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| Take a minute to imagine
it …….. Thirty
sisters live together in Koningsoord Abbey. Who are they? What do they do? How do they
live? These sisters belong to the Cistercian Order, a branch of the Benedictine family.
The followers of St. Benedict are called “monks” and lead a “monastic
life,” a cloistered life that is marked by prayer, separation from the world,
silence, work, frugality and simplicity.
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A little bit of history:
Our Order came into being in 1098 in Cîteaux, France. At first it looked like it
wouldn’t survive, but with the entrance of St. Bernard and his friends, the Order
soon began to flourish. Our name, Cistercians, comes from the place where the Order began,
Cîteaux. In the course of the centuries, a renewal within the Order took place in the
French abbey of “La Trappe.” This is the origin of our more familiar name
“Trappists/Trappistines,” but this is not an official name. We are always called
“Cistercians” in official documents. |
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The first Cistercian monastery for
women in the northern Lowlands dates from before 1200 and was located in Friesland. There
were about twenty monasteries for women in our region during the following centuries, but
during the Reformation at the end of the sixteenth century, almost all the monasteries
disappeared. “Our Lady’s Monastery” in Roermond lasted the longest, until
1797, and the church there is still in use. The Cistercian monks were the first to be able
to return to Holland. Koningshoeven Abbey, for example, was founded in 1881 near Tilburg.
When the families of the monks visited the abbey, young women began asking if this kind of
life also existed for them. The abbot during this period of time directed the young women
to the Trappistine monastery “Our Lady of Peace” in Chimay, Belgium, and many
entered there. When this group grew to about fifty sisters, the decision was made to build
a monastery for women in Holland. On November 21, 1933, the building in Berkel-Enschot was
begun. In the meantime, the young Dutch women were receiving their formation in the
Cistercian life in Our Lady of Peace. In 1937, when the abbey buildings in Berkel-Enschot
were completed, they returned to Holland. M. Gertrudis Demarrez, the abbess of Chimay,
came with them as foundress and led our community for the next twenty years. July 16, 1937
was chosen as the foundation day because that is the day that the community first sang
God’s praises here. Koningsoord became an autonomous abbey in September 1940. But
time marches on. World War II was a time of anxiety and fear for us too. Especially
painful was the deportation of our sisters Hegwigis and Theresia Lob who were taken via
Westerbork to Auschwitz where they met a tragic death. |
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| Foundations: Many young people entered the monastery in
the years following the war, enough so that, in 1952, the longing of the abbot of the
German Trappist monastery, Mariawald, could be fulfilled - the establishment once again of
a Trappistine monastery in Germany. A number of sisters from our monastery went to Germany
to make this foundation a reality, and in 1956, Maria Frieden Abbey in the Eifel region
became autonomous. Shortly thereafter we were also able to give several sisters to Maria
Altbronn Abbey in Alsace. This community was threatened with the possibility of dying out
due to lack of new members. The arrival of our sisters gave them a new lease on life.
Still another monastery was founded in 1964, this time in Butende in Uganda. This was our
response to Pope Pius XII ’s call to plant the seeds of contemplative life in the
Third World too. This Abbey, “Our Lady of Praise,” became autonomous in 1971.
The accelerating pace of change in society challenges the whole Church to further
reflection. The Second Vatican Council was also a stimulus for our Order to return to the
sources of our Cistercian life and to seek there together a renewal of heart and spirit.
Most important of all:
we
want to remain faithful to the Rule of St. Benedict, to prayer and vigils, to a way of
life that fosters a climate of peace and silence, to a way of life that is marked by
simplicity and that is lived in out-of-the-way places at a distance from the busy-ness of
the cities, to the faithful following of the Lord who has touched our hearts, to draw our
life from this very Source of Life, to re-discover the spirit of our founders through
reading and studying their works, to life the ancient values as they are enriched by the
light of our own time. . |
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