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THE TUTZING PRIORY
(from: “The Story of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing” by M. Irene Dabalus, OSB)
A Motherhouse for the „foreign missions“
It was on July 29, 1904 that the sisters’ community with 69 professed members, nine novices and 15 postulants transferred from St. Ottilien to a new monastery in Tutzing, Bavaria. From then on it was designated as the convent of the Sacred Heart and the Motherhouse of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters. After the demanding years of foundation the young Congregation which settled here came out bursting with life. According to diocesan statistics the Congregation counted already 119 members on January 1, 1904.
Life could not contain itself and so it overflowed. The Missionary Benedictine Sisters found an outlet for their evangelizing energy in the mission fields which beckoned to them from all parts of the world.
They had already charted their course into East Africa in the preceding decade. At the turn of the century, they were summoned to the shores of Latin America. As early as 1903 the Motherhouse sent eight missionaries to found Olinda in northern Brazil and soon Sorocaba followed in southern Brazil.
It was a time for expanding mission horizons. The first decade of the century opened further to them the route to the Asian Far East. Five pioneers set sail for Manila, Philippines in 1906. Soon they were able to reach out to the islands of the archipelago.
On the home front in Europe mission demands kept likewise pace. In 1914 the Motherhouse sent four sisters to Bulgaria for school teaching, pastoral work and care of the sick in the parishes of German settlers.
During these decades Missionary Benedictine life kept up a phenomenal growth. Even after the First World War religious vocations in Tutzing brought in a yearly entrance of 60-80 candidates. In 1920 the 13 sisters who were expelled from East Africa sought a new field of work in South Africa. This led to the founding of the Inkamana Priory in 1922 and of the Windhoek Priory in present day Namibia in 1923.
Then came a challenge from another part of the globe when in 1923 the Archbishop of Omaha in the United States asked the sisters to take over a parish school in Raeville, Nebraska. This developed into the Norfolk Priory on the Nebraska plains, a mission not only for the German population there but also for the dwindling Native Americans,
A second call from the Asian Far East came in 1925. Four pioneers responded and Wonson, (North) Korea, in the „land of the morning calm“, became yet another forefront of evangelization among Asia’s teeming millions.
Africa itself had never been at a standstill. In 1931 a new mission enterprise at Galangue, southern Angola, drew five sisters to a life of insertion into the country’s poor population.
The Second World War put a stop, but only temporarily, to the almost year by year expansion of the Tutzing Missionary Benedictines. After the war again new fields of work sprang up: Menongue in Angola (re-opened in 1977), Bande and Baltar in Portugal in 1961 and 1968 respectively, and Nairobi, Kenya in 1981.
Even when religious vocations slackened after the war, the Motherhouse could send not less than 200 sisters to places where the Church was in dire need of her workers. This missionary vitality in the life of the Congregation was the dream of Father Andreas Amrhein made real. The dream was not new. It was the same vision of a life of worship and life of service to God’s world which fired Benedict of Nursia and his monks of old to tell God’s saving deeds in their near and far surroundings.
Mission at home.
The enterprising zeal of the missionaries abroad was matched by a corresponding growth and development of Benedictine life and work at home. Besides being a focal point in the life of an international congregation, the Tutzing Motherhouse has served as the meeting ground for the good old tradition and the challenging impulses of a new era.
This has been the experience of returning missionaries who have always found a home there to welcome them. This has been the constant appreciation of the sick to come to its 150-bed hospital to receive not only a patient’s care but likewise solace in the grim hours of pain. This has been the attraction to children, youth, students, married couples and seniors who seek out their centers in the pursuit of both good education programs and Christian community experiences.
At present the Tutzing Priory consists of five communities engaged in various apostolates with people of all ages.
The challenge of a new missionary situation.
At the threshold of the year 2000 the Missionary Benedictine Sisters in Europe find themselves, in a sense, at the crossroads. They are experiencing a shift in mission, no longer understood only in terms of crossing over to foreign territories, but also of revitalizing Christian life at home. The rapid changes in a highly technological society, the growth of rugged individualism and the rootlessness of a mobile population are gnawing at the very bases of Christian civilization, de-Christianizing the once Christian nations of the West.
This situation puts back the past bulwarks of Christianity into the context of mission. It redefines mission as, in essence, a mandate on six continents. The new alignment of needs this brings demands of the Church a new mission stance. A sensitive nerve in the Church as a religious order, the Tutzing Priory has had to meet this new missionary scene at home seriously. In the face of widespread secularism it has had to reflect time and again on how to deepen the interior springs of its monastic life to answer to priority needs of the European Church.
A forward-looking priory chapter laid special stress on the witness value of a life according to the Gospel in taking up these new initiatives:
•raising mission awareness in existing communities and areas of work
•making communities a visible image of the Church responding to concrete individual and social problems of Church and society
•sharing the life of the community with interested persons, through Kloster auf Zeit, prayers days and recollection days
•proclaiming the Gospel through youth and adult education
•sharing in ecumenical endeavors
•coming to grips with religious movements in Europe.
Thus, under changed conditions the Missionary Benedictine charism continues to live out its original inspiration of praying and working in community at the service of a Church that is in need.
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