Catherine Lainová
The Community of the Carmelites of the Divine Heart of Jesus (Carmel and Divino Corde Jesu, DCJ) was founded in 1891, during a time of massive industrialization, when there was not yet a trace of the welfare state, amidst rising atheism and liberalism. In response to the spiritual and social needs of the time, its founder, Anna Maria Tauscher, decided to create a community that would bring the contemplative spirit of Carmel into active service for abandoned children. In the name of the new community, she symbolically expressed the idea of love and reconciliation – the community is to respond to the love of God the Father, which He has shown us in Jesus Christ, with love. She also added a crown of thorns as a symbol of the suffering of the mystical body of Christ to the sign of Carmel.
In the constitutions of the congregation, which the founder created by equipping the rule of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel with some additions and changes corresponding to the character of the new community, we find the three most important points:
- the sisters are to be before God purified in contemplation, self-forgetfulness, and self-denial,
- they are to be dedicated to God through apostolate – each sister must feel responsible for all people and suffer with them, bringing her daily efforts in love to God,
- and stand before God on behalf of all people who are distant from God or reject Him.1
Founder
The founder of the order – Anna Maria Tauscher (religious name Mary Teresa of St. Joseph), the daughter of a Lutheran pastor – was born on June 19, 1855, in Sadowo near Frankfurt on the Oder (now Sandow in Poland). When she was ten years old, her family moved to Berlin.
She encountered consecrated life during her adolescence when her parents sent her and her sister to a boarding house in Gnadau for two years. The religious there made a great impression on Anna Maria with their selflessness and love.
At the age of thirty, she became the head of an institution for the mentally ill in Cologne, and at thirty-three, she converted to the Roman Catholic Church. However, the director of the clinic was a Protestant, and this step cost her the job. She found another job very difficultly; for a time she was taken in by the Augustinians in Cologne and made a living by cleaning. Then she managed to obtain a position as a companion to a wealthy lady, who after a while gave her a significant sum of money.2 With this money, Anna Maria Tauscher decided to establish a home for abandoned children. At that time, local newspapers frequently advertised (for sale or for free) children – illegitimate, orphaned, abandoned, unwanted. The need in the working-class neighborhoods was immense – the accommodations of these poorest workers often provided no more than a roof over their heads, many had not even that and had to sleep in shelters. Because of the large number of children, the streets became the main or only place for living and play.3 It was for these children that Anna Maria wanted to provide a good home, education, and above all, love – to make them feel that they are wanted and loved. She began her work in 1891 and named it the St. Joseph's Home.
First Home in Berlin
The house that Anna Maria acquired for the first St. Joseph's Home was a somewhat neglected tenement in Pappelallee, partially still inhabited by tenants. She began there with a few companions, three homeless children, and 500 marks in her pocket. She wanted to gradually build not only a home for children but also a community of sisters who would live the life of Carmel and at the same time care not only for homeless children but also engage in home missions in working-class neighborhoods and care for foreigners (specifically Italians in Berlin at that time).
The beginnings were certainly not easy – the girls around Anna Maria Tauscher at first proved immature for such a challenging service, and she felt very lonely. She found it difficult to gather resources for living and operating the home, partly because the Catholic press discouraged its readers from supporting the home.4 Her community also waited a long time for official recognition from the church's shepherds (from the diocesan bishop and from the Roman Curia). Initially, it had only the status of a pious association called "Servants of the Divine Heart of Jesus." Therefore, the members were not allowed to wear religious clothing.
Spreading the Work
Nevertheless, supporters were found, and the work started to take off; within a few years, two more homes were established in Berlin, and from 1897, the sisters expanded their activities to other countries. This was also due to the fact that the first house in Berlin could not become the motherhouse, where the novitiate would take place, due to the disagreement of the local bishop. Therefore, Mary Teresa traveled tirelessly across Europe, looking for a welcoming bishop who would take her community under his wing. During her travels, she founded new St. Joseph’s Homes.
Wherever the sisters settled – focusing especially on the working-class areas of large industrial cities – they established St. Joseph's Homes for homeless children, but they also engaged in other services. In a brochure they published in 1918, they state that their activities include:
- “Educating poor, abandoned children, whom we accept (into our homes) from the age of one, for a fee or free of charge, and with maternal love we care for them until the boys can start an apprenticeship and the girls can provide for themselves.”
- “Service to children living in families: school and preschool children from working-class families can spend either the entire day or time after school in the homes; older girls can learn handcrafts and domestic work, with evenings reserved for working women from factories; if needed, these children will also receive money or clothing.”
