Mother Vojtěcha's jubilee year
The sisters of the Order of St. Charles Borromeo celebrated the jubilee year of the Servant of God Mother Vojtěcha Hasmandová within the catholic Year of Faith, which the pope Benedict XVI. opened on 11 October 2012 in Rome as well as within the Cyrillo-Methodian Jubilee (1150 years since the arrival of the missionaries in our country).
Twenty five years passed since her death in Znojmo-Hradiště on 21 January 2013 and 100 years passed since her birth in Huštěnovice on 25 March 2014.
For this jubilee year we held:
1. Travelling exhibition – The Servant of God Mother Vojtěcha – A Brave Witness of Faith. Successively, the exhibition visited 72 places in the Czech Republic, in Nepomucenum in Rome as well as in several Roman basilicas and basilicas in Milano. Currently, the exhibition still goes on on other locations.
2. We launched the jubilee year with the thanksgiving mass in the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul in Brno on Sunday 20 January 2013 with Father Bishop Vojtěch Cikrle as the main celebrant and the opening of the exhibition in the church of St. James in Brno.
3. On 22 January 2013, with the participation of the whole Czech Bishops’ Conference, the opening of the exhibition took place in Prague in the auditorium of the Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Charles Borromeo as well as a thanksgiving mass for the life of Mother Vojtěcha in the Church of St. Charles Borromeo in Malá Strana.
4. On 2 February 2013, the third version of the exhibition was opened in a place where young Antonie entered the convent in Frýdlant nad Ostravicí, now in the house of social services.
5. A conference on Mother Vojtěcha which took place in Brno, in the Episcopal grammar school on 14 September 2013.
6. Books about Mother Vojtěcha were prepared and published (Download).
Conference in Brno on 14 September 2013
On 14 September 2013, a whole day conference was held in the Episcopal grammar school in Brno. Its aim was to present Mother Vojtěcha as a driving force of the post-conciliar renewal guided by the Holy Spirit. The date of the conference was near the anniversary of her arrest on 10 September 1952. The conference fell on the middle of the jubilee year. The conference, which was held in the presence of Father Bishop Vojtěch Cikrle, Vicar General of Brno Msgr. Jiří Mikulášek, General Superior Mother Bohuslava Kubačáková, other sisters and a General Superior of the Polish Order of the Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo, was attended by about a hundred participants. Bishop’s homily, his opening speech and all lectures and subsequent media programmes can be found in the download section.
The travelling exhibition about Mother Vojtěcha (here – Czech) visited also the Episcopal grammar school.
Sister Alena Bártová gave later a lecture with a presentation for the students of the Episcopal grammar school (the text and a photo of the presentation here).
2014 – 100th Birth Anniversary
Celebrating 100 years since the birth of Mother Vojtěcha – the second summit event in the jubilee year of Mother Vojtěcha
On 25 March 2014, culminated the jubilee year of Mother Vojtěcha Hasmandová in Huštěnovice near Uherské Hradiště, her birthplace.
The aim of the jubilee year was to make a new generation of not only believers familiar with the life, activities and significance of Mother Vojtěcha Hasmandová for the contemporary society. We especially wanted to underline her efforts of renewal after the Vatican II. and the way she applied it in the life of the community. The Year of Faith reminded us of the 50th anniversary of the beginning the II. Vatican Council and we could look at our sister that was mesmerized by its spirit.
The feast of the Annunciation was linked to the reminder of the centennial of the birth of the Servant of God Mother Vojtěcha. Aleš Richtr, Huštěnovice Mayor, Petra Valentová, Deputy Mayor and P. Dr. Mariusz Sienkowski, local vicar, organized lunch for Mother Vojtěcha’s relatives and sisters of our community. It was a very cordial meeting. Some sisters and relatives could arrive at the Mass in the parish church at 5 p.m. Archbishop of Olomouc and Moravian metropolitan Mons. Jan Graubner was the main celebrant.
During the Mass, the Father Bishop masterfully expressed what Mother Vojtěcha lived for. He reminded us of some of her thoughts, which were an encouragement for people living in families as well as for us, consecrated persons.
