Oct 14, 2021 | POSITIVE IMPULSES
Opinion of those who are close to us has a great influence on us to create prejudices towards others. What we must train ourselves is to use the opinions as tools at our disposition and not as spectacles through which we see the other person. If we use the opinions of others as eyeglasses, we may lose the opportunity to see the other person from your own perspective. You lose your freedom and you become conditioned. So, train yourself to use the feedbacks about persons as complementary or supplementary and not allow them to take the place of your direct and open experience with that person.
Don Giorgio
Oct 12, 2021 | NEWS
On December 7, 2021, 145 years have passed since the death of our Founder the Servant of God, Fr. John Schneider. Wrocław bade farewell to the priest – sincerely devoted to the Church, city, parishioners, sisters … people. Father John “was like a fire that warmed with the flame of youth, burning himself in pastoral work, at work for charitable works and in creating a new Congregation. He never took any rest, he was forced to take health leave twice, ”recalled Fr. Władysław Bochnak. Father John, called the apostle of mercy, did not count time for the needy, he was an enthusiastic vicar fully present in the service for the faithful of the parish of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Piasek in Wrocław. As a parish priest, he was strongly involved in the life of the parish of St. Maciej, undertook many social and charitable activities and at the same time created and supervised the emerging new religious congregation. Intense activity for the benefit of so many souls, in so many pastoral spaces, caused premature exhaustion of the body, as a result of which he died at the age of 53. His death touched many. Archbishop Henryk Forster said about him that: “He was a great decoration of priests in Silesia, and this because of his extraordinary zeal, willpower and deep inner life.”
The funeral service was celebrated in the St. Matthias church in Wrocław by Father Robert Spiske – the founder of the Jadwiga sisters. The homilies were delivered by the parish priest of Saint Michael in Wrocław, Father Gustav Haucke, who addressed the deceased priest:
“Dear Dead Brother, come out of that beloved church of yours that you liked to restore and decorate so much! Go out with your flock and your brothers priests and go to a place of peace, a home that no one will take from you. (…). You will follow tears of gratitude and prayers of your parish, your relatives and your wards, there will be a memento of your brothers (…), your good deeds and merits will follow, for which our Lord and Judge, Jesus Christ, will reward you with joy and happiness in heaven “.
God’s servant, Fr. John Schneider died in the age of 53, on December 7, 1876 in Wrocław, on the eve of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
As spiritual daughters of Father John, on the first Tuesday of each month, we pray in all religious communities for the gift of beatification of our Founder. This year, at the suggestion of the Provincial Superior of the Polish Congregation, Sr. M. Magdalena Zabłotna, we started a novena of nine Tuesdays at the Founder on October 5. The weekly prayer combined with the conference of Sr. Elżbieta Cińcio will allow the participants of the service to learn about the stages of the life of the Servant of God. Our sisters who gather in the church on Piasek from various institutions pray together with the faithful first in adoration combined with the prayer of the rosary. Sr. Elizabeth’s speech takes place before the Holy Mass at 18.00, this time the sister introduce the profiles of the parents of Fr. John – Katarina and Jerzy John and introduce the audience to the atmosphere of the little Janek’s family home. Eucharist celebrated for the beatification of Fr. The Founder also becomes a thanksgiving and an exceptional cry of our Congregation for the spiritual good for each of us personally and for the entire Congregation.
The nine-Tuesday novena has already started. Our monastery in Racibórz Brzezie was located together with the monastery in Racibórz and Pyskowice as the beginning of this novena pilgrimage. Each Tuesday, the liturgies prepare the next designated houses and in this way all the sisters can create a spiritual bouquet of heartfelt prayer brought to God from the resting place of our Father Founder.
Sr.M. Margaret Cur
Oct 11, 2021 | NEWS
The name of English Medium Primary School in Mwanga is Johane Schneider. John Schneider is a Patron of our school.
This school is for children from 5 to 13 years old. The children are getting education for their life and also, they are getting moral education and religion apart from other education.
STRANGE NAME BUT FAMOUS
In the beginning the people who live here in Mwanga, heard the name of school and see the photo of John Schneider, they didn’t understand the origin and nature of the name.
