Sister Annunciata from the Franciscan Monastery of Armstorf supports children, people in poverty and the disadvantaged.
The 79-year-old was born as Irmengard Unterreiner in Freilassing.
Armstorf
- Already when she entered the monastery almost 60 years ago, Sister Annunciata was clear: “This is the place of my life.” Since 2002, the 79-year-old has lived with six sisters in the Franciscan monastery in Armstorf.
She gave up the management of the education center five years ago when she became seriously ill.
She is still the house superior for the church and the sisters.
Always with a smile on her face, she walks the corridors of the spacious monastery, every sister or employee is greeted with a greeting or a question about their well-being.
She is an emphatic superior with heart, empathy and care for the other sisters.
She had resolved to do this many years ago, when she herself was in dire straits.
But first about her childhood: Sister Annunciata was born as Irmengard Unterreiner on January 22nd, 1942 in Surheim near Freilassing. She still has two brothers. The mother is a master dressmaker and survives alone with her three children until 1949, the father is in Russian captivity and does not return until late. “I was so scared of this strange man with a dark beard who suddenly stood in our door and never left,” the 79-year-old remembers to this day. But the father is sensitive. He notices his daughter's reservations and one Sunday after going to church he has the hair on the back of his neck plaited into pigtails. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and a hastily put on hat could not diminish the guest's astonishment. The father smiles and says: "You know,Irmengard always gives me a special hairstyle on Sundays. ”Then the ice melted. The father initially works for the road maintenance department, then works his way up in the municipal administration.
Little Irmengard first attended elementary school in Surheim and then switched to the girls' secondary school in Freilassing. After completing the household school, she completed an apprenticeship as a kindergarten teacher with the poor school sisters in the Au in Munich. At this time, the film "The Story of a Nun" with Audrey Hepburn in the leading role came into the cinemas. The sisters tell her not to watch the film. Irmengard goes to the cinema twice in Munich and is impressed despite the depressing end. The young woman also enjoys reading mission sheets. She is interested in the work of the sisters in Africa - and her decision is soon made: "I would also like to become a religious sister and go to Africa."
At that time, Irmengard was a lot of friends with young people. But she wants to get out, wants to learn something, and she wants to be there for others. She reads the Bible a lot, although she always hid the scriptures so as not to appear "pious". "Jesus fascinated me, especially his encounters with people on the fringes of society." It is therefore clear to the young woman that she is joining the religious order of the Franciscan Sisters, which follows this principle.
The parents are not enthusiastic about their only daughter's decision. But at some point they reconcile with the thought. In 1962, Irmengard Unterreiner celebrates her outfit. She looks proud and happy in the pictures. She looks like a bride, all in white in a floor-length robe, with a veil and a bouquet of white roses. “I bought white pumps with heels especially for this day,” says the 79-year-old with a laugh, “actually a waste,” she says, “but I really wanted that back then, I wanted to be beautiful on my special day”.
Later on, the nun, now called Sr. Annunciata, enjoys it when she is “incognito” - in civilian clothes - out and about in her free time.
"I liked to get dressed well, my mother was a dressmaker, so I probably inherited something from her."
Sr. Annunciata is assigned to the headquarters in the Au am Inn monastery, a Franziskushaus with kindergarten, secondary school and boarding school.
In addition to her job as a kindergarten teacher, she teaches stenography and typing at the secondary school, for which she previously completed an apprenticeship at the Maximilianeum in Munich.
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Happy and beautiful as a bride: Sister Annunciata with her parents in 1962 on the day she was dressed and entered the monastery.
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After one year, the vow follows three years, then perpetual profession. A step that she will never regret, although Africa will not work. But new gates are opening. Just a year after she was dressed, shortly before Christmas 1963, her beloved mother fell seriously ill. She is in the hospital in Bad Reichenhall with jaundice. It is winter and the journey from Au there is difficult. The then General Superior was “a woman who felt and acted from the heart”, Sr. Annunciata is grateful to this day. She enables the young sister to do everything so that she can say goodbye to her mother. She goes forever on Christmas Eve, she will only be 59 years old. "That was the only time I had an inner battle whether to stay in the monastery or to go back to my father and brothers," she says.
The father helps her with the decision. "You go your way," he said to her. He takes the wedding ring from his mother's finger and puts it on his daughter with the words: “Be as faithful as your mother always was.” She goes back to the monastery, she still wears the ring today. At that time she swore to herself: "If I ever have something to say, I will also act with my heart."
