Blandine Merten

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Blessed Sr. Blandine Merten (1883–1918)
Blandine chapel of the parish church of St. Leodegar in Düppenweiler with reliquary of the blessed

Blandine Merten (born July 10, 1883 in Düppenweiler as Maria Magdalena Merten ; † May 18, 1918 in Trier ) was a German Ursuline . Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1987 . She is known to numerous Catholics as Sister Blandine . Her feast day is May 18th.

Life

Maria Magdalena Merten was born on July 10, 1883 as the ninth child of the devoutly living Catholic farmer couple Johann (from Düppenweiler) and Katharina Merten (born Winter from Fraulautern ) in Düppenweiler (now Saarland ), which was then part of the Prussian Rhine province , and on July 12, 1883 in the Düppenweiler parish church of St. Leodegar . As part of the exhibition of the Holy Skirt in Trier in 1844 by Bishop Wilhelm Arnoldi , the mother and aunt of Maria Magdalena Merten were said to have healed spontaneously, which was medically inexplicable and had been examined by an episcopal commission.

From 1889 to 1897 Maria Magdalena Merten attended elementary school in her home town. She received her first communion on April 12, 1896 in the parish church of St. Leodegar von Düppenweiler and was confirmed by the auxiliary bishop in Trier , Karl Ernst Schrod , on April 21, 1896 in the old parish church of St. Andreas and Assumption of Mary in Reimsbach . From 1897 to 1898 she continued her education with her teacher in Ghent and worked as an assistant in their elementary school class in Düppenweiler. From Easter 1898 to Easter 1899 Merten prepared privately for the teacher training institute. From April 1899 to September 1902 Merten attended the teachers' seminar in Marienau near Vallendar , which at that time was under the direction of the cousin of the Beuron archabbots Maurus Wolter and Placidus Wolter .

Immediately after her exam in 1902, Merten worked as a temporary elementary school teacher in Oberthal (Saar) for a month and began her service in Morscheid (today the Morscheid-Riedenburg district of the Morbach community ) on January 1, 1903 . At her own request, after four years of service, Merten was transferred to Großrosseln an der Saar in 1907 , but at the end of the school year she resigned her service in April 1908 and joined the Ursuline congregation Calvarienberg in Ahrweiler on April 22, 1908 together with her sister Elise a. Here she received the investiture of the Latin religious name Blandina (dt. "Small Gracious") after the holy martyr Blandina of Lyon († 177). However, it became known under the Germanized form of the name Blandine . Her older sister Elise, who had previously run the household in Merten, was given the religious name Blanda ("the lovable"). After the novitiate , Merten made his temporary profession on November 3, 1910 in the motherhouse of the Congregation in Ahrweiler , and on November 4, 1913, his perpetual profession . From November 1910 to June 1911 Sister Blandine worked as a teacher and educator at the school and the affiliated boarding school of the Ursulines in Saarbrücken - St. Johann ad Saar . Due to health problems, Merten was transferred to the Ursuline School in Trier on June 10, 1911 , where she worked in the school, boarding school and day care center of the Bantus House (destroyed in 1944). She lived in the local Bantus monastery. Serious tuberculosis disease forced her to give up her job in September 1916. From 1916 to 1918 Merten was cared for in the monastery infirmary. At the age of 34, Blandine Merten died on May 18, 1918 in the St. Bantus monastery in Trier and was buried on May 21 in the St. Paulin cemetery in Trier.

beatification

Already as a teacher, Blandine Merten had the reputation of holiness with her students and their parents because of her kindness and inner happiness . The Bishop of Trier , Hermann Josef Spital, called Sr. Blandine Merten a “lovable teacher in faith, hope and love”.

After Sister Blandine's death, believers reported numerous answers to prayer to church authorities. In 1954, the episcopal information process was opened in Trier to prepare for a beatification . This procedure received considerable impetus from the medically inexplicable healing of the Austrian missionary sister Irimberta Puntigam SSpS (* 1900, † 1985) , who was active in Indonesia , from a severe sarcoma in 1969, followed by a commission of medical experts in 1985/1986 from a commission of theologians as well as the Cardinals Commission recognized as a miracle . On the occasion of the feast of All Saints' Day , Pope John Paul II beatified Sister Blandine on November 1, 1987. May 18th, the day of her death, was set as her church memorial day.

Remembrance and veneration

  • Access to the Blandine Merten Chapel in the St. Paulin cemetery in Trier

  • Atrium of the Blandine Merten Chapel

  • Former tombstone of Blandine Merten in the atrium of the chapel

  • Inside of the chapel with a view of the entrance

  • Interior of the Blandine-Merten Chapel with a view of the apse with the reliquary of the Blessed behind the altar

On May 18, 1990, her remains were transferred to the Blandine Chapel, which was built in 1989 according to plans by the Trier cathedral builder Karl Peter Böhr in the form of postmodernism in the Trier cemetery of St. Paulin .

The Blandine Archive has been in the mother house of the Ursuline Congregation Calvarienberg in Ahrweiler since 1954. Numerous monographs have appeared on Blandine Merten. A “Blandinen circular” with a print run of 40,000 copies is published four times a year.

