Retired BVM Journeys to Hungary to Learn, Re-connect with Eastern European Sisters

Retired BVM Journeys to Hungary to Learn, Re-connect with Eastern European Sisters
by Mary Ellen Caldwell, BVM

Mary Ellen Caldwell, BVM listens as a Sister of
St. Basil tells her stories of living under Communist rule.

In July 2005, 64 sisters from Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and the United States gathered for a Forum for Sisters, an International Dialogue among Women Religious on Spirituality, Mission and Ministry.

The locale was Pazmany Peter Catholic University in Piliscsaba , Hungary , a picturesque village in a nature reserve in the mountains west of Budapest .

Many of theses Sisters, including myself, were veterans of the U.S. Catholic Bishops program to aid the church emerging from Communist oppression in Central and Eastern Europe ( SALT, Summer 1995).

Those of us who had participated in this program as volunteers in the '90s were eager not to lose the valuable contacts we had made, so a planning team was organized.

The Forum for Sisters was the result. I was privileged to be part of this exciting venture as we experienced together the challenges and joy of being women religious in today's church.

The week-long program was tightly packed with activities designed to facilitate sharing among the various national groups, especially to help Sisters from Central and Eastern Europe and those from the United States understand each other.

Sisters from the United States are eager to learn more about how sisters endured 40 years of oppression, living their religious lives in secret, and how they are faring today. We were also eager to share our experience of religious life, lived in such radically different circumstances.

Each day began with prayer and the Eucharistic Liturgy prepared and led by a different national group. Mass would be celebrated in Hungarian or Slovakian, with a bit of other languages included, even Latin.

Our Sisters from Central and Eastern Europe would be the joy of any choir director: they sang with enthusiasm and everyone knew all the words!

Jubilate Deo and Salve Regina rang out from all of us—all except our sisters from Ukraine , who belong to the Eastern rite and were not familiar with Latin hymns.

Our reflection and conversation about religious life used the Vatican document, Starting Afresh from Christ , (2002) as a starting point. The murmur of translators could be heard during the pauses in the presentation given each day by a sister from a different country. Each day ended with prayer and a creative response by each national group to their experience of the day.

The daily schedule also included music and art, activities that helped us to experience and enjoy the flavor of another culture. We learned folk songs and folk dances of each country. The Sisters were eager teachers and lively participation brought us together in a common activity.

Each national group—amateur artists all—painted, on a banner, an icon of Mary particular to that country. Undaunted by our amateur status, each of us also painted an “illumination” of a Scripture passage we had chosen. We were as pleased as school children with our work.

A pilgrimage to the Byzantine shrine at Mariapocs in the northeastern plains of Hungary was a high point of our time together. At the church of St. Michael the Archangel , with its “Weeping Icon” of Mary, we carried our banners in procession and celebrated an Eastern Rite Liturgy, presided over by Bishop Constantine Kerestes, a leader in efforts to bring together Churches of East and West.

The banner of the U.S. portrayed the Visitation. We were delighted to present Mary and Elizabeth greeting each other as a symbol of our meeting with our Sisters from these distant places.

This shrine has become a place of pilgrimage; worshipers from the area filled it all the time we were there. The Sisters of St. Basil welcomed us to their monastery and told us stories of their experiences during the Communist oppression.

The globalized interdependent world includes religious women. We have so much to learn from these Sisters who are indeed starting afresh after enduring 40 years of living their religious life in secret.

Many of them are quite young and have joined their congregations in the past ten years or so. Religious life in Central and Eastern Europe is alive and struggling, as are we, but in a quite different way. We hope we can sustain and expand these contacts.

About the author: Mary Ellen Caldwell, BVM (Eugenio) is retired at Mount Carmel . A former faculty member in Religious Studies at Clarke College , Dubuque , she has taught in Africa and Hungary.