
Schwester M. Herbertis Lubek
The present political situation reminds me strongly of my family’s history and how I was shaped by it. I was born during the Second World War. My father was at the front. My mother lived with my brother, who was six years older, in Krappitz /Oberchlesien. My maternal grandparents and aunts lived in Opole/ Silesia (now Poland).
I was born there on October 29, 1944, in the women’s clinic where our sisters worked, and was baptized in the Peter Paul Church in Opole in the the name of Jutta.
In February 1945, my uncle took us to his relatives in Wallisfurth/County of Glatz to protect our family, especially the women, from the attacks of the invading allied soldiers. Later we were housed with other refugee families in the castle in Altheide/County Glatz, where a doctor also took care of us. My grandparents, who spoke what was called “water Polish”, were a great help and protection for the women, who were also no longer safe there and had to hide repeatedly with their children.
In the spring of 1946, we had to leave and were “loaded” into a freight train with nobody knowing whether we were going into “forced labor” or to “freedom”. In March 1946, we arrived in a small town in northern Germany, near the North Sea. All of us „displaced persons“ were distributed among the villages, and we were lucky that our family stayed together. My mother was assigned one room in a family home with us children. We had it good; they were nice people. Our family stuck together and we helped each other. And even though I know many things only because they were recounted to me, they still left a strong impression on me: caring for each other, sharing, being able to do without, being content with what little there was, and enjoying small comforts and gifts.
I loved to hear my grandparents praying together and singing church songs .They had such a pleasant everyday piety, which I was able to grow into. Since we came from Silesia, which was mainly Catholic, to the North German diaspora, we experienced the church services as a great gift, especially when „native“ songs and prayers found space in the services. That also touched me very much.
I don’t remember my father’s return from French captivity, but I do remember that our living space – we now had a two-room apartment – was too small for all of us. My father had found a job and wanted to build a future for us in Germany while my mother hoped to return to her Silesian homeland. In 1950, with the help of my mother, my father was able to start his own business as a merchant in a neighboring village, and my brother and I were involved in the tasks that had to be done. This was quite natural for us.
Our maternal grandparents remained the center of our family: Our kind, understanding grandmother and our somewhat cantankerous grandfather, both my role models regarding prayer and faith. My father’s family had been separated from us by the war. They lived behind the “iron curtain” in what was to become East Germany. Despite our support through regular food parcels and contact by mail, they remained strangers to us.
This is the background on which my religious life developed: my grandmother’s simple, convincingly lived faith; her heartfelt prayers; my grandparents’ praying the rosary together, and the religious songs they sang with all their heart. All of this opened my heart to God’s love and call. My grandmother understood wonderfully how to bring my religious desires to a normal, healthy level, and to keep awake my longing for the good. My mother, too, although she did not have much time for us, guided me to a good combination of commitment to school, work and church. She helped me to deal with injustices in the church context, and to find orientation from God rather than his “ground staff“. This still works for me today.
Preparing for the celebration of my First Communion strengthened my love for God even further. The older I became, the more consciously I experienced God’s work in my life, and I bound myself ever more firmly to HIM. The beginning of my religious life on February 11, 1964 was the grateful answer to God, who loved me first and has not let me down in HIS love until today. So I am grateful for 59 years of life in our Congregation, for all the good things as well as the difficult things that have made me mature in the various ministries in our community, together with the Sisters with whom I was allowed to live and work. Also, I am grateful for all those with whom I am united by our Franciscan spirituality and our prayer life. I thank God for the journey of my life, for all that I have experienced in my life. I thank God for my life’s journey, for all the good I have been able to do for others. I trust that HE will continue to guide me until one day, I will be able to see HIM face to face, and meet again all my dear companions in heaven.
May we always carry our goal of glorifying and proclaiming God in our hearts and realize it in our lives.
Sister M. Herbertis Lubeck