In this article in the Catholic Newspaper of the Diocese of Linz our friend Josef Wallner reports about the first year of the Congregational Novitiate in Ein Karem. Sr. Juliana visited him during her holiday in Austria.

The six young women who have recently joined the congregation Notre Dame de Sion hail from three continents and from four different countries. Sr. Juliana Baldinger has now been with them for a year as director of the novitiate. The diversity of origin has been a great challenge for all of them.

The six young women who have recently joined the congregation Notre Dame de Sion hail from three continents and from four different countries. Sr. Juliana Baldinger has now been with them for a year as director of the novitiate. The diversity of origin has been a great challenge for all of them.

For the six novices of Notre Dame de Sion it is a special chance to be able to prepare for life in the Congregation in the Land of the Bible. The director, Sr. Juliana Baldinger, (fourth from right) travels often across the country with the young women.

The problem started with breakfast: one of them wanted fish and rice, the other tortillas, and the third wanted bread. After a year of living together, Sr. Juliana can laugh heartily. But it was indeed hard work to find a common basis. Sr. Juliana’s congregation, the sisters of “Our Lady of Sion”, had decided to have only one novitiate for the whole world – in Ein Kerem near Jerusalem. The begining was in 2014. Sr. Juliana, who had been working in Egypt for 20 years, was nominated director of the novitiate by the congregation.

The Jewish roots

The choice of the location has to do with the history of the congregation: the priests Theodore and Alphonse Maria Ratisbonne – converted from Judaism to Christianity – founded the Sisters with the aim to care for Jewish orphans, to pray for the conversion of Jews and to promote the idea. Since the Second Vatican Council, the aim of the congregation has been changed fundamentally. Now, dialogue with Jewry and with Islam, working for education and against poverty has become central, but the spiritual roots of the Sisters of Sion remain in Jerusalem.

Fighting to get together.

“We have fought to get together. One learns to have regard for one another”, says Sr. Juliana about her first year in Ein Kerem: “It starts already at shopping.” But finally, the multicultural community was not a burden, but rather enrichment. Each novice has brought her life experience with her. That became especially noticeable in the ways of the cross that they created. For the two novices from the Philippines, the themes were: exploiting nature, and the repression of women. The two novices from Guatemala have chosen living in a society that is shaped by unimaginable criminality. Another novice comes from Egypt, and one from Brasil.

The true crisis in their first year was not “multi culti”, but the war against Gaza. Each young woman had already personally experienced violent conflicts, military despotism or fighting. “Anxiety was great, especially when we saw the rockets over our heads in the sky”, says Sr. Juliana: “But finally, we have managed the crisis together.”

In the Land of the Bible.

Studying the Bible in the Land of the Bible: this is a central point of their spiritual life, another one is learning to know Judaism. Following the spirituality of the Sisters of Sion, the novices are introduced to the Jewish feasts, and they attend the celebrations, as far as possible. When Sr. Juliana looks back upon this pioneer year in her congregational novitiate, she concludes: “When I see how these young women have grown, this makes up for all the effort”. The six novices are presently doing practical work – all over the world. Sr. Juliana uses this time for a home leave in Austria which she certainly needs – as anyone can see.
By the way: the next four women are already waiting for the beginning of a new novitiate in January, 2016.

Source: Josef Wallner, Kirchenzeitung der Diözese Linz, No. 23/ 4 June 2015, p. 14.

  Breakfast as a challenge! (1.6 MiB, 265 hits)
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