Missionary Benedictine Sister M. Frances Betz based her life on prayer, mission

Rooted in prayer and finding blessings wherever she was assigned, Missionary Benedictine Sister M. Frances Betz “was a true missionary at heart,” who “loved to teach others about Christ and His love for us,” her religious community said.

Sister Frances “surrendered all to Christ” with her death on Oct. 22 at the Missionary Benedictine Sisters’ Immaculata Monastery in Norfolk. She was 89.

A wake service was held Oct. 24, followed by a funeral Mass the next day, Oct. 25. Both services were at the monastery chapel.

Burial was at Prospect Hill Cemetery in Norfolk.

Sister Frances was born in Germany to Josef and Rosina (Metzger) Betz, who named her Elizabeth. She was the oldest of four girls and helped her mother on the family’s small farm after her father was drafted into the army during World War II.

Her vocation became clear to her during a high school retreat, after being influenced by the lives of an uncle who was a Benedictine priest serving in South Africa and an aunt who was a Benedictine sister in the United States, the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Norfolk said in a written tribute.

As a girl, Sister Frances loved to read about the missions and wished to go to Africa as a missionary, the sisters said.

She entered a Missionary Benedictine community in Germany in 1953 and finished her novitiate in Norfolk. Sister Frances made her first profession in 1956 and her final profession in 1959.

An assignment to Japan was canceled after the mission there closed. Instead, she remained in Norfolk for a year before teaching at the former St. Leonard School in Madison and later at the former Assumption Academy in Norfolk, Norfolk Catholic High School and St. Augustine Indian Mission School in Winnebago.

In 1982, Sister Frances completed a master’s degree in education from Wayne State College.

She had written that her greatest challenge in teaching was in 1978 during her assignment in Winnebago, where she served as principal and sixth-grade teacher at St. Augustine and superior of her religious community. Sister Frances said that she was able to meet that challenge with God’s help.

In 1983 she was assigned to a mission in Jackson, Kentucky. From there, in 1988, she became secretary for the Missionary Benedictine’s General Chapter in Rome.

A year later, she was sent to South Africa, during a dangerous time of apartheid, to teach high school classes for Zulu girls. For seven of her 11 years there, she also was sub prioress for her community.

Sister Frances then returned to Winnebago as a school librarian, where her elementary school students kept her “young at heart and hopping,” she wrote at the time.

In 2017, she retired to the Norfolk community and visited the elderly living across the street at the St. Joseph Rehabilitation and Care Center.

“Prayer was a very important part of the life of Sister Frances,” her religious sisters said. “She loved praying before the Tabernacle and outdoors. She challenged herself to learn prayers in different languages. She could be found in the chapel very early in the morning before any other sister.”

“It was in prayer that Sr. Frances integrated every challenge and every joy.”

SISTER FRANCES, IN HER OWN WORDS, AT ST. AUGUSTINE INDIAN MISSION SCHOOL: