To get you in the mood for Christmas, we invite you, dear readers, to the Advent window display this year.
In every issue up to Christmas Eve, a window opens, behind which a story is hidden.
Today we look through the cloister window in Reutberg Monastery.
Sachsenkam - A contemplative existence in strict seclusion: This is still the life of the nuns in the Reutberg monastery near Sachsenkam.
Anyone who wants to get in contact with the sisters will usually do so through a window: the gate or cloister window.
Retreat window on the Reutberg: Several times a day, people bring up their concerns
It is located in a corridor entered through the monastery's front door and is normally locked.
If an outsider wants to say something to the nuns personally - say a prayer request - bring something or pick something up, he pulls a rope a few meters further to ring the bell.
Then the sisters open the shutter and you can talk to them through the rungs.
"Here we deal with simple matters," explains Sister Benedicta, the head of the monastery appointed by Rome as Apostolic Commissioner.
"Several times a day," she says, someone appears at the exam window.
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Sister Faustina (left) or Sister Benedicta appear behind the window.
© arp
Franciscan nuns on Reutberg pray seven times a day
The background: While many other members of the order are active in other monasteries, for example in pastoral care or social work, the Franciscan nuns, who have been based on Reutberg for around 370 years, have not carried out any external activities.
They live in seclusion and devote themselves to prayer, for which they meet seven times a day.
In the past, Drehwinde served as a contact to the outside world
In the past, contact with the outside world was not even provided by a window, but by a winch, as Sister Faustina explains.
Through this construction in the wall you could reach something from one side to the other like in a kind of rotating barrel - but you couldn't see through it.
In addition to the sisters, who always stayed in the building or in the monastery gardens hidden behind the monastery walls, there were also lay sisters who took care of the agriculture belonging to the monastery.
In addition to Sisters Benedicta and Faustina, three relative "newcomers" are currently living in the monastery: an applicant, a novice and a woman who has recently made her temporary profession.
"For these three, the enclosure is very strict," explains Sister Benedicta.
This means that they are only allowed to leave the monastery walls to see a doctor.
Nuns only leave convents for valid reasons
“We two,” she adds, referring to herself and her sister Faustina, who joined in 1994, “have to make compromises.”
They occasionally leave the cloister for purely pragmatic reasons, but also only for a valid reason, for example to go shopping or for important meetings, for example in relation to the ongoing renovation of the monastery church.
And how do you endure a life of complete seclusion?
“Ultimately, you need a calling to do it,” says Sister Benedicta.
"You have to experience for yourself how it affects you."
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