Superior and Teacher
TEACHER IN NÖRDLINGEN
After her religious profession, Mother Frances was sent to Nördlingen, in the diocese of Augsburg, to teach at the local school, the "Filialinstitut für Klosterfrauen".
From the chronicles of the Nördlingen School, we know that in 1868, three Sisters of Maria Stern and a young girl in initial formation were transferred to that community. With them, therefore, there was also Mother Frances, who started the school activities by welcoming a modest group of pupils, whose number, however, was to increase rapidly. The training program also included technical subjects, in particular women's handicrafts, foreign language lessons and music (piano, zither and singing).
Demonstrating that she possessed remarkable pedagogical gifts and excellent cultural and teaching skills, Mother Frances made a notable contribution to the development of that work, gaining experience in the field that would be very useful to her in later years, when she had to take on positions of leadership responsibility.
Some time later, in the school year 1870-1871, she went to Monheim and Wemding, both in the Diocese of Eichstätt, to give classes to girls in the two towns, some 30 km from Nördlingen.
"Educating, instructing, especially in Christian doctrine, transmitting moral principles and preparing for a dignified life pleasing to God" will be the objectives towards which Mother Frances will direct all energy, especially where poverty and marginalization will move her heart to an ardent compassion.
"If, in obedience, we serve in the missions to care for the sick or to educate children, wherever they may be, we follow this call with joy”.
Mother Frances Streitel, Norms 1883
SUPERIOR IN ALTOMÜNSTER
In October 1871, Mother Frances, not yet in her thirties, was appointed superior of the Altomünster House in the archdiocese of Munich. Here she devoted herself zealously to the leadership of the community and to teaching in the language and sewing school for girls, to whom she gave private music lessons.
Animated by a determined and energetic temperament, she gave herself to everyone with self-sacrifice and strength, even when criticism and misunderstandings rained down on her. Her choices and her interventions, despite adversity and contrasts, will always have only a wide breath of frankness and integrity.
On October 10, 1871, her Superior General, Mother Salesia Ellersdorfer, wrote to Mrs. Streitel:
"Accepting the dignity of superior has cost your daughter many tears, yet holy obedience gives her strength and courage, because she possesses many good virtues that assure her God's blessing. She also has a good practical knowledge of domestic economics”.
DIRECTOR OF THE ELISABETHENHEIM ORPHANAGE IN WÜRZBURG
Just seven months later, Mother Frances was asked to take over the direction of the Saint Elisabeth orphanage in Würzburg: a wider field of action, with even more pressing educational challenges.
It will not be easy, but she will do her utmost to bear the burden of increasing responsibility, expending all her energy to properly direct the orphanage and the community. "Her good spirit and noble example still lives among us." - a nun from Elisabethenheim who had been close to her during those years would say fifty years later.
Würzburg - Shrine of the Käppele
It is not surprising that it was at this time that a strong inner dissension emerged to which Mother Frances herself refers in a letter of September 1881, to the Bishop of Augsburg:
"In the early years I was a fervent religious who acted according to austere principles, but then I became lukewarm and adapted to those people who did not strictly adhere to the Rule and monastic prescriptions.
Thereby many an inordinate inclination gained the upper hand, and I let myself be ruled by them until it pleased God to let me fall into a mortal illness about four years ago. Then I recognized my erring ways and begged God to spare my life. I fought a fierce battle with my self-love, with my bad inclinations and my dispositions.
A good confession to a Capuchin Father brought me much light…”.
However, the sisters do not always share her renewed religious spirit and her ascetical directives. They accuse her of wanting to innovate the Rules and of being a restless spirit. In reality, the young sister feels an ever-stronger desire to live the Gospel sine glossa and the original austerity of the Franciscan Rule.
Würzburg - Shrine of the Käppele
Thus, as soon as she can, she climbs up to the Käppele shrine in front of Our Lady of Sorrows and lays there every anguish and every burning desire, as Fr. Aquilin Reichert writes, quoting an excerpt from a letter from Mother Frances to Mons. Pankratius von Dinkel, Bishop of Augsburg (see manuscript in Italian):
“God led me through a torrent of suffering…
I experienced then what is meant
by standing beneath the cross with a bleeding heart”.
DIRECTOR OF THE MARIAN INSTITUTE
In April 1880, Mother Frances received another obedience: the dDe Waal
irection of the Marian Institute in Würzburg. This apostolate needed a guide who would lift the fate of the boarding school by bringing back order and discipline. "Obedience imposed it on me," she would say, and once again she threw herself headlong into the new educational emergency that saw, on the one hand, seventy orphans in need of a diligent and generous guide and, on the other, a community to be cared for and, in part, renewed in evangelical authenticity and religious zeal.