Olga Ilnicka, rscj | Janka Nejczyk rscj | Betsy Walsh rscj

Olga Ilnicka, rscj

I am sitting in front of the computer and trying to share the experience of my apostolic service in Moscow with you. I have been trying to do so, as I promised, for last few days but haven't succeeded. For it is as if I tried to describe someone I love to a group of anonymous people whom I, in fact, don't know. So, forgive me, that it is so subjective and emotional!

In was in Moscow for one year as a teacher of Religious Education in the Polish School situated next to the Polish Embassy. For sure I gave my heart to the lives of those children of Polish diplomats or businessmen whom I taught. They are very lonely and feel lost in spite of belonging to seemingly well-off families.

But in fact, my heart is even more with those whom I met in the Catholic Cathedral in Moscow, and in trams, buses, in the underground: I don't know why, but the body of an old homeless woman who died one freezing autumn night near the block of flats where we live in Moscow, stands for me a symbol of them all. Maria Stecka and I found her body on our way to church in the morning. Then we learnt that the body, as that of a dog killed by a car or a piece of rubbish fallen off the rubbish bin, stayed there for half a day. This woman showed me how much I am a stranger in this country (in spite of my Russian origins) and how little I can do. The face of this nameless woman will stay in my memory for ever as a symbol of the truth that Jesus exists more in the simple gestures of Love which we can give each other every day than elsewhere.

Russia is a country I love and that it the reason why it is difficult to write about it. But I want very much to ask you to keep this place in your memory, in your prayers. The situation from, the human point of view, is hopeless. But I do have hope in Jesus who has special attention for what is smallest, poorest, without hope, and in the fact that there is where He wants to show His loving face. He wants to do so by human hands, by the simple everyday gestures of love. He wants to do embodiedd in those who in spite of the pressure of media, of what happenings in the street say, choose Goodness everyday

I am sure I will never forget the faces of those people.

Janka Nejczyk rscj

As soon as I arrived at the Bialoruskij Railway Station I found myself in the center of life of Christian Community. Maria Slipek rscj met me and announced that Maria Stecka was having a meeting of the School of Catechists that day, so probably I would want to go and see after so many hours on the train. But knowing I had only three months there I wanted to see everything and not waste a minute.

I was touched by the serious commitment of the lay Christians in this country in pastoral work in their parishes. They pray for some kind of leaders, nuns and priests, to help them in their parishes.

I spent a lot of time in the pastoral center in Moscow Cathedral, where Maria Stecka rscj works as Coordinator. It is the pastoral center for a diocese nearly as large as Europe. It is also a drop-in center for people who are lonely, often homeless, poor, ill--not only Catholics, not only Christians. You will find always some space and time to have tea together. It is not easy to work there because the center is not spacious, I have learned there that no matter how important things are, the person is the most important. Maybe it is well worth remembering because in this country for so many years the individuals were worth nothing. And the Good News that you are a Child of God, a Very Important Person, is so meaningful.

I had the privilege to work with street children in the Center for Children run by the Sisters of Holy Family. I helped the children with their homework, and they taught me Russian. Nearly all of them are Orthodox Christians, but some are Muslim. The Sisters are Catholic, but they taught me what the Ecumenism is about in Moscow, at the level of the collaboration with the Orthodox parish. I participated in Orthodox Religious Education Classes run by one of the sisters and visited Orthodox parish churches with children.

One day Maria Slipek rscj brought me to the Oncology Hospital for Children. I was moved by conditions there. However it is the best hospital for children in the Russian Federation. I was welcomed by a woman from one of the Orthodox parishes. People from this parish decided to take care of the children and the families of those who stayed in the hospital. It is not only pastoral care but also, as much as possible, financial help (buying food for children, some medicine etc). For many years they have collaborated with the Families Communities created by Catholic and Orthodox communities.

Every year there are Spiritual Exercises in Daily Life organized by Jesuits and RSCJ. I had an opportunity to accompany people in this experience. Both Orthodox and Catholics took part in it. Through this experience I touched the pain and destruction which the communist regime had made in the heads and hearts of those people. And maybe now I have even more respect for their courage and determination.

