Franziska Notes
No.5/8 August 2008
Our Congregation publishes short obituaries of our deceased sisters from all over the world. This is a great source of enrichment as we see how the charism of Mother Franziska is lived out today in many different cultures and circumstances. Recently I read some of the sisters who suffered under atheistic communism in the Church of Silence.
There is for example, the sister who entered in the Slovakian province before World War II. She was assigned to be cook in several convents and loved what she was doing, following in the footsteps of St. Martha who served Jesus in person as guest in her home.
The peaceful happy life of this sister and the others was ended in what an author has called “The Night of the Barbarians” when religious were suddenly loaded into busses and brought to convents and monasteries far away from contact with the people. Here they placed all religious together, concentrated in houses far from where they had been taken. They were left to their own solutions of living together, and, in the early days forced to work in factories or farms in terrible conditions. Many suffered lasting effects from air polluted by lint in fabric factories or dampness and cold in factories or fields. Those that had been educated as teachers were reluctantly allowed to work only with severely handicapped children, because an atheistic system could provide no motivation for this work for state employees.
These religious were denied human fulfillment, but will forever be shining witnesses to humble fidelity to their vows, the Church, living in love of neighbor and forgiveness of their persecutors. As they are now gradually going to their eternal reward, their service begins to shine in its true glory as those who suffered in imitation of their Divine Master.
No.5/8 August 2008
Our Congregation publishes short obituaries of our deceased sisters from all over the world. This is a great source of enrichment as we see how the charism of Mother Franziska is lived out today in many different cultures and circumstances. Recently I read some of the sisters who suffered under atheistic communism in the Church of Silence.
There is for example, the sister who entered in the Slovakian province before World War II. She was assigned to be cook in several convents and loved what she was doing, following in the footsteps of St. Martha who served Jesus in person as guest in her home.
The peaceful happy life of this sister and the others was ended in what an author has called “The Night of the Barbarians” when religious were suddenly loaded into busses and brought to convents and monasteries far away from contact with the people. Here they placed all religious together, concentrated in houses far from where they had been taken. They were left to their own solutions of living together, and, in the early days forced to work in factories or farms in terrible conditions. Many suffered lasting effects from air polluted by lint in fabric factories or dampness and cold in factories or fields. Those that had been educated as teachers were reluctantly allowed to work only with severely handicapped children, because an atheistic system could provide no motivation for this work for state employees.
These religious were denied human fulfillment, but will forever be shining witnesses to humble fidelity to their vows, the Church, living in love of neighbor and forgiveness of their persecutors. As they are now gradually going to their eternal reward, their service begins to shine in its true glory as those who suffered in imitation of their Divine Master.
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