Always they used to say this name is a school name but difficult in pronunciation and very strange especially “Schneider”. They always ask who is that man?
Some people used to say
- This man is from Europe is the one who build the school.
- This man is the owner of school
- This man is a priest but is the one who rise the fund of building school
- This man is saint he is a patron of student so sisters take him as patron and they use his name.
Slowly through the explanation of the sisters some of the people come to understand. that John Schneider is the founder of our Congregation.
Due to the presence of this school in Mwanga our founder is wide known in many areas in Tanzania, although until now many people used to call our school as SCHOOL OF SAINT JOHN SCHNEIDER!
HOW STUDENTS CALL HIM
After educating the pupils and explaining about our founder, now they come to know and understand a bit who is John Schneider. Nowadays they used to call him a second name “Schneider” only, even the people surrounding us called our school the school of Schneider and they pronounce very well although the name is so strange in our place. we are expecting some of the parents to give their new born name of Schneider.
By Sr. Maksymiliana SMI
Oct 11, 2021 | HISTORY, NEWS
This year, December 7 is the 145th anniversary of the death of Fr. John Schneider, Founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate. We, his spiritual daughters, wish to prepare ourselves spiritually for this anniversary by participating in the novena of the 9th Tuesday Mass. celebrated in this church for the beatification of the Founder.
Today, on the first Tuesday of the said novena, the Liturgy of the Word will invite us to Bethany, to the home of the sisters Martha and Mary who had a brother Lazarus.
Before the Eucharist, let us move our thoughts to another house, in Mieszkowice near Prudnik, where sisters Anna and Maria and their older brother John, later a priest from Wrocław and Founder of our Congregation, lived. This house is a small, thatched building at the end of Mieszkowice, but its uniqueness was not in material form, but in the family that lived in it.
It was rented by the newlyweds: Katarina and John Schneider, who 200 years ago, on September 30, 1821, in the church of St. George in Mieszkowice entered into a holy marriage. They brought sincere love and great diligence to the marriage community, thanks to which they could acquire the most necessary items from scratch and buy a rented house before their offspring were born. The father of the family was a butcher by profession, he also worked as a farm worker in the property of the parish in Rudziczka, and in winter he was engaged in weaving. He always tried to organize his work in such a way as to participate in family dinners. Before she got married, her mother, Katarina, worked for wealthy farmers as a housekeeper. After the wedding, she often supported the family budget by hiring the neighbors to do heavy seasonal work.
The firstborn son John Jerzy was born on January 11, 1824, followed by his daughter Anna Rozalia in 1827 and the youngest daughter Maria Janina in 1832.
In the Schneider family home there was a place for common conversations and for prayer in the family circle and for forgiving one another. Thus, in love, in self-denial, in a climate of material poverty, parents shaped the spiritual outlines of their children, daughters chose to marry, and the son discovered a priestly vocation in himself.
The marriage of John and Katarina Schneider survived in their vow of fidelity for 23 years. Katarina fell ill with tuberculosis and ended her earthly life in 1844. Father John Jerzy lived to a ripe old age as a widower. His own son, a priest, buried him.
The spouses Katarina and John, remaining in marital love and fidelity, fulfilled their life vocation. They brought up three children well and gave the Church a priest and a great-granddaughter – a nun, a member of our Congregation of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate.
Let us remember here our parents who passed on, to us spiritual values. Let their prayers and sacrifices bear fruit a hundredfold in our lives and may not be wasted by us.
Sr. Elżbieta Cińcio
Oct 9, 2021 | POSITIVE IMPULSES
Our ideals and principles could lose force as time passes if not reinforced by the energy from the source. The main source of Goodness is God who is Absolute Good. One of the ways to be reinforced by God is our closeness to the Word of God from the Sacred Scriptures. A personal relationship with the Scriptures is a great impetus in keeping the goodness of our heart and also to grow in our potentialities of our heart and mind. Relationship with the Word of God is relationship with God itself. So, in being close to Word you will find the strength of the Word being activated in you.
Don Giorgio
