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Kismaros: from the hiding to the joy of sharing
Kismaros, Hungary.
50 km from Budapest,
Saturday May 7th
they celebrated the 20 years
of the consulting room
of the cistercian Monastery
two steps from the station.
The doctor Gabor Fejerdy,
who had become oblate by the cistercian community,
guides the team of therapists
composted by lays and
by mother Marthy physiotherapist.
What I think, which touches me mostly,
is that what we try
to give are minimal things.
These are small things
in the human relations;
what everyone should live
in the interpersonal relations.
A simple look,
say to someone
“please, you are welcome”,
it’s easy but
through the simple act
we may give much more.
Because in the world today
the people are very folded
on them self and small attentions
are enough to make
born a relation with someone.
It’s a place to relax.
When a person has different therapies
he may relax between the one
and the other.
Or if someone comes from far
away he may relax before returning home.
I may say that we don’t give
extraordinary things,
we live in the normality, humanly,
but this is already a gift
for those who come to us.
And from this small signs they understand
that we live in a relation
without personal interests.
We want to help the other,
we want to receive them but
we don’t have by-ends behind our acts;
we give what we are.
With our mistakes,
but since we do it with sincerity
and the see that we are sincere,
this makes generate relations.
A party which the community
has called “day of grace action”,
because after twenty years of existence
of the medical dispensary
the sentiment which we breath
is the one of gratitude lived in the faith.
A faith which has been hided
for many years under the communist regime.
Because our society is born in the 55,
when the persecutions started,
in the beginning it was not exactly
a life of a Cistercian community
but they tried to live according to
to the rule of Saint Benedict
in these circumstances;
because of this we have lived
very deeply the rule even if we
don’t know well the origins
of the Cistercian life,
of the Cistercian fathers.
Mother Agnes the founder
of the community,
several sisters and father Edmond,
spiritual father of the cistercian community,
have spent several years in prison.
The community had to live separated
in different cities hiding
like the first communities of the church.
We have suffered a lot but
we have been able
to look back in the history,
in the history of the Church,
the story of the martyrs.
For example when the community
is borne the people red the texts
of the first martyrs
to prepare our life,
because there was the persecution
in the 55 when the community is borne
and there is an analogy with periods
when the church has suffered
the persecutions.
This has helped us a lot.
And then this relatives the things,
because we are not
the only one to suffer;
and if we accept this,
that means that our life is
“the other” because off “the Other”
with O uppercase,
then we may accept the sufferance.
We have always said that
we carry on the shoulders
the cloister and it depends on us,
how we react and how we live,
if we manage to live in a climate
of prayer even if we are not in a convent.
After the second arrest
of Mother Agnes,
looking for a hided place
to live in community,
outside Budapest, a to dangerous city,
in the beginning of the 70’s
they appear in Kismaros and build
a kind of wooden cabin in the forest.
We call it “the first monastery”
And inside we may say that
there was everything:
it was the church "in quotes",
a small room used as church to pray,
a dormitory which got transformed
in kitchen and then in dining hall,
changed continuously but
everything was there.
It’s very small but until
10-12 people lived there for several days,
they tell how they slept in these conditions,
- So it’s a small angle, a heart here -
Yes
I remember when I entered
in to community I remember that
we had made the adoration,
in this cottage in the chapel
and only two people could stand there
but also everyone behind the wall
felt them self “in front” of the Eucharist.
And I found very nice that if
we could not watch through the walls
it was in any case adoration,
because the presence of Christ was stronger.
Being together means being protected,
because we are much stronger
when we are together.
It’s not only a place
which gathers us but
gives us a spiritual power
but also intellectual,
because we can not live
without a sense of our own life,
and this gives us power and hope.
And when we look at
that cottage we remember
from the past,
we are faithful about the past,
to the present and to the future.
The work is very important,
not only for living,
obviously also that,
but most of all it must be
in line with the objectives of our life.
As an example we have
the bees because the beekeeping
is a contemplative work.
But we must pay attention
to always keep a balance between work,
liturgy and common life.
- my father was beekeeper -
Oh yes? Good.
