Maria Anna Benedicta from Spiegel

Coat of arms of the abbess Maria Anna Benedicta von Spiegel

Maria Anna Benedicta von Spiegel OSB (born Elisabeth Freiin Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim; born January 31, 1874 at the Helmern manor in Helmern , today a district of Willebadessen ; † February 17, 1950 in Eichstätt , Bavaria ) was abbess of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburg in Eichstätt.

Training and entry into the monastery

The baroness Elisabeth von Spiegel , who came from the Westphalian nobility, received careful upbringing and varied training from her father Baron Raban von Spiegel and private tutors at the Helmern manor ; she mastered the leading modern languages. At the age of 24 she decided on a trip to Rome to join the order of the Benedictines and in 1900 entered the Benedictine monastery of Maredret in Belgium , which had only been founded seven years earlier, as a postulant , where she was given the religious name Maria Anna Benedicta to dress .

In Maredret

Mère Bénédicte was entrusted with the task of economist . She made her profession on February 10, 1902 . In Maredret she also acquired the ancient Greek and Latin languages ​​and studied the church fathers . The time in Maredret ended with the outbreak of the First World War , when there was an anti-German atmosphere in Belgium.

In Eichstätt

After a few months at home, Mere Benédicte moved to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Hildegard in Eibingen on June 18, 1915 . On March 6, 1918, she transferred her profession to the St. Walburg Abbey in Eichstätt. In 1920 she became assistant to the abbess, prioress on August 15, 1921, and soon thereafter master novice . On August 16, 1926, she was elected abbess and on September 29, 1926, she was appointed and appointed by the Eichstätter Bishop Leo Ritter von Mergel OSB . She held the office of abbess for 24 years. During this period, she led her monastery with the great convent with care and success through the difficult times of National Socialism and the Second World War . Under her a new era of artistic and handicraft creation began in the convent; the tapestry -weaving and production of vestments were resumed painting and graphic art flourished. She paid special attention to the elementary school for girls transferred to the monastery by King Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1835/36 , which she expanded in 1926 to include a housekeeping school with a student dormitory.

Under her, two subsidiaries were founded abroad from St. Walburg, so in 1935 the " Convent of St. Walburg " on a remote farm in Boulder near Denver, Colorado / USA and in 1937 "Minster Abbey" in Kent , England, a revival of one ancient abbey of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. In 1934, she went on a visitation trip to the branches in the USA, which had already been founded earlier in St. Walburg . In 1935 the Eichstätter Abbey celebrated its 900th anniversary. In 1937, the new monastery statutes that she had written came into effect in agreement with the Eichstätt bishop.

Mother Maria Benedicta was considered very generous: "Giving and helping was almost a passion for our abbess" (Kurzinger, p. 24). After the end of the Third Reich , it became known how she had not only stubbornly defended the rights of her monastery, but also helped many people in often tricky situations - including the concentration camps . She was also in close contact with the journalist Fritz Gerlich and the Capuchin Father Ingbert Naab , who fought against National Socialism. The fact that the city of Eichstätt survived the danger of the last days of the war unscathed, is largely attributed to its connections to the USA, among others. In the immediate post-war years, she was able to give concrete help to many people in need through her relations with America. Out of gratitude, she was granted honorary citizenship by the city on November 27, 1949 . The stigmatized Therese Neumann von Konnersreuth also visited the abbess several times. Maria Benedicta died on February 17, 1950 after a long and serious illness suffered in a consciously victimized posture. On February 20, 1950, she was buried in the St. Walburg cemetery in a crypt that she had built for herself.

Works

• Translation of four books by the Abbot of Mardsous, Dom Columba Marmion OSB, who was her soul guide in Maredret .
• My spiritual year , 1929
• Numerous articles in the Walburgis leaves. Illustrated monthly for the promotion of female youth , published by the Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburg Eichstätt

literature

• For the 900th anniversary of the St. Walburg Abbey in Eichstätt. Paderborn / Eichstätt 1935 (in it the abbess in an oil painting)
• Abbess MA Benedicta Spiegel from and to Peckelsheim OSB. (Obituary). In: Eichstätter Volkszeitung 61 (1950), No. 21 of February 18, 1950
• Life picture of our dear venerable mother of the venerable woman, Ms. M. Benedikta Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim OSB Abbess of the Abbey of St. Walburg in Eichstätt in Bavaria. Printed as a manuscript (1950)
• Josef Lechner: A church princess of our time. Abbess MA Benedicta von Spiegel zu St. Walburg (1874–1950). In: The onion dome. Monthly magazine for the Bavarian people and their friends, Regensburg 7 (1952) No. 7, pp. 167-169
• Abbess MA Benedicta from Spiegel OSB. In: St. Willibaldsbote Eichstätt 1950, No. 5
• Raban Freiherr Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim: History of Spiegel zu Desenberg and von and zu Peckelsheim at the same time a contribution to the Westphalian-Hessian local history. 2 vol., Manuscript, 1956
• Josef Kurzinger: Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim, Maria Anna Benedicta OSB In: CVs from Franconia (LLF), Volume 6 (1960), pp. 521-531; also in: In the service of faith and life. Figures from Eichstätts recent history. Würzburg / Eichstätt 1959, pp. 17-27
• Abbess Maria Benedicta von Spiegel. In: Tobias Ettle: The white flag. Events at the end of the Second World War in the spring of 1945 in Eichstätt and the surrounding area. Eichstätt: Malepartus Verlag 1995, pp. 34-36
• Stephan Adam: Maria Anna Benedicta Spiegel from and to Peckelsheim. In: Barbara Bagorski and Ludwig Brandl (eds.): Twelve female figures from the Eichstätt diocese from the 8th to the 20th century. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner-Verlag 2008
• Raban Graf von Westphalen / Gerlinde Gräfin von Westphalen (ed.): Two women from Helmern: the painter Wisa Gräfin von Westphalen and the abbess Benedicta Freiin von Spiegel-Peckelsheim OSB. Großbodungen 2018, in: Bodunger Contributions, Issue 16, ISSN 1610-8698

Web links

• Rittergut Helmern auf Burgen und Schlösser.net
• Death note with portrait photo