summer 2002 - Visitors and other activities

We continue to get many visitors from all over Germany. Various parish groups organise tours to visit Helfta for a day, a weekend, or even longer. Groups from farther away generally combine their trip to Helfta with visits to other places of importance and interest here in Sachsen-Anhalt and Thüringen. As the town of Eisleben - near which Helfta is located - boasts to be the town where the 16th century reformer Martin Luther was born and died, the ecumenical element plays an important part in such trips. Thus, we get many parties with a protestant background. Their first aim is to visit Eisleben and its museums seeking information about Protestantism. But they often also want to look into the element of medieval mysticism which had its origin in Helfta, and be confronted with monastic life as it is lived today in a newly established convent. Or we get RC groups whose first objective is to visit Helfta but who also want to get a flavour of the protestant perspective in the area.
Meanwhile we have to work a computerised visitors schedule as so many various groups want to come to Helfta. With special joy we welcome school classes from Eisleben or the surrounding towns and villages. This spring and early summer hardly a day went by without some youngsters being taken through the grounds and the church. Often schoolteachers plan a day in the convent as part of their curriculum, be it in the context of history, ethics, or religious education. Generally the children come well prepared with questions and thus, lively discussions ensue. We always have to remember that 40 years of socialist government in the GDR have tried to wipe out all knowledge about lived religion. Most of our young visitors are not baptised and questions such as “and who is that man?” pointing to our Christ-sculpture opposite the church entrance - are not seldom asked by the children.
Most visitors want to know details about our lives as sisters: “When do you rise?; What do you eat? Why do you pray seven times a day? What prayers do you say?, What, if you want to leave ?” Thus, guided tours are never simply departing with facts about the history of Helfta, but they always encompass information about our lives as religious.
Christian groups often come with a special agenda, seeking information about the three women of Helfta: Mechtild of Hakeborn, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and of course Gertrude the Great of Helfta. They also want to spend some time gathering information and knowledge about Christian mysticism as it was understood in medieval times and about its meaning today. Here too many interesting and touching conversations develop with our visitors.
Some groups and single visitors want to spend a few quiet days with us, join us in Holy Office, or sign up to take part in one of the Seminars we are meanwhile able to offer. Thus, we had one weeklong retreat over Easter and another round about Pentecost. We had one seminar on mysticism, and two seminars on relevant topics related to ethics. Two further seminars centred on St. Gertrude and the impact her experiences with GOD can have on us in our own lives today.