25TH ANNIVERSARY OF VOCATION sr. Marta Mesko MS

Sr. Marta, you have lately celebrated the anniversary of your 25 years living in the Congregation of the Marian Sisters of the Miraculous Medal. Tell us please about yourself, about the time before you entered a convent.

I was born to an international family in the village of Turia Remeta, Zakarpattia region. At home, we spoke Hungarian, Slovakian dialect and our Zakarpattia dialect of Ukrainian. My mom Kamila worked as a bookkeeper, my dad Illia was a carpenter. My parents were believers, so I heard all those good things about God at home. I spent my childhood in that village and graduated from a secondary school there. We lived close to a river and a forest. For this reason, I adored nature and still do. As small kids, we went to the forest to pick flowers and gather different forest berries and mushrooms. Otherwise, we would just go for a walk to the forest or to the river. After a secondary school, I graduated from the Math Department in Uzhhorod. Then I worked as a teacher at my village school during three years.

So how have you heard God calling you to religious life?

I started thinking consciously about my vocation at a mature age. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the life of religious sisters was not the thing I actually saw around my way. Much later, the Missionary Fathers and religious nuns started coming to our village. I was attracted by that calmness of priests with which they worked, by their friendliness, joyfulness and respect of people. At that conducive time I had an idea about the vocation. The question of “Haven’t you thought…” began to thrill me. Caring for parents – how can I leave them?! They will need my assistance… What will become of them? How shall I tell them this? I told my mom about my considerations and intentions. My mom said she had given birth to me not for her own sake, so I could make my own life the way I wanted. Both my mom and my dad gave me a strong support. It was hard to take the decision. Walking into uncertainty, leaving my parents and job. So I prayed a lot and consulted clerical persons. I would often look at a small icon picturing Virgin Mary with the globe beneath Her feet and light of grace streaming from Her hands and resting upon myriad of sheep on that holy card. I wished I was among them, among those sheep, as well. To be honest, back then I did not realize how exactly that would look like.

What your first years in a convent were like?

Beginnings were tough: new environment, new people, new language, new order, and new perception of spiritual life. The process of knowing myself began, bringing fist disillusions about life inside the community and about myself. I entered the Congregation in Slovakia and lived there with sisters for 4 months. Thereafter, the way of my vocation led me to Slovenia, where I had my postulate and novitiate. Having finished my novitiate, I served in Slovakia during 4 years. I finished my theology studies there. Moreover, I taught math and held catechesis classes in an eight-year school. Besides that, I helped with all types of service of a Marian Sisters community. Then I was offered going to study to Rome. I spent two years there studying theology of religious life. After Rome, I came back to Slovenia and taught sisters in a novitiate during for the following three years. In 2005 I came to Kyiv together with Sr. Jorzyca to serve the poor along with the Missionary Fathers.

What is the most important thing in religious life, to your mind?

Thanking God for the gift of vocation, for people who influenced my life, for possibilities for my personal growth, for chances to study, create and serve others. I am grateful for the gift of spiritual life, for being able to say my prayers daily through which the Lord Jesus speaks to me personally, reveals His merciful and forbearing Love, and teaches me to love others. He teaches me it is only love that gives sense to everything I try to do and perceive.

How do you perceive your future?

I discover that Christian love is all about the ability to share. The Lord gives me, and I receive. I give Him, and He receives. It is that simple. God is with us in every moment of our life as the one Who receives from me the things I give – the deeds of my hands, my efforts, my story, my past, troubles, feelings, sins, pain and sufferings…  He receives me and everything belonging to me as His own, and He gives me Himself, His life and His Love which overcomes every fear. I would like to speak to everyone I am still to meet in my life not only with words, but also with my life: God is kind, do not be afraid of the Lord, do not be afraid of opening the door of your heart to Him, do not be afraid of serving Him!

If the Lord is calling you to religious life, do not be afraid to make this choice and follow this road.

All the graces come to us, to me, through Virgin Mary. So I trust Her my life.