Farewell of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary
from the Bosse Wittenberg Clinic
The Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary, who had lived and worked in the Bosse-Klinik in the Lutheran city of Wittenberg since 1936, were solemnly bid farewell. At the end of the year, after more than 80 years, the sisters left this location for reasons of age. While they served in the Women’s and Maternity Hospital until 1996, they have continued to work in pastoral care, nursing, administration and library since the transformation of the clinic into a health center.
The sisters and prominent guests in Wittenberg
Sister M. Godehild Schuchardt (third from left) was over 50 years in the clinic Bosse in Wittenberg. Now she has already packed her suitcases: “Now I go to Friedrichroda”, explains the 85-year-old sister. There is the filiation of the community, from where she was once sent to Wittenberg. She is looking forward to spending her retirement there.
Bishop paid tribute to the work of the sisters
The Bishop of Magdeburg, Dr. Gerhard Feige, paid tribute to the work of the sisters in the clinic in his sermon and in a greeting at the farewell: “Dear Sisters, ‘You are my promise to the world’ is how Father Kentenich once called the Sisters of Mary. You, dear Sisters, have kept this promise in the small coin of everyday life. Here in the clinic you leave a gap that cannot be replaced – but this gap is also a void that refers to God, for whom you have dedicated your life in the service of mankind. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this service! May God repay you for all the good you have done – and may He bless your further journey.
Through you people could meet God.
With great patience, day after day you have sown the Word of God in your devotion to people. You knew that the hundredfold fruit is not your work, but that you were needed to lay the foundations for it. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for this today”.
Many decades and difficult times
Sister Marisa Spickers, Provincial Superior, expressed the special character of this event in the following words: “Today the Sisters of Mary bid farewell to the Bosse Clinic. It was not an easy decision for us to make. But it is due to the circumstances.
I would like to change a well-known saying of the church teacher Hieronymus a little for today: We do not (only) want to be sad that something is coming to an end, but we want to be grateful for what we have had…[1]
Yes, it was many decades that we were allowed to work in the clinic. As early as 1936, when our community was just ten years old, we courageously followed the call of Dr. Bosse. It was very important to our founder, Father Joseph Kentenich, that we take on this task. Now we are preparing for the centenary of our community. A lot has happened in these years:
The difficult time of National Socialism, the time of the GDR, the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and then the complete reorientation to the field of psychology and neurology here in Hans-Lufft-Straße.
We never stood alone in all this.
We have always received help and support:
especially from the doctors and employees, whom we would like to thank for the trusting cooperation …
for the support of Caritas and church authorities,
for the good cooperation with the parish Wittenberg,
for the trust of the Alexian Foundation,
for all benevolence and courtesy …
Thank you very much for everything!
Above all, we thank the kind God and His Mother Mary.
We may bear your name. We have always known that we were led and guided by God’s grace – even in difficult situations.
In all the years and with the different tasks it was important to us that the patients can be healed in body and soul. That is why we are grateful for the chapel in the old as well as in the new clinic, for the divine services we were able to celebrate and for the many hours of prayer in which we were able to carry the intentions entrusted to us before God.
This is a task that we gladly continue to carry out. When I say we, I mean above all the many sisters who have worked and lived in the clinic over the years.
Some are here today, others are thinking of this celebration at this hour, and a whole series of ‘clinic sisters’ are watching us from eternity. All of them will not forget the Bosse Clinic.
Mary will continue to bless them all.
The statue of the Blessed Mother Mary, which already had its place in the entrance area of the old Bosse Clinic, will continue to lovingly look at and bless all those who enter and leave here”.