Thy Kingdom Come

Our monastery’s doorbell, that wakes even the dead, made me jump out of bed on a frosty night right before Christmas. I opened the door with some annoyance, but I was taken aback looking at an elderly lady who wore an entire traditional Tirol Austrian costume. It was beautiful; each of its pieces was made by tender hands. The lady who was almost eighty was dressed thoughtfully as if she had been preparing for a great- great celebration.  I was standing, the canvas of our reality tore in front of me and I saw a ray from the world of tales and wonders. Light, peace and dignity emanated from the lady, from her face ripened by age and struggles, from her wonderfully dressed thin figure.

She said, “Is it the Franciscan children’s home?”

Answering my awkward reply, she told me she had come from Austria, and her husband had been killed somewhere in this area during the Second World War. She told me this was the greatest tragedy of her and her children’s’ life, the kind of loss that takes a lifetime to accept. She told me she could never think of Transylvania kindly because of her pain, and now, becoming older she would like to love this land that gave the resting place to her husband. As a sign of her reconciliation she brought us presents from each member of her big family, and she wanted to give them to those needy children whose grandparents might have seen or even caused her husband’s death.

Deeply touched, we silently carried the presents from her Mercedes and its trailer to the monastery. I watched her with ceaseless admiration as she was placing the gifts under the Christmas tree. She has never been to Eastern Europe. She does not speak our language. All alone she drove thousands of miles, she came across borders –difficult for even experienced smugglers -in a car fully loaded with packs. She came because she wanted to put down the burden that she had carried for fifty years. She came because she had forgiven. Because it was Christmas, because she wanted to step out from the tangle of the past, because she wanted to place her own brick in the house of the new, uniting Europe. I admired the beautiful marks of the eternal God on this fragile lady.  We placed all the sweets, the toys, the Christmas tree decorations, the nicely wrapped presents. I wanted her to stay, “The children will get up soon. Wait and enjoy our children’s pleasure. You are the mother of their joy, you should exult with them.” I tried to offer her food, drink and accommodation. She was smiling gently, looked at our sleeping children and said, “I slept while I was waiting at the border. I am not hungry and I would like to arrive home soon to tell my family how nice the children are that live where their grandfather rests in an unknown grave.”

When the lady left to Tirol in the snow, I stood in front of the monastery amazed. I forgot to ask her name. The lady from the fairy tale left, and I felt she had swept out from the bottom of my heart everything that the communist schools taught me about fascism, about the labancs (Hungary’s greatest Austrian enemy during the Habsburg era), about hatred. I saw the tomorrow on her face. I saw a Europe that could be my home. A Europe, where even the Hungarian minority, that lacks motherland because of great empires’ decisions, might find its home. This Europe can be my home, our home where we can live not mourning over past, facing back, building nothing with so many pieces of broken crocks; but live, making the most wonderful mosaic, dreaming God’s dream, doing what we ask for in His prayer every day, that Jesus Christ formulated with eternal consistence: “Thy kingdom come…”

I felt moved by the lady’s truthful reconciliation and goodness, as pool balls are moved by each other. It would be so good to go Russia, to the River Don where thousands of Hungarians were killed. And to the cities and villages where the guns of Hungarian soldiers were rumbling; how great it would be if a pilgrimage could go around the world to spread an honest reconciliation. We all could go somewhere and we all would have plenty of visitors.

Salutation of dignitaries and presidents in front of unknown soldiers’ graves is not enough. We will have hands, power, and prayer for building tomorrow, if getting rid of our horrible wounds and burdens, if trusting love and kindness as power that can shape the world, we go and consciously build God’s world.
We have to believe there is a political solution that is not a dead end for any nation, any ethnic minority. I would like to believe that the stars that symbolize the united Europe are in fact the crown of Our Lady Maria, the Beautiful Love’s Mother, and they are the symbol of her Holy Son’s world in the making.

Brother Csaba
December 26, 2002