DOMRADIO.DE: In your new monastery in Düsseldorf-Angermund you celebrated Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil for the first time. How did you experience these events in the new environment? They call this a “liturgical state of emergency”.
Sr. Emmanuela Kohlhaas OSB: Looking back, I’m actually amazed that the logistics required so little attention. Well, personally I could really celebrate and I had the feeling that the whole community could celebrate. After our first Easter night we were very happy and happy with our many guests that night. The church was really full, followed by the agape and a fire outside. It was a nice party atmosphere. You don’t know that in such a first year, where you have to look for practically everything or reinvent it.
DOMRADIO.DE: You have been living and working in your new monastery in Angermund for seven months now. Back then it was rather unusual to build a new monastery in times like these. Is this a good sign of Easter hope? It obviously worked. Is it up again?
Kohlhaas: We feel very encouraged ourselves in hope. And precisely through the people who come, through the echo of the environment. We are met with a great deal of joy and gratitude that this place can continue to exist. And we experience many beautiful encounters with people and that encourages us too.
We are very hopeful, looking forward and excited about what is to come and soberly expecting that it will not all go without difficulties. But that’s just the goal.
DOMRADIO.DE: What is your situation at the monastery at the moment?
Kohlhaas: Yes, this is a construction site. That will remain a construction site for a while. But we live by it and are happy about every room that we have finished. We painted some things. New floors, new door locks. And now we are eagerly waiting for the sanitary facilities to be renewed. But at the same time, life is going right.
DOMRADIO.DE: What is the big garden doing now in spring?
Kohlhaas: We haven’t really bothered ourselves yet before Easter. The grass sprouts. On Saturday, some of the guests who were there helped to rake up the grass.
DOMRADIO.DE: You addressed the guests, some of whom you have already accommodated. Tell us about the encounters. How was that for you?
Kohlhaas: It was actually always really nice. I think for both sides. Guests tell us that they experience this as a very spiritual place. Then that’s not so bad, most of them don’t mind at all that they have to be content with the washbasin, because the bathrooms have to be completely renovated.
Carsten Döpp conducted the interview.
Sr. Emmanuela writes her daily log for DOMRADIO.DE
