CZECH REPUBLIC, Sr. M. Václava Horákvá. Marie Štastná (*7-10-1922 +2-9-2013) died on February 9th. She was the first Czech Sister of Mary. When she was seventeen years old, she convinced her mother to allow her to go to Schoenstatt to become a Sister of Mary. That was during the Second World War. In January of 1941, she traveled there taking a trousseau that many people had procured for her. In August 1941, on a foggy night, she received Mary’s dress. When she sealed her Covenant of Love with her course several months later, Father Kentenich was in jail in Koblenz.
How did this young girl make this decision? When she was fifteen years old, a catechist invited her participate in some spiritual exercises. Those days transformed her life. From then on, she participated in the daily Holy Mass and on August 14, 1940, she sealed the covenant of love in the Marian Shrine of Rokole. She wanted to give her all and become a Schoenstatt Sister of Mary.
Beneath the sign of communist dominion
Sister Marie’s life was very active. During her first vacations, in 1944, she took another young girl to Schoenstatt. They both went to Switzerland in 1946, and they waited there for seven other girls from their country. In December 1947, Father Kentenich founded the Czech province of the Institute of Sisters and the program he gave them for the future was: “Always remain loyal little girls of the Most Holy Virgin, and you will experience miracles!”
In 1948, when the communists took power in Czechoslovakia, the nine young Sisters returned to their country. A Schoenstatt bishop from southern Bohemia received them in his diocese. The community grew rapidly. After three years, the Sisters had to choose between going to a forced work camp or going to the underground. This is when the true adventure began. From 1957 to 1959, Sister Marie was jailed for “acting against the state”. She considered it as participating in the Founder’s destiny. After she was freed, she sought new work close to Rokole. For forty years, she secretly directed the Sisters of Mary in Czechoslovakia.
She saw a dream come true
After the “velvet revolution” of 1989, it was possible to found the Schoenstatt cradle in the Czech Republic, in Rokole, where the first Schoenstatt priests had sealed the covenant of love on August 11, 1939. Sister Marie was there when the first Schoenstatt Shrine was built in 1997, then the Sisters’ Province House, and finally the pilgrims’ center for the growing movement that was built in a former inn.
During the final years, she received many visits, from adults as well as young people. She could relate the history she experienced; give encouragement, hope, or simply listen in silence. The Sisters and the Schoenstatt Family from the Czech Republic are grateful for the courage with which she “brought this beautiful movement to her country. As a result of this, she was able to contribute much to the Capital of Grace.
On February 15th, after celebrating the Holy Mass for her, the Sisters, the diocesan bishop, the auxiliary bishop and more than two hundred representatives of the Schoenstatt Movement took her to the Shrine of Bethlehem, and then to the Sisters’ cemetery in Rokole, where she was buried like a precious seed.
How much life will be born of her!
Original: German. English translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, USA