“Do want to be holy! And you will be! But the holiness must cost you something. The more the “holiness” will cost you something, the more you will achieve it. Just the sitting, without inner whining, kneeling, which may seem you so long, difficulties at the table… everywhere… everything, every moment… let not belong to yourselves, to any other person and to anything, just to the Lord.” “The one who really loves the Eucharist is grateful for every moment spent close to it.” “Do appreciate the proximity of the sanctuary! Everything else is less!”
The choir from Babice accompanied the mass with their singing. Priests from near and distant places came there. Around the altar, there were about 13 priests, 2 deacons and acolytes. The beauty of liturgy was adorned by the beauty of girls in traditional costumes. The mass was attended by many relatives of Mother Vojtěcha, there were also about 35 of our sisters, including the Mother Superior General Bohuslava Kubačáková and the Postulator of the canonization process of Mother Vojtěcha in Rome, sister Remigie Češíková.
Dominican sisters a well as Sisters of St. Cyril and Disciples of the Divine Master, one of them being the Vice Postulator of a miracle, SM. Agnieszka Rozskowská, arrived as well; furthermore arrived Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Virgin Mary. These sisters came from communities that serve in the region of Uherské Hradiště. Believers were not only from Huštěnovice, but also from neighbouring parishes. Sister Remigie reminded us of words that the sisters wrote on Mother Vojtěcha’s funeral card:
“Her life was a gift of God for our community. She was for us a model, light and a charismatic teacher and in that way she was showing us how to follow Christ. She left us a rare example of life and death for God.” Mother Vojtěcha has left a deep spiritual footprint in our community.
We want to thank everyone who participated in this wonderful celebration by their attendance as well as with their prayer. Those who were present at the Mass were given a gift as a reminder of this event that we attach (here and here).
Exhibition in Rome
The travelling exhibition of Mother Vojtěcha was reopened during the canonization of two popes (27 April 2014) in a Roman college Nepomucenum. The Czech Ministers of Culture, Daniel Hermann and Helena Válková, accompanied by the Czech Ambassador to the Holy See, Pavel Vošalík, visited the exhibition.
The exhibition took place first in Italian in Nepomucenum and then repeatedly also there on different occasions. The Czech Ambassador to Italy, Dr. Petr Buriánek, was present at the opening ceremony together with his family.
At the instigation of the Ambassador to the Holy See, the exhibition was housed in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, the titular basilica of Cardinal Miloslav Vlk. The Cardinal together with Czech priests celebrated the Holy Mass for the beatification of Mother Vojtěcha and then we all moved for the opening ceremony to the refectory of the former Cistercian monastery. At the opening the Ambassador Pavel Vošalík and the Postulator of the Cause SM. Remigie Češíková gave a speech and the students of theology of Nepomucenum sang and played the music together with sister Dolorosa. The Czech Television made a record of this event and broadcast it in the evening news.
After the opening, we moved the exhibition to the atrium of the basilica, where it was exposed for a whole month. From there it moved to the newly built church of St. Catherine of Siena in a nearby neighbourhood. A young man called Andrea Rahinò wrote his memory of this event (letter).
Furthermore, the exhibition moved to a home for the elderly in Frascati, which is where our French sisters work (photos).
On return, it was located in the Basilica of San Bartolomeo al Isola for three weeks on the premises of a former church dedicated to St. Adalbert.
At a time when the end of the Roman phase of the canonization process was approaching, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk and Archbishop of Milano Cardinal Angelo Scola negotiated in cooperation with the Embassy of the Holy See that the exhibition of a Czech Borromeo sister could wander into a city, which is a town of St. Charles Borromeo.
The exhibition was linked to a conference and took place on 26 November 2014 at 3 p.m. at University of Sacro Cuore in Milano. After the conference with the international participation, the opening ceremony, during which the students of Nepomucenum and sister Dolorosa sang, took place.
The life of the Servant of God Mother Vojtěcha Hasmandová, with which a great part of the exhibition deals, fits into the overall picture of life in the communist Czechoslovakia. Therefore a part of the exhibition consists of the panels of the exhibition Dictatorship versus Hope. By doing so, sister Remigie and the curator of the exhibition Dr. Vladimíra Vaníčková wanted to outline how the totalitarian regime negatively affected the life of the entire society, all its constituents, not just the Church, not just individuals.
Lectures, which were delivered on this subject at the university during the conference, talked more in detail about it.
The exhibition is now ready to speak to numerous pilgrims from the Czech Republic in the beautiful space of Velehrad in Rome after it gets reconstructed.