- Internal missions: “Sisters suitable for this seek out Catholic families to encourage them to attend church and receive the sacraments; unmarried couples they motivate to get married in church. They also do everything to provide material assistance to the poor and the sick, as well as to encourage parents to have their often unbaptized children baptized and send them to Catholic religious education. Religious education lessons take place in St. Joseph's Homes several times a week.”
- Establishing public chapels, especially in those places or city districts where there is not yet a Catholic church or it is too far away. In addition to daily Mass, there is adoration before the Most Holy Sacrament every Thursday and Friday in the homes, and on Sundays, a festive Mass with a sermon and afternoon devotion and blessing.”5
In the homes, Mary Teresa introduced a relatively innovative family system – children lived in groups of sixteen with one sister responsible for them. Mary Teresa also ensured that there was a garden or at least a courtyard at all St. Joseph's Homes, where children could play. Children from the homes attended public schools to avoid increasing their isolation from other children.6 Mary Teresa herself writes about this: “The education of children (with us) is governed by strict rules that the sisters are obliged to observe, and which have proven successful from the beginning, for our children stand out compared to children from other institutions with carefree joy and good health.”7
Over time, the conditions concerning financing the operation of the homes also improved – new establishments in other countries were initially financed by German donors, but gradually they could rely on the generosity of local benefactors. In addition to writing requests for support to various patrons and institutions, the sisters went door to door collecting donations.
As mentioned, the community actively spread its activities throughout Europe and eventually even beyond it (to Canada, the USA, and Central and South America). A record of St. Joseph’s Homes from October 1910 lists 1 house in Italy (motherhouse with novitiate), 6 homes in Austria-Hungary (of which 2 in Bohemia), 2 in the Netherlands, 1 in England, 2 in Switzerland, and 6 homes in Germany (of which 5 in the Berlin area).8
The journey for the community of girls around Mary Teresa to become a true religious community was not easy. Although in 1897 the General Superior of the Discalced Carmelites received Mary Teresa in Rome and personally associated her with the order, her entire community was not incorporated into the order until 1904. In the same year, a novitiate house and motherhouse was established in Rocca di Papa, Italy. The new rule was approved in 1910 and definitively in 1930. Later, the monastery in Sittard, Netherlands, consecrated in 1924, became the motherhouse. Mary Teresa was also buried there after her death in 1938.
But let’s return to the beginning. The first homes that Mary Teresa of St. Joseph founded outside of Germany were two St. Joseph's Homes in Northern Bohemia – in Krupka near Teplice and in nearby Maršov (both in 1896 or rather 1897).
Krupka
The town at the foot of the Ore Mountains, with a long mining tradition (initially tin was mined here, later coal), which was fully impacted by industrialization from the mid-19th century, became the first place after Berlin where the sisters established a St. Joseph's Home for homeless children. In the autumn of 1896, they rented a small house (“Nazareth House”) here, and by March 1897, they were already caring for 15 children. Mary Teresa writes: “The need for such a facility became immediately apparent – the home was soon overcrowded, and additional spaces in the neighborhood had to be rented to accommodate 50 children.”9 Yet the children had to sleep in another house seven minutes away on foot. These houses also did not have a yard or a garden.10
Requests for the admission of children to the home multiplied, and therefore in 1901 Mary Teresa Tauscher visited Krupka to help find more suitable premises. With the help of the rector of the Jesuit college in Bohosudov, it was possible to obtain a spacious plot of land in Krupka known as Lužní Dvůr (Auenhof), which had the advantages of a large garden and a standalone low building, which the sisters immediately converted into a chapel.11 Despite minor difficulties with the local priest, caused by the community’s lack of registration in Austria-Hungary, the sisters settled wonderfully there and even received from the Bishop of Litoměřice, Emanuel Jan Schöbel (1882–1909), the right to wear religious clothing in his diocese. The bishop also regularly assigned confessors from the local clergy to them. However, he did not allow the establishment of a novitiate in Krupka.
Maršov
Shortly after establishing the home in Krupka, the sisters also settled a little further away, in Maršov. The history of this house is relatively short. They were invited here by the local priest P. Schäfer and Msgr. Kovac. The house offered to the sisters belonged to the family of Mons. Kovac. Mary Teresa wrote about this: “It was an old mill, located 30 minutes on foot from the church. The building and its location were certainly not suitable for us, yet it was necessary to ‘humbly’ accept it.”12 However, Father Schäfer began to interfere with the sisters' activities and the operation of St. Joseph's Home, appointed the sisters and the superior who were to serve there, and eventually practically took over the management of the house. However, these sisters then separated from the order and left. Order was restored only with the arrival of new faithful sisters from Germany (in 1898). Mons. Kovac urged Mother Mary Teresa to have her sisters in Austria-Hungary join the Third Order of Carmel, which had (unlike her community) state approval here, or to leave. “None of us wanted to join the Third Order, so we decided to leave Maršov.”13
Most
From Maršov, the sisters and the children they cared for moved in the winter of 1900 to Most. Here they received a cordial welcome in every aspect. The dean of Most was grateful for their arrival, and the inhabitants were equally welcoming. The sisters initially rented a little house on Jezerní Street opposite the Capuchin monastery. The house also had a small garden in the back, and the church was across the street, which was very convenient for both the sisters and the children.