Honors

“Blandine's Ladder to Heaven”, Margret Lafontaine
  • A girls' secondary school of the Ursulines founded in Trier in 1955 is subordinate to the patronage of Blessed Blandine Merten.
  • The house of the Ursulines in Trier (Schöndorfer Straße) is called "Blandine-Merten-House".
  • The Catholic day care center in Bad Neuenahr is named after Blandine Merten.
  • In Morscheid-Riedenburg, the primary school was renamed on July 3, 1988 in Blandine Merten primary school.
  • In 2008 the Trier city council decided to name a street in the new Petrisberg district after her.
  • Plastic "Himmelsleiter" (dimensions: 4.80 × 4.10 × 3.50 meters, materials: acacia wood from the Beckingen community forest, stone casting, ceramic firing, paint): In 2010, a memorial was made in honor of the Beckingen mayor Erhard Seger as a foundation Designed and manufactured by Blandine Merten by the Düppenweiler artist Margret Lafontaine in collaboration with the model maker Thomas Timmermann-Levanas and set up in Düppenweiler in front of the parish church of St. Leodegar. The ceramics were supplied by the Mettlach company Villeroy & Boch . The memorial stands in front of the wall of the former kindergarten and school building in Düppenweiler, where Blandine Merten worked. A figure of the blessed Blandine supports a ladder to heaven, at the top of which an angel hovers. Blandine invites the two girls standing at the foot of the ladder to climb the ladder, which stands for a path of life in trust in God.
  • In 2015, a life-size statue of the blessed Blandine Merten was erected in the west choir of Trier Cathedral , commissioned by the Trier Cathedral Chapter by the artist Silke Rehberg . The front of the statue of the nun is facing the vault of a niche and turns towards the viewer in an inviting and engaging gesture.

Literature (selection)

  • Herminegildis Visarius: Blessed Blandine Merten, Ursuline vom Calvarienberg, based on personal memories, letters and private testimony, 17th edition, Siegburg 2006.
  • Hermenegildis Visarius: Sister Blandine Merten, the hidden bride of God . Visarius, Recklinghausen 1935.
  • Hermenegildis Visarius: A happy child of God. Sister Blandine Merten . Ursuline Congregation Calvarienberg, Ahrweiler 1943.
  • Nikolaus Zimmer: The virtuous life of God's Sister Blandine Merten . Plachner, Ahrweiler 1955.
  • Hermenegildis Visarius: Brief portrait of God's servant sister Blandine Merten and answers to prayer in 1957 . Plachner, Ahrweiler 1958.
  • Huberta Schmetz: A lived yes. Life of Sister Blandine OSU . Ursuline Congregation Calvarienberg, Ahrweiler 1965.
  • Gabriel Busch: Sister Blandine Merten, our teacher . Ursuline Congregation Calvarienberg, Ahrweiler 1970.
  • Josef Jochum: In the end, only love counts. Sister Blandine Merten. Life picture of a woman today . Ursuline Congregation Calvarienberg, Ahrweiler 1975.
  • Our home is in the heart of the Church. Blessed Sister Blandine Merten. Addresses and sermons for beatification . Blandinen Archive, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler 1988.
  • Andreas Heinz: Saints in Saarland . Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag, Saarbrücken 1991, ISBN 3-925036-44-X .
  • Martin Persch :  Merten, Maria Magdalena. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 5, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-043-3 , Sp. 1337-1339.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Blessed Sister Blandine Merten, Ursuline von Calvarienberg (Blandinen-Rundbrief), quarterly, ISSN  0949-9326 .
  • Anselm Grün : Everything is heaven to me. Life and message of the blessed Blandine Merten . Vier-Türme-Verlag, Münsterschwarzach 2007, ISBN 978-3-87868-258-5 , ( Münsterschwarzacher Kleinschriften 161).

Web links

Commons : Blandine Merten  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ Herminegildis Visarius: Selige Blandine Merten, Ursuline vom Calvarienberg, based on personal memories, letters and private witness statements, 17th edition, Siegburg 2006, p. 11.
  2. ↑ Herminegildis Visarius: Selige Blandine Merten, Ursuline vom Calvarienberg, based on personal memories, letters and private witness statements, 17th edition, Siegburg 2006, p. 22.
  3. ↑ https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienB/Blandina_von_Lyon.html , accessed on March 2, 2020.
  4. ↑ https://cms.bistum-trier.de/bistum-trier/Integrale?MODULE=Frontend&ACTION=ViewPageView&Filter.EvaluationMode=standard&PageView.PK=7&Document.PK=26573 , accessed on March 2, 2020.
  5. ↑ Ecclesiastical Official Gazette for the Diocese of Trier, Volume 131, No. 16, Trier, September 1, 1987, No. 174, Bishop's decrees, pastoral word for the beatification of Sister Blandine Merten.
  6. ↑ Dates according to the timetable for the life of Blandine Merten, M. Herminegildis Visarius: Ein frohes Gotteskind, The life of the blessed sister Blandine Merten, 11th edition, Ahrweiler 1990, pp. 30–31.
  7. ↑ Martin Persch:  Merten, Maria Magdalena. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 5, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-043-3 , Sp. 1337-1339.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  8. ↑ Herminegildis Visarius: Selige Blandine Merten, Ursuline vom Calvarienberg, based on personal memories, letters and private witness statements, 17th edition, Siegburg 2006, pp. 99-100.
  9. ^ Art in Public Space, Saarland, Volume 5, Merzig-Wadern District, 1945 to 2012, essays and inventory, ed. by Jo Enzweiler, edited by Margarete Wagner-Grill, p. 129.
  10. ↑ https://www.dominformation.de/bauwerk/lösungen/seligen-figuren/ , accessed on March 6, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Merten, Blandine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Merten, Blandina; Sister Blandine; Merten, Maria Magdalena (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German religious sister; Blessed ones
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Düppenweiler
DATE OF DEATH May 18, 1918
Place of death trier