Maria Bernarda Bütler
The Holy Maria Bernarda Bütler ( Real name: Verena Bütler; born May 28, 1848 in Auw AG, Switzerland, † May 19, 1924 in Cartagena, Colombia, from Auw ) was a Roman Catholic missionary and founder of the order. She founded the Congregation of the " Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary Help » ( FMMH ). Your Verehrungstag is May 19
Family
Mary Bernard ( Verena ) Bütler was born as the fourth child in a Auw and the free offices deeply rooted peasant family on a Sunday. The deeply religious parents Heinrich and Katharina Bütler Bütler raised their eight children also pious. Even the great-grandparents of Maria Bernarda, Jeremiah Bütler and Elisabeth Hoffmann lived in Auw, earlier ancestors of the family are not known by name as the Auwer church records were destroyed by the fire in the village from 1715. AM Martina Bütler (1856-1890), the youngest sibling and one of three sisters of Maria Bernarda, also became a nun, she entered the Benedictine monastery in Einsiedeln in Einsiedeln Au one.
Youth
Verena Bütler was a child like any other, the family memoir notes. Since her First Communion she was but particularly connected with their faith and already as a 15- year-old girl she expressed the wish to devote themselves to a lifetime of God. They " made a very early age the experience of a deep love for the Lord ," paid tribute to their virtues, Pope Benedict XVI. one and a half centuries later, on the occasion of her canonization in front of the St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. Verena was a happy girl, smart and had a sensitive feel to interpersonal relationships. Properties that their life and their life's work also impressed with their firm attachment to God and strong will.
Monastery Superior
As a 19 -year-old Verena Bütler left her home village Auw and entered on November 12, 1867 in Altstaetten in the Capuchin monastery " Maria Hilf " one, her parents accompanied her in a carriage to the monastery. Soon after, Verena was clothed as a novice, while they also took on her religious name " Maria Bernarda ". Two years later she put a nun from the religious vows. She first worked as a teacher, after three years, she was Helfmutter ( Assistant to the convent Mother Superior ) and novices ( director of novices ). Maria Bernarda was in 1880 elected to the Mother Superior of the Convent of Maria Hilf, then re-elected twice. Her reforms intensified the monastic life and led to increased admissions to the monastery. Your guiding principle, which is also higher than the Maria Bernarda altar in the parish church of St. Nicholas Auwer to read, read: " The Gospel is my guiding star ." Her desire to make in the service of God and of the Church ever greater challenges, inspired by successful eight-year Monastery Tour to a new vocation: on a continent -wide to act as a missionary. The Bishop of St. Gallen wanted to keep them in his diocese, but was Mother Maria Bernarda then their permission and the papal indult in South America Ecuador to found a missionary branch monastery of Altstättner Mary Help monastery.
Foundress
Mother Maria Bernarda Bütler left in 1888 with her six Franciscan sisters, among them the 2003 beatified Maria Caritas Brader, his native monastery in Altstaetten. They drove through Europe and over the Atlantic Ocean on its first mission station after Chone. New language, distance from home, unusual climate and communication problems aggravated their usual lot of perseverance and courage requiring activity, especially in the area of youth education, family care, nursing and promotion of evangelization. She met the problems and setbacks with Christian patience, sacrifice and charity. With their strong willpower and her organizational skills Maria Bernarda succeeded in 1892 to establish a branch monastery a new congregation that. Called " Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary Help » ( FMMH ) 1938 by Pope Pius XI was officially recognized. Mother Maria Bernarda, Mother Superior of her Congregation, founded several branch monasteries and schools in Ecuador (St. Anna, Canoa ) and in Colombia ( Tucuerres ), where the Christian life flourished.
To possess and institutions of the Catholic Church in Ecuador in 1895 were nationalized, the nuns fled to Cartagena, a northern port city in neighboring Colombia. They founded there more schools, hospitals, homes, and later in Brazil, where Mother Maria Bernarda called a new branch monastery in life. She also founded in Gaissau (Vorarlberg / Austria ) at the Swiss border, a religious house. She attended tirelessly her sisters in the mission stations. The charismatic foundress died 76 years old in Cartagena, where she had worked for nearly 30 years. In the Cathedral of Cartagena, a memorial exhibition was still at her death held in which the pastor said: " This morning died in our city a saint who honor worthy mother Bernarda ".
"Mother Bernarda remains a shining example of a biblical woman: strong, wise, mystic, spiritual master and outstanding missionary ," wrote the Vatican in the biography of Saint Mary Bernarda Bütler.
