From July 10 to 12 the Archdiocese of Bamberg celebrated their patron, St. Henry The Emperor, with a great festivity of faith. At the same time numerous orders and spiritual communities, among them the Sisters of Niederbronn, commemorated the millennium of the foundation of the monastery on St. Michael’s Mount at Bamberg.

Already on Friday night the religious congregations invited everybody to join them in a “night of desire” with spiritual impulses and a light show in the cathedral of Bamberg.

Apart from various other events religious persons and ordinary people could attend a ‘kitchen party’ on Saturday. Together with others our sisters helped to prepare a delicious meal from ‘saved’ foods . The result tasted delicious.

In the festival Mass on Sunday, which took place in the square in front of the cathedral, archbishop Dr. Ludwig Schick encouraged the participants ‘to live worldwards as well as heavenwards in order to be useful to the world by thus living according to the gospel of Jesus.’ He said that the religious orders were good examples for such a way of life.

After the Pontifical Mass the numerous visitors were offered several activities. Despite the high temperatures of summer the elderly as well as the young actively engaged in the play ‘Archangel Michael’s Feather’, in the ‘room of silence and worship’, in the None of the religious congregations, in a fashion show of religious orders, in a tour through the cathedral for children with the archbishop as a guide, and in a lot more activities.

In front of the cathedral a centre of religious congregations had been erected. Early in the morning Sr. Klara, who had already participated in the preparations and planning of the event, led the team that put up the tent of the Sisters of Niederbronn. During the day several sisters took terms in order to get visitors involved in talks, to answer questions, to distribute leaflets and other little souvenirs or to do handicrafts with children. There were lots of valuable encounters and some conversations still stick in our minds.

Some of our sisters also served in the ‘Café of the Religious Orders’ and  helped to do the washing up. Lots of visitors came to see the nuns and monks and to get into contact with them.

After the Pontifical Vespers in the cathedral the tidying up began. A wonderful and eventful weekend had finally come to an end.

Sr. Maria Scharpfenecker