It has been 120 years since 17 Redemptorist nuns found a new home in Lauterach. To celebrate this anniversary, Bishop Benno Elbs of Feldkirch visited the monastery to congratulate the nuns and celebrate a thanksgiving mass with them on 19 November 2024. On the same day, the new monastery museum was inaugurated and blessed by Fr. Martin Leitgöb CSsR, Superior of the Vienna-Munich Province.
“To look back with love and gratitude, to face the present with faith and joy, and to look to the future with hope and courage”: this is the motto with which the Redemptorist Sisters of Lauterach invited us to celebrate their 120th anniversary. The invitation was accepted not only by Bishop Benno Elbs, but also by numerous religious, friends and relatives of the nuns.
Bishop Benno celebrated the thanksgiving Mass together with eleven priests. In his homily he stressed friendship with Christ as the foundation of the life and work of the nuns. As Redemptorists, they carry Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, the healing Savior, in their name and therefore also in their being and in their actions.
After the festive Mass, the celebrants were invited to take part in a banquet in the monastery cloister and were able to visit the new museum, the guest house, the monastery cemetery, and the host laboratory, where three to four million hosts are produced each year.
On 19 November 1904, 17 Redemptorist nuns moved into the former school of the Dominican nuns in Lauterach. The latter needed more space and so moved to Bregenz, while the Redemptorist nuns, in turn, needed a new home after the one in Salzburg was destroyed.
“A priest from our order drew the nuns’ attention to the empty building in Lauterach,” explains Sister Maria Sidorova. The Redemptorists are a religious order that has its roots in Italy, but spread across the world from Vienna. The first superior of the convent of St. Joseph came from Holland, while the other nuns came from Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Alto Adige, and Poland. At its peak, the convent of St. Joseph in Lauterach housed 39 nuns. This was 1929, but today the convent community includes only five nuns.
Sister Seraphica and Sister Theresia, both 93 years old, are the oldest residents. Neither of them has ever regretted coming to Lauterach. Sister Theresia has lived in the convent for 75 years and Sister Seraphica for 65. “We still enjoy it here,” the lively nuns emphasize. The youngest of the group is Maria Sidorova. The 38-year-old arrived in Lauterach in 2019. The woman of Slovak origin was not interested in monastic life. She wanted children, a family. But then she met people who consciously lived their faith. “Their joy and charisma infected me,” recalls Sister Maria. In the end, she too was called by God. “I want to bear witness to their love and carry forward the history of the Redemptorist Sisters,” she says, describing her mission.
The monastery of San Giuseppe wants to share the spirituality that is felt in the house with other people, also through social media and the Internet. This is linked to the desire to reach out to like-minded people. “There are always people whom God calls,” Sister Maria observes hopefully.
(source: www.ordensgemeinschaften.at)