Causes of Saints
On October 29, 1995 Mother Maria Bernarda Bütler was after a nearly 50 -year-long process that had been initiated in 1948, beatified by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica. During the beatification ceremony Rosmarie Wicki - Bütler and Burkard Bütler, great-niece and great-nephew representing the saints, the family Bütler from Auw.
Your canonization took place on October 12, 2008 by Pope Benedict XVI. place in front of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. She is the first Swiss personality since 1947 and the first Swiss woman of modern times at all, was canonized. Before her this honor was bestowed only become the holy Wiborada of St. Gallen in 1047. The Swiss Capuchin and religious historian Beda Mayer was in the 1930s, the impetus for the process of beatification of Maria Bernarda Bütler; he put among others in Lucerne a " Sr. Bernarda Bütler archive " to. A Vatican decree of 2007 confirmed that a doctor in Cartagena in Colombia was healed through her intercession of a lung ailment. Thus, the miracle needed for canonization was fulfilled.
The canonization ceremony attended tens of thousands of people at, among them a group of pilgrims from Switzerland, especially from the free Office, the area of origin of Maria Bernarda Bütler. Rosmarie Wicki - Bütler and Irene Bütler, participated in the ceremony, the family of the saints, of which several members living in the Aargau free office and its surroundings.
The Memorial of Saint Mary Bernarda Bütler in the Catholic church was laid in the canonization on 19 May.
Shortly after the canonization at the Vatican found later celebration in honor of the new saint in Auw, Altstaetten, Cartagena and Bogota instead.
Veneration of saints
Place of birth Auw
On the southern inner wall of the late Baroque parish church of St. Nicholas in Auw a memorial has been established in honor of the most famous Freiämtler citizen after her beatification. In a small alcove near the right side of the altar of the church was laid with a painting her portrait on a small marble console table, which has classical style elements with the colored, tympanum bearing stucco marble frame. The image is a copy of the oil painting, the (European Province House ) is located in the Missionary Franciscan Sisters Bernardaheim in Frastanz. At the after party for the canonization Auwer a bone relic of Saint Mary Bernarda was transferred to the parish church and immured in a windowed Marmorkasette. The new Holy Altar was consecrated by Bishop Kurt Koch of Basel. Above the altar wall is a picture with the guiding principle of Mother Maria Bernarda to see: " The Gospel is my guiding star ." Next to the altar candles are victims and a book of remembrance for registrations and adorations of the pilgrims. Not far from the Maria Bernarda altar stands the baptismal font where the Auwer saint was baptized on the day of its birth to the name Verena. (see → Parish Church of St. Nicholas)
Maria Bernarda altar at the church south wall
Parish Church of St. Nicholas in the village of Auw
Baptismal font near the new Holy Altar
The house in which Maria Bernarda Bütler was born, is located on Bachweg 4 in Auw. At that time there lived next to her parents and siblings also three more related families. Rosmarie Wicki - Bütler (* 1931), granddaughter of Josef Bütler, who had grown up as a cousin of Maria Bernarda with her, now lives in this house, which is also her birthplace. She and her son built recently in the former living room of the saints a memorial. Although the furniture in this room come from the youth of Maria Bernarda, whether they had used this time, but you do not know anymore. In the memorial room are seen next to a large format image of the saint also photos of beatification and canonization ceremony and commemorative items. On the outside wall of the house, a memorial plaque was inaugurated after the beatification in 1995.
Maria Bernarda room in her birthplace
Plaque in front of the Maria Bernarda - room
Birthplace of the saints in Auw, Canton of Aargau
After Maria Bernarda Bütler the old people's home was named in Auw, which is run by Franciscan sisters. In the chapel of the home is also a great picture of the saints is. The birth community Auw named after her, a street that is close to the stream path, and to which also the Maria Bernarda home is located.
Maria Bernarda home with views of the parish church
Kloster Maria Hilf in Altstaetten and Bernardaheim in Frastanz
On her first day of action, in Altstätten monastery " Maria Hilf " and in Bernardaheim, the European provincial house founded by Maria Bernarda Congregation, in Frastanz, Vorarlberg / Austria, several personal items of Mother Maria Bernarda Bütler be kept as her reliquary cross, pectoral cross their personal Bible, manuscripts, letters from South America them of the native monastery, as well as some original photos:
Your handwriting
Pectoral cross and cloth
Your certificate of citizenship from Auw