Sr. Rose Maria Birkenfeld, 86, dies
Benedictine Sister Rose Maria Birkenfeld, 86 — a longtime member and former prioress of the former Benedictine Community of Our Lady of Peace Monastery in Columbia, whose service in the diocese took her to Boonville, Shelbina, Clarence, Marshall, Pilot Grove, Vienna, Brinktown, Argyle and Koeltztown — died on Jan. 27 in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
The Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Jan. 31, in the St. Scholastica Monastery chapel, with Father John Schmitz, canonical administrator of St. Patrick parish in Laurie and St. Philip Benizi parish in Versailes, presiding.
Members of the nursing staff at St. Scholastica Monastery served as pallbearers, with her nieces and nephews serving as honorary pallbearers.
Burial was in the St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith.
Sr. Rose Maria was born on Sept. 13, 1931, in Amarillo, Texas, a daughter of the late John and Dora Moore Birkenfeld.
Her friends in school playfully referred to her as “Sister Birky” because she aced catechism studies and got along so well with her teachers, who happened to be sisters.
By the end of high school, she had decided to join the Benedictines. A caption under her school yearbook picture stated, “She will yield herself to a life of humble service.”
She was received into religious life at what is now St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on Dec. 13, 1949, and was given the religious name Sister Mary Martin.
She served at St. John’s Hospital in Berryville, Arkansas; Crawford County Hospital in Van Buren, Arkansas; St. Joseph’s Orphanage in North Little Rock, Arkansas; and Holy Rosary School in Stuttgart, Arkansas.
She moved to Missouri in 1968 to serve at the former St. Joseph Hospital in Boonville.
A year later, she became a charter member of the new foundation of Our Lady of Peace Monastery in Columbia.
Serving as it procurator, she oversaw the remodeling of the original convent.
From 1999 to 2003, she served as prioress.
She spent 17 summers in school, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Missouri; a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota; and a master’s degree in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.
She served as director of religious education and pastoral minister at St. Joseph parish in Pilot Grove; St. Mary parish in Shelbina; St. Peter parish in Marshall; St. Anthony of Padua parish in Effingham, Illinois; St. Boniface parish in Koeltztown, and other surrounding parishes.
While serving for 11 years in Shelbina, she taught a course that led participants through the entire Bible, in addition to other adult faith-formation classes.
“My main objective was to be helpful and available,” she told The Catholic Missourian in 2011, adding that she enjoyed blending her skills and experience with those of the two different pastors she worked with there.
“Visiting the sick and burying the dead and comforting the bereaved,” she said. “To me, those kinds of interactions have been as rewarding and as much of an education for me as the people I came to help.”
She returned to St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith after Our Lady of Peace Monastery closed in 2010.
She then served as co-oblate director and worked in the monastery’s gift shop.
Later, she moved to the monastery infirmary and then to Chapel Ridge Health and Rehab.
Benedictine Sister Mary Jo Polak of Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, South Dakota, who spent many years with Sr. Rose Maria at Our Lady of Peace in Columbia, called her “the salt of the earth.”
“She might have worried and fussed about things, but when push came to shove, she would do the caring thing,” said Sr. Mary Jo.
She added that Sr. Rose Maria loved celebrations, visiting with people (which she called “smoozing around”) and her work in parish ministry.
Surviving are two brothers, Howard Birkenfeld and wife Annette, and Martin Birkenfeld and wife Loretta; a sister, Benedictine Sister Alice O’Brien of St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith; a sister-in-law, Shirley Birkenfeld; and many beloved nieces and nephews.
Preceding her in death were her parents and a brother, Charles Birkenfeld.
An eight-minute 2015 video of Sr. Rose Maria telling her vocation story can be found at:
