Marie, the cook, and Sister Marianne du Sacre Coeur, who handles salads, desserts and special diets.
Sister Mary Paula Zemieniueski is called the prouratrix, a job which oversees general maintenance.
Father Richard DeLillio, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales, comes at least twice a year from Wilmington, Del., to lead a retreat for the Visitandines and lead Holy Week services, including the Triduum liturgies.
“The sisters are the guardians of the charism of St. Francis de Sales,” he explained. “He died in 1622 and they kept the idea alive of founding an order of men, but that didn’t happen until 1875 in France and that happened through the inspiration of a Visitandine nun.”
“They founded us,” Father DeLillio said of the Oblate Fathers, “and every once in a while they want to hear from an Oblate priest who knows their charism.”
 While the Visitandines may seem reclusive to outsiders since they live and work in the monastery in a rural area, they see life through the Church’s sacraments and their visitors who partake of them.
“We have had every sacrament performed in our chapel, even Holy Orders,” Mother Emmanuel Stahl said.
The late Fr. James Rizer, a diocesan priest, was ordained in the chapel when the monastery was located in Richmond. His mother, a widow, had become a professed Visitation sister after her husband died.
“The bishop gave permission for the ordination in our chapel so she could see her son ordained,” Mother Emmanuel explained.
Two weeks ago a couple from St. Thomas Aquinas parish in Charlottesville were married in the chapel. The wedding, with permission from the diocesan Chancery, took place there because the couple decided to get married earlier than planned because of the terminal illness of one of the parents. They were not able to find another church available on such short notice.
“We’re very flexible and adaptable,” Mother Emmanuel said of the wedding request.
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