I am convinced about the importance of our presence in Moscow as RSCJ, as women who proclaim the Love of Heart of Jesus, who proclaim the importance of Life, the Life of each one. In this huge country where, for so many years, only the collective was important and where propaganda was proclaimed, the Truth and Love for each human being seek affirmation.

I am grateful for the opportunity to come to Russia and to live this experience.

Betsy Walsh rscj Betsy's students Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Moscow Maria Slipek rscj, Betsy Walsh rscj, Mary Totton rscj Shrine of St. Sergei Rodonezk and Orthodox academy and seminary, Sergei Posed (Betsy , first from right) Church of the Nativity of Mary, Szged

"We want the world to be more merciful." Olga's words still echo in my heart as I return to San Diego and my teaching at the University of San Diego. During the past several years I have spent three semesters in Moscow: the fall terms of 2000, 2001, and 2003. While in Russia I am a member of the Philippine Duchesne Community, and my principal occupation there is lecturing at Moscow State University.

Our Moscow mission was founded by Maria Stecka in 1991. She was followed the next year by Mary Totten (England) and Maria Slipek. Together they found the apartment we now call "home" on Biegovaia Ulitsa. Mary Totten was the first Religious of the Sacred Heart to give lectures in the Moscow State University History Department. The great respect everyone had for Mary made it possible for me to follow.

My love for Russia began when I majored in Russian at Manhattanville College. When the country began to open up in the early 90's, I wondered about the possibility of teaching there. It seemed to be a mere fantasy until I visited Moscow for a week in December of 1998. Maria Stecka arranged a meeting with Inna Rytova who teaches English in the History Department at Moscow State University, and I was subsequently invited to lecture there.

I lecture in English on an historical topic of my choosing. In the year 2000, I was aware that my students would have only a child's memory of life in Soviet Russia, that this was "a new generation of Russian students." Thinking that the heroic might be a theme that might interest and even inspire them, I put together a series of lectures on heroism. The heroes discussed were historical and also fictional, authentic and questionable: Boethius, Beowulf, Arthur, Alexander Nevsky, Henry V (questionable), Dante, Osip Mandelstam. We watched a video of Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Adventure" and discussed the meaning and significance of heroism. I hoped that the myth of the hero might inspire them to courage, honesty, and integrity.

The second year I gave lectures on revolution. We studied the American and French Revolutions. I wanted the students to understand that almost all revolutions are bloody, destructive, and uncertain. Revolutionaries rarely have a clear plan for the future, and many fail.  I thought it might help them to see that the years after the American Revolution were marked not by a seamless unanimity but by conflict and disorder. Toward the end of the semester, one young woman asserted that: "Revolutions are bad because they kill people." Another student, however, warned that there might be another upheaval in Russia within the next fifty years- because there are so many disparities.

This fall, 2003, my lectures focused on some crucial moments in American history: Lewis and Clark, the Amistad case, the Great Depression, and the War on Terrorism. My plan was to explore moments when our history might have developed in a variety of directions; what did happen and why. Included in these topics were the tragic confrontations with the Indian tribes brought about by western expansion, and the issue of slavery. I hoped to show the students that the democratic process is not a simple one and not a panacea: that it is a gradual, often painful, realization of ideals that will always elude our grasp. My plan was somewhat thwarted by the Russian parliamentary elections which were held in December. Many of the students were quite disillusioned with the results.

In studying some historical events and topics with my students in Russia, I have tried to impress upon them the realization that history is not predestined, not a preordained set of circumstances into which we are born and through which we will live our lives. History is created by men and women who are gifted with great dreams but who are, at the same time, fallible and vulnerable.

Teaching at Moscow State University has been a very rich experience for me, and I am deeply grateful to the Province and the Society for allowing this adventure. The students are intensely interested, eager to learn, vital, and very thoughtful. I do not recall the exact context in which Olga made her remark, but it has stayed with me because it reveals such compassion and hope, such a spiritual perception of the world. My students in Moscow have surprised and delighted me on many occasions with their honesty, their candor, their sense of justice, their hope "that the world will be more merciful." I wanted to raise their consciousness of human values, of moral and ethical principles, and perhaps I have, but they have also taught me. It has been a rare opportunity to interact with these young people at this moment in their lives, at this crucial moment in their country's history.