Mother Mary Teresa also participated in the purchase of the house in Most and the move from Maršov; Sister Maria-Theresia Demetz, who accompanied her during this, testifies: “Early in the morning we went to the Capuchin church, where several holy masses were held. From there, my dear mother sent me straight to the train station to pick up the children and sisters in Maršov. There stood a large cart loaded with bed frames, tables, benches, and mattresses, along with kitchen utensils and dishes, bags from the pantry, and so on. The sisters sewed backpacks for the boys so they could carry their belongings... Each sister took one child in her arms, led another by the hand, and thus they walked half an hour through the crunchy snow to the train station. It was January 1900. The children had a great time... For many, it was their first train ride on the railway, thus a wonderful experience... An hour later we arrived in the nice town of Most, and a colorful crowd passed through the busy streets. Doors and windows opened to see the special caravan that passed by. ‘Those are orphans,’ we heard, ‘the orphanage opens on Jezerní Street. Oh, those poor little kids!’... Meanwhile, good people were already coming to bring gifts ‘for the poor little orphans,’ as they called them... And so the people of Most continued to do it, ensuring there were no shortages.”14
After a quarter of a century of their presence in this town (in 1926), the sisters acquired a large plot of land in the Zahražany district of Most and built a large house with a garden there. They operated there for approximately another 20 years.15
The sisters intended to establish another St. Joseph's Home – in Cheb. It was to serve as a provincial house with a novitiate. In the list of homes from 1910, Cheb is noted with a remark that the house there would be established after the order's recognition by Austria-Hungary. The sisters received this recognition in 1910, but the establishment of the house eventually did not occur.
After World War II
After the war, when Russians came to Czechoslovakia, the sisters and the children joined the tide of refugees heading to Germany. They left Krupka in early June 1945. A sister from there, Magdalena, who still lives in the motherhouse in Sittard, Holland, described the arrival of the Russian soldiers in Krupka and the subsequent flight of the inhabitants: the journey through war-torn regions was very arduous and dangerous, refugees were threatened and robbed by Russian soldiers of the little they carried with them, traveling hungry and thirsty in packed trains, even cattle cars. However, the report also brings a testimony of aid from good people encountered along the way. Eventually, the sisters and children happily arrived at the St. Joseph's Home in Berlin on Pappelallee.16
The St. Joseph's Home in Krupka was expropriated by the state, and the sisters had to sell the home in Most, which was approved from Rome in 1948.17 However, even then, the house in Most continued to serve children: for some time, a children's hospital was even located in one of the two wings, later there was a nursery for infants, and now it is a home for children up to three years old.
The sisters who did not escape immediately after the war were interned in a collection monastery in Bílá Voda (in Jeseník near the Polish border), along with about 300 other nuns from 12 different orders, due to a ban on public activity by the communist regime. Even in 1950, the German sisters managed to leave for abroad with great difficulty, but ten sisters remained in Bílá Voda despite interventions from the motherhouse. In their old age, the Vincentian sisters lovingly took care of them there until their death. The last Carmelite of the Divine Heart of Jesus died in Bílá Voda in December 1989 at the age of 97.18
Present
Now the Carmelites of the Divine Heart of Jesus no longer operate in our countries. The closest we find them with neighbors in Austria and Germany, and the farthest on the South American continent. The first house in Berlin’s Pappelallee even operated during the GDR period, and now it serves as a home for the elderly, a kindergarten, and a bishop's educational center. The other houses in Berlin had to be closed due to a lack of sisters.
The community is – just as at the beginning of its existence – trying to respond to the needs of the time: the sisters’ activities have shifted from caring for orphans to caring for the elderly, aiding in parish pastoral care, supporting mothers and foreigners, always according to the motto of the founder, Mother Mary Teresa of St. Joseph: “To see God in all, to love God in all, to serve God in all.”
Mary Teresa Tauscher was beatified on May 13, 2006. It was established that her memory would be commemorated during the liturgy on October 30 – the day in 1888 when she converted to the Catholic Church.
