the youngest of nine children...
was born on 21st October 1901, into a deeply religious family...
at Pfalheim in the diocese of Rottenburg in the south-western part of Germany.
Ten kilometers away from Pfalheim...
a wonderful Marian shrine called Schönenberg crowned the top of a hill.
The day after the infant’s birth, she was baptized and given the name Franziska.
The father of this baby girl was a master shoemaker and small farmer.
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After Franziska completed her primary education, she helped with work at home.
Later she attended the domestic school of the Franciscan sisters in Hochaltingen.
The village of Pfalheim had a very active priest, Father Eugene Adis, and he made every effort to get his parishioners actively involved in one or another of the many Catholic sodalities. Young and old, men and women, the married and the unmarried were constantly encouraged to practice their faith and to fulfil their duties to the church conscientiously.
Each group had a special Sunday set aside when its members would go together to the altar to receive Holy Communion. Devotion to the Eucharist, especially in the form of the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, was implanted into the soul of Franziska while she was still young.
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In her youth Franziska learned to love Mary, the Mother of God...
and to consider Mary her mother and example.
She joined the parish sodality of our Lady, which had more than one hundred members. The sodality awakened in the hearts of the members a real love and devotion for the Blessed Virgin Mary. It fostered and protected this love. The members were guided to live as children of Mary and to serve God through a Christian life. They were encouraged to fight together against the enemy of their faith and their chastity, and to support the work of Jesus and His Church.
In the parish church of Saint Nicolaus (1891)...
devotion to the Eucharist in the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and devotion to Our Lady formed the most visible aspect of Catholic practice in the village.
It is not surprising that such an environment produced a good number of religious vocations. Although there were only about one thousand Catholics in the village of Pfalheim at the turn of the 20th Century, about three dozen girls entered the convent while Father Eugene Adis was the parish priest from 1910 to 1928. One of them was Franziska May.
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Franziska showed a keen interest in the missions...
so Father Adis advised her to join the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing.
At her first attempt, she was told that she was not healthy enough to go to the missions. The verdict seems to have been caused by a heart condition, although it could not have been all that serious, in view of the fact that she was able to work hard all her life, and that she died at the age of eighty as a result of an illness unrelated to her heart condition.
On being refused admission to the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing, Franziska returned to Pfalheim where she was frequently seen praying in the parish church during the day. This must have struck the villagers as somewhat unusual, otherwise they would not have taken much notice.
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Franzciska’s father was not at all sad about this turn of events.
He liked the idea of his youngest daughter remaining at home, but Franziska was a very determined person and her thoughts were firmly fixed on becoming a missionary, so she travelled once more to Tutzing and this time she was accepted.
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On March 1, 1922, she entered the convent of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters at Tutzing and her religious profession took place on February 10, 1925 taking the religious name of Sister Reinolda.
A few months later she received the missionary cross and left for South Africa on June 21, 1925. There she pronounced her final vows on February 12, 1928, working for the next ten years as a seamstress [naaister] at the stations of Entabeni and Mbongolwane.
During this time she made great efforts to learn the difficult Zulu language.
As much as time permitted, she visited the people in their homes on foot and on horseback.
[bron]
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