Here are sister Cristi and sister Kiscbury
I believe that the work
for us is always a concrete call
through which all the dimensions
of our life appear,
for this reason the place of work
is a deep meeting with God
the creator and with our next,
brothers and sisters,
and even with our self
because only making things
we see the proper limits
we see the proper limits
to accept the Lord as saver.
Normally we say that
in the monastery the guest
may never miss.
It’s important that the people
may receive,
and that we may also live
in fraternity with the people,
with the people around us.
The main work of sister Marti
is executed at the consulting room
with the team of therapists
and with the patients
who are received first of all
as people and not as sick people;
And it’s this which
changes completely the atmosphere
which we breath entering
in that place of treatment very special.
I work together with the people
and believe that I receive peace,
a lot of deepness,
also in the happiness
of helping to heal someone,
but also in the sufferance
of following someone who may
not recover.
These are very deep moments
to live together those situations
together with those people
and with God,
because we feel beside someone
with whom living moments of crisis.
We are only intermediates.
Increase the circulation
and this increase improves
the picture of the problem.
We have collected episodes
which have touched us
for the extraordinary human charge
and the deepness of the religious experience,
like the one of a woman who said
to a friend “go to the dispensary
of Kismaros even if you are not sick,
when you’ll come out from the waiting hall
you’ll be better anyway”.
I believe that the very
fine line is the love.
Because at the bottom of every human being,
we need to be loved
and to love.
It’s the very thin line
which holds our life,
the personal life like
the communitarian one.
And when we came to Kismaros
the inhabitants asked us why
we went shopping,
and sometimes we have
greeted saying
Laudetur Jesus Christus.
And slowly they have understood
that we were sisters.
And we were very thankful
towards the inhabitants
who had not denounced
us to the authorities
risking for us.
And when the times have changed,
the political situation has changed,
we wanted to thank the inhabitants.
But when we want to thank
someone, we need to do it
a way so that they understand it,
in a comprehensive language.
And then, in a second aspect,
we need to pay attention
to the signs of the time.
Like this the sister
open the consulting room
of Kismaros in 1991,
years before the construction
of the monastery,
as gratitude towards the village
but also knowing collecting
the signs on their walk:
the meeting with doctor Gabor
who’s is willing to launch himself
in an adventure risking
his professional career and the diploma
of physiotherapist of sister Marti.
It’s a big wealth meeting
and accepting the other for what he is,
because everyone bring in them self
big values and great wealth,
and when we receive the person
in his totality,
giving something we
receive back much more.
Like Christ is in the centre of the life
and we all get around him,
this makes us raise
towards the heaven,
in this way also the roof by holding.
Normally we would have needed
a central pillar but we have
on the contrary chosen to go up
towards the high’s so;
we are joined around Christ
and if only one is missing
we loose the balance which
we usually may live all together.
Because in the Cistercian community
the life is very important,
it’s the place through which
we may go towards the Lord.
And with these windows we want
to represent the trinity,
there are three windows
which evoke the trinity,
and the trinity is the communion.
It’s a place of Lectio Divina at one hand;
means that it’s a place
of personal praying,
on the other hand to live
a balanced life we also need
to elaborate the spirit.
But also here there is a roof
but it’s different from
the one of the Church,
but also here there is a place of praying,
and also the spirit and the intellect
must always be together in unity,
because in the monastic life
what counts a lot is living in unity,
unity of it’s own,
to find again the fundament of it’s own.
Being human means being free.
Not only the circumstances
which push the freedom,
the Lord who is free,
totally free.
The true freedom is God.
And there is a reason,
like a guitar which has the strings
and the case.
If the strings pinch
there is a resonance.
And I find that there is
a big desire of freedom.
And at the bottom of
our human heart there is,
and it’s the resonance towards
someone who is free.
The things, the objects, the possibilities,
don’t give the real freedom
because very soon
I get aware of that
I’ve calmed my desire
then there is another one,
I want something
and then I still want more,
I have more and
I would like even more.
It means that there is
is an infinite desire inside us.
I feel that who lives
in this yearning of infinite,
because God is infinite,
the infinite is infinite,
it does not have beginning
and does not have time,
and if there is a human resonance,
we may find this form of life.
There are not the circumstances
which guide our life,
it’s a call,
it’s the desire at the bottom
of our heart of living freely.