Sister Theresita
Like countless others, Phyllis Claycamp is amazed that Ferdinand Benedictine Sister Theresita Schenk, age 94, can still make the Monastery Immaculate Conception church organ sing. But to Phyllis, what’s most meaningful is that Sister Theresita is “truly such a love story.”
“The love of Christ, you can see it and you can feel it when she plays the organ,” explains Phyllis. “When she plays, the organ just vibrates, and it makes your whole body vibrate. You can feel the vibrations of the love of God. Music is a big form of prayer, and you can feel the love. She makes beautiful music. I love to watch her.”
Phyllis, an Evansville resident and an Oblate of the Sisters of St. Benedict of Ferdinand, has enjoyed Sister Theresita’s performances for about 40 years. Even at age 87, she occasionally makes the hour-long drive to Ferdinand, Indiana, to see her beloved Benedictines.
After attending a Sunday Mass in June at which Sister Theresita played, Phyllis sent her an e-mail saying, “You still have it. You sure made that organ talk this morning. What a celebration. So beautiful. Thank you with love and prayers.”
Phyllis often has sat close to Sister Theresita at the organ to get an even better view of her musical talents. “Her fingers are just like little butterflies, fluttering across the keys, she has such a gentle touch,” says Phyllis. “Those little flying butterflies are just as beautiful as they were a long time ago. And her little black shoes tip-toe across the keys. I wonder how many times she’s been across those keys with her feet.”
Yet Sister Theresita keeps on playing, and playing, and playing. Plus she spends a lot of time composing music.
“I keep thinking, when am I going to stop,” says Sister Theresita, laughing. “I stopped teaching music when I was 90. But I don’t know when I’m going to stop playing the organ. Sisters don’t retire, we say we get recycled. I remember when Sister Joella (Kidwell) became prioress in 1998, she said, ‘You don’t have to keep on doing all this.’ I said, ‘well, what am I going to do if I don’t?’”
Long ago, when she was director of music and/or liturgy, she had one stretch of 23 years when she played virtually all of the monastery church music, three times a day, every day. As there are now more sister musicians at the monastery, she’ll play about one or two days a week.
Sister Theresita’s mother was the organist in their parish. She learned from her, and began playing the organ in grade school in the 1920s. She is just plain good, she enjoys it, and others enjoy her gift, so why stop now?
She never gets tired of the music, but concedes her stamina is less. Yet it’s nothing a little break won’t rejuvenate. Sister Catherine Duenne, also a talented organist, says, “Sister Theresita’s musical ability is amazing. Add to this that she’s 94, and it’s mind boggling.”
Sister Theresita’s organ skills were recorded on her 2008 CD “Glory to God.” She chose that title because “that’s what I want my music to do, give glory to God.” The 15 pieces included compositions from Bach, Pachelbel, Franck, and Sister Theresita’s original work, “Hymn to Hildegard.” It sold out.
Sister Catherine, who took piano and organ lessons from Sister Theresita, and still gets occasional pointers, is also a big fan of her teaching style. Because her musical advice also applied to life: Slow down. Work on the hard parts first, don’t just skip over them. “One time she told me, ‘You can get by, but you’re not really playing the music,’” says Sister Catherine. “I was faking my way through the music, hoping no one would notice.” But Sister Theresita noticed, and didn’t let it go. Just like she had Sister Catherine play the much-hated scales first, ruining her plans to save them for last, hoping they’d be forgotten.
Although Sister Theresita had been interested in composing church music early in her career, she first started writing melodies for the Ferdinand Benedictines’ song-prayers out of sheer necessity after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s allowed Mass to be celebrated in English rather than Latin. The Ferdinand sisters love to sing prayers in church, more so than many other religious communities. And since there was no music available for the English versions of various pieces, Sister Theresita got her chance to create the melodies. And the sisters kept right on singing. Some versions are still in use now at the monastery church, nearly 50 years later. She has no idea how many melodies she’s written. She guesses hundreds of antiphons. And hymns, and an array of other songs. And she’s still composing music, too. “If there’s no good music for the prayers you like, you just write it yourself,” she says, shrugging.
She pulls out a couple of thick binders of church music. “I’m working on this now, along with some other sisters. We use this every day in church. These hymns, I wrote some. And the antiphons through all these books. There’s a morning one, an evening one, one for Lent and Easter and Christmas, and one for the sisters’ feast days. Mostly everything I’ve written is church music we Ferdinand Benedictines can use.”
To compose a new piece of music, Sister Theresita studies the accompanying words thoroughly, gets comfortable with their meaning, then tries to fit the melody to suit the words. She sometimes has to come up with the wording as well, but normally pulls that from Scripture.
She admits that coming up with new melodies can be challenging at times, to get the right melody to fit the words, which is crucial in church music. But her typical approach is “you have to do it, so you just do it.” When she was earning her degree in music education at Indiana University, a teacher asked her to write some melodies in chant. She cringed at first, not knowing how to do it, but she found out how. She hasn’t backed off since. And she’ll pray to compose a really good piece of music. “Bach did that,” she says, laughing, “so I often do that, too.”
Her passion for music included putting in the time to improve her playing skills. Even in her 60s, she was taking organ lessons from Mark Hatfield in Evansville. “You’re never too old to learn,” she says, chuckling.
Sister Theresita entered the monastery in 1938, took some more music lessons, then started teaching in 1940. She taught in a variety of places, including the monastery, Evansville classrooms, Minnesota, Vincennes University, and St. Meinrad. She taught piano, organ, and the cello. And left a legion of followers wherever she went.
Sister Catherine says, “One of the best compliments I ever received about playing the organ was, ‘You sound a lot like Sister Theresita. Did she have anything to do with your playing?’ I replied, ‘She has everything to do with my playing.’”
And the beat goes on.