And she should have something to say. But before that, there was a decisive turning point in her life: in 1967, the young religious sister was just 25 years old, she was asked by the General Superior if she could imagine a job as a nursery nurse in a Franciscan children's home in St. Gilgen on Lake Wolfgang. She agrees without further ado. For 20 years she will accompany, raise and raise children from socially disadvantaged families who are assigned to her by the youth welfare office. “It was an incredibly exhausting, but also fulfilling time. I was able to live out my motherly feelings there. ”There she feels“ what I always wanted to be ”, and she got to know many facets of life. One day she has a baby in the home. “She slept in the cot next to me in the room,” she says. The good bye,When the seven-year-old comes to live with relatives in England, her heart is almost broken. “I sat at the window and cried.” But the fond memories outweigh the rest, and she is still in contact with some of her protégés.
In St. Gilgen she also met Helmut Kohl, then Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate and later Federal Chancellor. A long-term friendship develops. It happened like this: Sister Annunciata likes to stroll with the children along the Wolfgangsee. She often meets Helmut Kohl, who regularly goes on vacation there. “He always said hello until he asked me: 'Sister, where do you actually live?'” From then on, Helmut Kohl visits Sister Annunciata and the children in the home whenever he is in his holiday home. “Before the first visit, his security guards checked everything, shone flashlights under the benches in the chapel and turned everything around. That was too much for me, ”says the superior. "If there is such an uproar every time you visit, you can unfortunately only visit us once",she said to him at the time.
In future, Helmut Kohl will only be accompanied by his chauffeur. He loves the simple food in the home: bread soup, potatoes and obazdn, these are his favorite dishes. Sister Annunciata enjoys contact with the Federal Chancellor. She describes him as open, interested, polite and very accommodating - undoubtedly he was also a power man, but that had no influence on their friendship.
They did not talk about politics, but he still sought their advice before his last candidacy for chancellor.
The sister and the Federal Chancellor stayed in close contact for decades.
He helps her with her charitable projects with helpful contacts, he values her loyalty and discretion.
"With us he didn't have to think about every word." She is invited to every milestone birthday and also to the Chancellery.
At the celebration of his 80th birthday, she also meets the future Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The contact with Kohl only breaks off when the new wife Maike Richter enters his life.
“She wanted to shield all old contacts,” the 79-year-old regrets.
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Reliable friend: Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl supported Sister Annunciata in her projects.
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But she now has new tasks: in 1987 she was elected Superior General of the Franciscan Sisters.
She moves back to the headquarters in the Au am Inn monastery and takes on responsibility for around 100 sisters in all branches and the associated employees.
It is difficult for her to leave St. Gilgen.
In the end, eight sisters still live at Gut Aich.
Together with them, she decides to donate the monastery and all of its lands to two young Benedictines who want to found a new order.
In 1994 the new spirit of the young fathers moved in.
They turn the monastery into a center for European monastic medicine.
A decision that Sister Annunciata is still happy about today.
As Superior General, she is also responsible for a branch of the Franciscan Sisters in Brazil. In 1988 she traveled to Pinda near Sao Paulo to get an idea of their work on site. It will be the first of more than 20 visits. When the Superior General visits the Cathedral of Sao Paulo, she sees a man on the stairs who is obviously dying. Nobody cares about him, he dies alone, without a home. This picture moves the nun permanently. She is building an AIDS hospice together with the local sisters who have so far taken in pregnant and drug-addicted women in the Fazenda Esperanza. Professor Walter Pils offers her financial support. The Austrian painter organizes exhibitions and donates all of the sales proceeds.
“AIDS was frowned upon at first, it was attributed to the drug and homosexual milieu.
Often the sick were rejected by their families because of this, ”says Sr. Annunciata.
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Mother of many children: Sister Annunciata describes her job as a home educator in St. Gilgen on Lake Wolfgang as her “most fulfilling time”.
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She experienced very touching scenes there.
So she had to promise a dying mother that she would look after her children.
It was very sad that many patients did not get a visit.
"To this day, this house is an affair of the heart for me," she affirms.
She realized another heart project in Armstorf: There has been a hermitage there since 2013 - a place of retreat in the silence of solitude. "Francis of Assisi also sent his brothers into solitude," the sister explains her intention. "It is very important to question your own motivations for our actions again and again," the nun knows.
2013 will be her fateful year: a thrombosis in the leg causes a double-sided pulmonary embolism, which results in double-sided pneumonia.
“I almost couldn't have done that,” the sister looks back.
Cancer followed four years later and had to be treated with chemotherapy.
“The worst thing for me was that I lost my hair.
I was very much a woman, ”she says frankly.
Sr. Annunciata has survived both illnesses and says about the critical phases: "I always had my inner peace." She sees her "life in its entirety as a gift from God" and is happy and grateful for it.