Benedictine sisters to honor women as ‘Angels of Grace’

By Natalie Hoefer

Throughout the Bible, three archangels are listed by name: Gabriel, messenger of good news to Mary and Zechariah; Michael, defender of Heaven who cast the devil into hell; and Raphael, the traveling companion of Tobias.

For the last eight years, the Sisters of St. Benedict in Beech Grove have identified three women who have heroically served in the roles of messenger, defender and companion, and recognized their service with an “Angels of Grace” award.

This year’s recipients are online St. Paula’s Young Catholic Widow Group co-founder Jennifer Trapuzzano for the “messenger” Archangel Gabriel Award; Beggars of the Poor longtime volunteer Lynda Knable for the “defender” Archangel Michael Award; and “He Knows Your Name” ministry founder Linda Znachko for the “companion” Archangel Raphael Award.

These women will receive their award on Sept. 26 at a fashion show and luncheon fundraiser honoring all women and benefiting women’s programs at the Benedict Inn Retreat & Conference Center in Beech Grove.

Fashions by The Secret Ingredient in Indianapolis will be modeled by friends of the Benedict Inn and will be available for purchase, with 10 percent of the proceeds going toward the cause. Gift baskets and a vacation getaway will be raffled.

Here are the stories of this year’s messenger, defender and companion.

Archangel Gabriel Award winner Jennifer Trapuzzano

Starting a Facebook page ministry for young Catholic widows was not something Jennifer Trapuzzano, 26, imagined she would one day do.

That changed on April 1, 2014, when her husband Nathan was shot and killed during a robbery in their west side Indianapolis neighborhood—just weeks before their first anniversary and the birth of their first child, Cecelia.

Shortly after Nathan’s death, Trapuzzano was contacted by a young Catholic widow in Florida, Cristina Buerkle, who also lost her husband while expecting a child before their first anniversary.

“Talking with someone in the same place I was in was so nice,” says Trapuzzano, a member of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Indianapolis. “We developed a sisterhood.”

Trapuzzano’s search for a Facebook page for other “sisters” in the same position turned up only secular sites.

“I believe my husband is in heaven, and I want to meet him there,” she says. “I didn’t want to lose my faith—I wanted to grow stronger in it.”

So along with Buerkle and two other young Catholic widows, Trapuzzano started a Facebook ministry in October 2014 called St. Paula’s Young Catholic Widow Group, named for the patron saint of widows. The desire was to provide a place “for other young Catholic widows who can bond in their faith through [their] crisis,” she explains.

The group has grown from its original four members to 30 members.

“It’s bittersweet,” Trapuzzano admits. “We don’t want it to grow—we don’t want to see widows. But we’re glad there’s a place for them when it does happen—to ask tough questions or have someone commiserate with them who won’t bash God or take a secular approach.”

Trapuzzano says she was “humbled and honored to have been considered, let alone selected to receive” the Archangel Gabriel Award.

“I live one day at a time and doing what I can each day, just like everyone else who suffers a loss,” she says. “For me, [this ministry] has been a healing process.”

Archangel Michael Award winner Linda Znachko

When Indiana resident Linda Znachko heard about a baby found in a dumpster in New Jersey in 2009, she had questions about what would happen to the baby.

Znachko, a Christian dedicated to espousing the dignity of all life, made some calls—and didn’t like the answers she received, especially that the baby would be buried unnamed in an unmarked grave.

“I wasn’t looking to start anything,” Znachko admits. “But step by step, God was inviting me into something. He cares deeply about each of us and wants the Gospel to come alive through the issue of life.”

Ultimately, Znachko was able to provide a funeral for the baby. In the meantime, the coroner told her about another abandoned child in need of burial.

“The coroner asked me if we—my organization—would do x-y-z,” she recalls. “I told him I’d call him back. And then I prayed, ‘Lord, what “organization”? What are you doing? Who is “we”?’

“And then I realized it’s me and God. I felt him asking me to take his hand and follow him. I put my hand in his and followed step by step through door after door.”

Znachko was referred to more opportunities to provide human dignity in death—a family who could not afford a headstone for their child, orphaned children who could not afford a funeral for their mother, and more. Eventually she did form a non-profit organization. She called it, He Knows Your Name.

“I just keep walking through the doors and see … where I can share the gospel of hope,” she says. “I see people in a Good Friday state, where all is dark, they’re in despair, they don’t know what just happened.

“But I know the end of the story. ‘[God] has a purpose, and he has not forsaken you.’ That is my overriding message with all I do and every family I encounter—bringing light to them, so they can experience some love and healing from their loss.”

Znachko, her husband and their four children now live in Indianapolis. She looks forward to the Angels of Grace event.

“God uses story as testimony,” she says. “I get really excited every time I get to share a story—the power of the message is in the sharing.”

Archangel Raphael Award winner Lynda Knable

Lynda Knable admits that 15 years ago, “if you had told me I’d be on the streets making friends with [homeless] men, I’d say you must be thinking of someone else.”

But now, after 15 years, those men she serves through the Beggars for the Poor ministry in Indianapolis have indeed become friends.

“They look for you, you look for them. You worry when you don’t see them,” says the member of St. Jude Parish in Indianapolis.

Her involvement with the ministry began after her two children left for college. She was looking for something to occupy the time she had given “ministering as a mom.”

“My husband and I always knew about St. Vincent de Paul,” she says. “One of the ladies at St. Jude [Parish] was doing Beggars for the Poor, and introduced me to it. It was like God gave me an instrument, and I just took off with it.”

Beggars for the Poor, a ministry of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s Indianapolis conference, provides food, clothing and hygiene items to homeless men in the city on Saturdays.

“We’re feeding up to 225 men every week,” says Knable. “It’s a huge job. It’s nothing for us to give out 350 hot dogs.

“Of course, we’ll serve anyone who is there. We’ll feed them until we can’t scrape any more [out of the containers]!”

While most food, clothing and items are donated, she orders undergarments, socks and hygiene items with the stipend given to the ministry by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Most volunteers come every other month on their parish’s regularly scheduled Saturday, but Knable finds herself there almost every weekend.

She couldn’t do it, she says, “without the help of my husband, my friends and St. Jude [volunteers]. I feel like they all deserve the award.”

Of course, her work would be nothing without God’s help, Knable says.

“When you’re in your lowest point thinking, ‘How will I ever pull this off?’ God sends you an angel.” Like the woman who showed up on her doorstep with three sleeping bags to donate—just after three men had requested sleeping bags that morning.

“There’s no way I could give back what I’ve been given,” she says. “I tell people, ‘If you want to see Christ, come with me and you’ll see him every Saturday.’ ”
 

(The Angels of Grace fundraiser and luncheon will be held at Primo Banquet Hall & Conference Center, 2615 National Ave., in Indianapolis, from 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. on Sept. 26. Tickets are $35 per person, or $260 for a table of eight. Fashions by The Secret Ingredient will be modeled and available for purchase, with 10 percent of proceeds going toward women’s programs at the Benedict Inn Retreat & Conference Center in Beech Grove. The event includes raffles for gift baskets and a week’s stay at a home on Lake Michigan. For reservations or questions, contact the Benedict Inn at 317-788-7581 or www.benedictinn.org.) †