On Sunday, January7, of this year, I was invited to give a talk about the virtues in the family at the family day held in Nitra, Slovakia. The day was planned for the last day of the spiritual exercises being preached at the same location. The families arrived and were invited to pray the Rosary on the Calvary hill located on the premises of the monastery where the activity took place. Afterwards was my talk and then the Holy Mass which also concluded the spiritual exercises. After Mass, we had a festive lunch with the typical feast meal— “goulash”—which I was told is actually Hungarian but has been adopted by Slovakians. There were also many different typical homemade cakes and pastries brought by the participants of the family day. During the lunch, seminarian Ján Sedlický, directed the fogón by inviting people from different regions in Slovakia to sing the traditional songs of their region. After lunch, there was a talk about the importance of the Eucharist for family life, and we stayed with many of the families for a long time in the “after party.”
As you read this, you may think—nice sister, this is a typical apostolate of the Religious Family, and why now a chronicle? Reading my outline of the day, I agree completely with the question. Having been there and experienced the atmosphere of the people and day however, I know that there is something special to communicate about the apostolate. With my inadequate words, I will try and explain something of that special character.
The first remarkable thing was that this fogón was the first I have seen in my religious life (which has largely been limited to the Netherlands) in which everyone went quite willingly and gladly to sing on the stage. The people from the different regions of the country sang with ease and without the help of paper or mobile phones the lyrics of their traditional songs. As each group got warmed-up, sem. Ján had to put a stop to their presentation because they knew not just one, but two, three, etc. traditional songs from their Province. The melodies were quite beautiful and sung with great gusto. I was quite impressed with the knowledge that the people had of their folklore.
Secondly, I have had quite a lot of contact with other Slavic cultures in my life, and I was impressed by the identity that these people have of being Slovakian—not Polish, not Ukrainian, not Czech. People my age or older remember the country “Czechoslovakia”, and the people spoke quite clearly of having maintained their identity as Slovakian in the 74 years that they were combined with the Czech Republic as a result of the communist attempt to destroy their national identity. As someone who grew up in the United States, I am still impressed with the strong cultural identity that European nations have, being of relatively small territorial regions. I was also pleasantly impressed with how no one with whom I spoke to expressed any bitterness about this time, only a desire they had of being recognized as Slovakian and not something else.
Lastly, I was very edified by the contact I had with the people there. There was a friendliness and openness that I have not always experienced being in a new place and especially one that had suffered under communist rule for so many years. The family spirit was quite palpable, and I had the opportunity to speak with many family members of our religious.
The day after the family day, we religious made a short pilgrimage to the cathedral of Nitra belonging to the first diocese of Slovakia (established around 880) whose first bishop was St. Methodius. From this place, the evangelisation of these regions began. The cathedral is small but beautiful and what impressed me most was the Nativity set that was still visible in a side chapel. The set was commissioned by the current bishop of Nitra and was modern and beautiful. It was obvious to see that there was a lot of devotion and prayer behind the work.
My favourite elements were the statue of a young St. Joseph standing behind the manger holding the white swaddling clothes of the baby Jesus on high and the Blessed Mother kneeling next to the Child. It gave the impression that Joseph was acting as a monstrance for Our Lady to adore her Child outside of her womb for the first time. The three wisemen, each with a different distance from the Incarnate Word, had a bodily position that corresponded to his vicinity to the Christ-Child—the first one was standing, the second kneeling and the third and closest to the Child was prostrate. After our visit to the cathedral, we went to the city of Trnava to visit a miraculous image of Our Lady and enjoy a typical Slovakian lunch—bryndzové halušky a sort of gnocchi.
May Our Lady of Sorrows, patroness of Slovakia, continue to intercede for these people that they may continue to love her Son and their culture in this land of long-Christian tradition that still bears so many fruits of the first evangelisers and may the evangelisation of culture so strongly present in Slovakian culture be an example to the rest of Europe of the richness of knowing Christ.
Maria Nadiya Beznadiynych Rozak, SSVM
Missionary in the Netherlands
