Sister M. Klarina Garmer-Schwering

✝ Wednesday, January 10th 2024

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We are citizens of heaven.  There we await Jesus Christ, as the Lord our Savior. (Phil. 3:20)

Jesus Christ, whom she had long been waiting for, has taken to heavenly home our dear Sister M. Klarina Garmer-Schwering, Hospital Sister of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis.

_{Born:               June 26, 1932}

_{Entrance:         April 13, 1957}

_{Professed:       October 28, 1959}

_{Died:                January 10, 2024}

Gertrud Garmer-Schwering was born in Ahaus-Wüllen as the eldest of seven children on the family farm. After graduating from high school, she trained as a housekeeper in the rural area. She completed her training with a master's examination. She then entered the religious community and became a registered nurse and a pediatric nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Münster. Sister M. Klarina worked in St. Josefs-Stift in Bremen and in the St. Francis Hospital in Münster. After 10 years she assumed the ministry of Provincial Secretary in the then Province of Christ the King in Kamp-Lintfort and three years later she was appointed as Junior Directress.

Sister M. Klarina always felt drawn to the contemplative way of life. She lived in the convent of the Poor Clares on Scharnhorststrasse in Münster from 1977 to 1979. She then returned and worked for seventeen years in the radiology department of St. Marien-Hospital in Lünen, where she was able to combine her prayer life with her work. Sister M. Klarina lived out her desire for contemplation for one year in the Klara House in Telgte before moving to the Maria Hilf Convent in Telgte as a senior Sister. Since 2016 she had been living in St. Francis House in Nordwalde. Here her strength began to fail. She became more and more dependent on the Sisters and the staff to help her and finally became completely dependent on them. Her life on earth was slowly fading away, until Christ led her to eternal home. Sister M. Klarina always wished to be allowed to be very close to God, and this is now granted to her by her death. 

On Tuesday, January 16, 2024, we will celebrate the Resurrection Mass for Sister M. Klarina at 10.00 a.m. in St. Franziskus-Haus in Nordwalde.  In gratitude, we bid farewell to her at the parish cemetery, where she will find her final resting place.

Afterwards we can share our memories over coffee in St. Franziskus-Haus.