Benedictine Sister Giovanni (Magdalen) Bieniek

Intermountain Catholic

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SALT LAKE CITY — Benedictine Sister Giovanni (Magdalen) Bieniek died peacefully at Saint Scholastica Convent, St. Cloud, Minn. Nov. 1. She was 101.

Magdalen Bieniek was born on a farm near Holdingford, Minn. the eighth of Joseph and Agnes (Nowak) Bieniek’s 14 children. Her parents, born and married in Poland, came to America, along with their oldest son, in 1899. The family’s daily life reflected a deeply religious faith.

Magdalen attended the district school and Saturday religion classes at the parish church. While in high school in Holdingford, she was touched by the nun/nurse in a book, "The White Sister." After graduation in 1929 she spent two years at the St. Cloud Hospital School of Nursing, where she cared for a sister bedridden with tuberculosis. This moved her still more and she entered Saint Benedict’s Monastery on Nov. 29, 1931. She was received into the novitiate as Sister Giovanni on June 12, 1932; made first monastic profession on July 11, 1933, and perpetual monastic profession on July 11, 1936; consecration as a virgin was on July 14, 1957.

In preparation for a ministry in health care, Sr. Giovanni returned to the St. Cloud Hospital School of Nursing and became an RN in 1934. She pursued courses at the College of Saint Benedict; St. Cloud State University; and Weber College in Ogden, Utah. A one-year course at DePaul University, Chicago, certified her for a five-year stint as supervisor/teacher in pediatrics. At St. Louis University, she earned a BS degree in hospital administration in 1940.

For 29 years Sr. Giovanni ministered as director of nursing at St. Alexius Hospital in Bismarck, N.D., St. Cloud Hospital and St. Benedict’s Hospital in Ogden, Utah. Coordinating health services at Saint Benedict’s monastery, high school and college occupied her fully for six years, as did the Sister Visitor Program in the Spiritual Care Department at the St. Cloud Hospital for eight years. In 1971, she was appointed to the St. Cloud Hospital Board of Trustees. When going to Saint Scholastica Convent in 1988, she generously shared her expertise in foot care and nurtured plants and flowers for the chapel.

In retirement, life held for Sr. Giovanni an even deeper call to personal growth. Her fidelity to monastic life had included active involvement in the charismatic and Cursillo movements, Koinonia, and centering prayer. Prayerfully and pleasantly she went about her life enjoying classical music, making cards, reading, enjoying card games and writing quite a volume of poetry.

Sr. Giovanni is survived by her Benedictine community, her brother Stephen, Sartell; and two sisters: Pauline (Rein) Mans, Riceville, Iowa, and Franciscan Sister Joel, Little Falls, Minn. Preceding her in death were seven brothers: John, Theophil, Alois, Joseph, Peter, Sylvester and Walter; and three sisters: Mary Mathe, Benedictine Sister Vianney, also of Saint Benedict’s Monastery, and Franciscan Sister Mary Grace.