Over forty Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity live at St. Francis Convent, Manitowoc. This home of the Sisters is within walking distance of the Motherhouse. Historically, the community has engaged in some construction project every twenty to thirty years. On Oct. 3, 1987 groundbreaking was celebrated for this building named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, Seraphic Father who answered the call to live the Gospel.
A poem by John Ruskin (his essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian and Edwardian eras) quoted in 1957 in an informative booklet printed for the financial campaign for the building of Silver Lake College of the Holy Family, was repeated in archival notes to commemorate this Community construction site :
When we build
Let us think that we build together.
Let it not be for present delight,
Not for present use alone;
Let it be such as our descendants
Will thank us for,
And let us think
As we lay stone on stone,
That a time is to come
When those stones will be held sacred,
Because our hands have touched them,
And that men will say as they look
Upon the labor and wrought substance of them
See! This our fathers did for us!
Learn more about these “living stones”, the Sisters, as they share their lives among God’s people in the Manitowoc area and with each other.
