T R U S T

“Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.“ – Pope Francis

Don’t we all want peace, without seeing horrible images of war in Ukraine and other wars going on around the world every day?

Enough. 🤔 How do we move on?

On the one hand, here are still power-driven rulers playing war games with innocent people and inhibiting democratic processes, as well as a capitalist world order driven mainly by ‘male’ egos, in which we are all entangled – on the other hand, this very challenging time is a huge opportunity for us as humanity. And I am grateful that there are also those people who are more and more in the process of exposing and condemning this human misbehavior and that especially many young people recognize and accept that we will only find solutions for planet earth together and in peace.

To live in peace with oneself and the world requires deep trust – only in letting go and forgiving can we reach this state.
This is not an easy task, which I personally only manage with my faith in God and through constant forgiveness. My mother exemplified this trust in God to me as a child, among other things through her experiences in her childhood – about 13 years ago, the Upper Austrian People’s Journal, called “Volksblatt”, called on people to tell their own personal Easter story, and so our mother’s story was also presented in the Volksblatt: 👇

My very personal Easter
Old home – homeless – new home

I am a Danube Swabian. Was born in Filipowa (German-speaking place with about 5000 inhabitants) in Batschka. Today the place is called Bački Gračac and is located in Vojvodina (Serbia). Until November 1944 I was able to live there in a very Christian, happy extended family (parents and 12 children).

When the Germans lost the Second World War (my parents were not supporters of the Hitler regime) the Serbian partisans took revenge on the German people. On November 25, 1944, 212 innocent men and boys were taken from our village by the partisans. They had to dig themselves a mass grave not far from our village and afterwards they were cruelly tortured to death. My father, 46 years old, and my brother, 18 years old, were among them.

On Good Friday 1945, at night, our village was surrounded by 250 partisans, and on Holy Saturday all the inhabitants were driven out of their homes and transported in cattle cars to an extermination camp. There began a path of suffering for us. We had to sleep on the floor on straw and didn’t have a lot of space. There were only hunger, disease, epidemics, misery, and dead people. More than 800 people from our village died there (many starved to death). I was eight years old when we came to this camp. For more than two years we had to live through this misery. The camp was strictly guarded by partisans. They took everything from us – but the most precious thing, our good mother, we had with us. She gave us so much love and security, comforted us when we cried when we suffered from hunger. She herself drew strength from her unshakable faith in God. She was convinced and full of trust that God, with his help, is very close to us even in the most difficult hardship. By a wonderful coincidence we were able to escape from the camp and at Easter 1948 celebrate resurrection and new life with grateful hearts in freedom and peace in northern Lower Austria.
Maria/Marietta Wenninger (Gauss)
from Zell am Pettenfirst, Upper Austria

Nothing to add to this story. Thank you, mom❤️.

👉How do you manage to trust yourself every day and trust in the process of life?
👉Resurrection – Easter – are there beautiful memories of this feast for you?
👉 Enough. 🤔 “How do we go on?”, it says earlier in the text. What do you think? How should we continue as humanity and inhabitants of planet Earth?

👩🏻🇦🇹Irene Wegscheider

If anyone has a ‘green thumb’, it is Irene – it is a joy to see with how much love and knowledge Irene dedicates herself to plant and herbal lore. It must have been in 2009 when Irene and I first met at a retreat hosted by Victor Barron at the lake in Raasdorf, Austria.
Irene is a business coach herbalist, loves to garden, photograph, walk in the green in her spare time and enjoys writing creative texts.
I appreciate Irene’s reliability, sensitivity, her research talent as well as her ongoing self-reflection.

🙎🏼‍♂️🇱🇺🇧🇪🇦🇹Albert Seyser

Albert and I first met in 1982 in Vöcklabruck, Upper Austria – he was teaching me and my classmates at the High School of the Franciscan Sisters Arts at the time. Albert quickly turned his back on teaching to follow his love and passion for design in Brussels and Luxembourg, where he founded a very successful design agency, Rose de Claire Design, together with his wife Babeth. Our paths crossed again and again, despite geographical distance, and I am very grateful to my soulmate Albert for this very special friendship. I admire Albert for his artistic talents, his straightforwardness, his open heart, and ear as well as for his humor. Our connection lives from mutual inspiration, motivation, and great appreciation.

👩🏻‍🦳🇦🇹🇩🇪🇷🇸Maria Wenninger (Gauß)

I am honored that my 85-year-old mom not only contributed to this blog with her very personal Easter story, but also answered the three blog questions very spontaneously in a personal conversation. I am very attached to my mom in my heart and appreciate in her, her truthfulness, her love for children and people, her solution-orientation, her ambition as well as her medical knowledge and her experience as a passionate nurse.

👩🏻🇦🇹 Irene Wegscheider

👉How do you manage to trust yourself every day and trust in the process of life?

Every day I wake up is a gift, a gift from God. Nothing is self-evident, everything has its origin in God, so also our life. Rituals help us to find a rhythm in life, so that we do not sink into the routines of everyday life. A prayer or a conversation with God gives support and strengthens the trust in our Creator. Just recently I experienced the loss of a loved one. For me, it brought such clarity to all our lives. Wake up in the trust of God, go to rest in the evening in faith in God. Do not go to sleep until you have forgiven yourself and forgiven others. Thank God for the day and also ask him for forgiveness. We should be aware of one thing: whether we see daylight again the next day is solely in God’s hands.

👉Resurrection – Easter – are there beautiful memories of this feast for you?

I spent my childhood in the countryside, with all the customs and church rituals. Praying the rosary during a thunderstorm, cleansing and blessing with incense in the wintertime, and at Easter the Easter fire. Facing the fire, it was always bright and warm, if not hot. Facing the back, I always felt it was cool and dark. For me as a child, it was always an adventure. Today I understand the meaning behind it. Light and dark, just like in life. The dark is the past and all that can go, the light, on the other hand, is the renewal, the continuation, the future. I stand between the two, in the present, in the here and now, trusting that God accompanies me on all my paths.

Easter is a feast to which we aspire, to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the anticipation is the preparation. We fast, many of us also do the house cleaning, spring cleaning, we prepare as if, the Lord comes to us as a guest, and everything should be ready for it. A laid table invited guests and the Lord himself. He is coming, it is the certainty, an inner certainty, hope that it will happen.
The inner purification is also part of it, fasting, praying, doing penance, all that in our life gives support and strength. Easter fires as well because they are symbolic of the renewal that happens. The fire blazes and the wood burns, the embers still give a spark, it goes out and the ashes are the fruit-bearing part of it. The old is burned, the new can emerge, as in our lives, finish the old and start the new. With God’s help, every day is an opportunity.

👉 Enough. 🤔 “How do we go on?”, it says earlier in the text. What do you think? How should we continue as humanity and inhabitants of planet Earth?

A great question that encompasses everything, one’s own actions, one’s own life, the actions of the world and the life of the world.
If we humans would manage to live without envy, greed, violence, addiction to more and more and even more, to be satisfied with what we have, we would not have many of our current problems. Everyone would have enough, no one would have to starve, no one would have to die by violence, no one would not have enough to live by exploitation…. That would be a world where happiness could truly be lived. God gave us free will, which means: we can decide every day anew how our day, our life, our world, the lives of others can look like. We just have to dare, trust in God and pray. Then we have a future that is not tangible now, but possible with firm faith.