From 1950 Hungary was occupied by the communists and was under the iron fist of the Soviet Union. Religious orders lost their members. They were either incarcerated or deported. Even the cardinal primate of Hungary, Cardinal Mindzenty, who was innocent, was in jail and sentenced to life imprisonment. There seemed to be very little hope left for the Catholic Church.
Yet the Lord said: do not be afraid of anyone, not even of Stalin’s or Kruschev’s proconsuls, with their sickle and hammer. Not only was the Catholic Church alive but there were also religious communities that were springing up.
In Budapest, for example, though clandestinely, a community of real Benedictine nuns flourished, without any religious habit and they had an almost regular life. In 1955 Monika Tymar came to join them.

Come to Me
She was born at Budapest on March 21st 1937. In those days, that was the feast of St. Benedict. In 1937, that year, the feast fell on Palm Sunday. Monika received an intense Christian formation and in her youthful fervour she firmly believed in and loved Jesus Christ. She grew up in the difficult atmosphere of atheism that had been established by the communists after WWII.
She attended school and did well in her studies, even in that ‘desert.’
Jesus spoke to her heart. Despite all the prohibitions and rules she succeeded in meeting Mother Agnes and was shown around the little community of Benedictine nuns. Monika asked Mother Agnes about St. Benedict and the monastic life.

It was 1955 and she was 18 years old. She wrote in her journal:
- While I was calmly walking along the Villayi Street, Jesus looked at me and loved me and said: “Come to me. Never forget the cross.” I replied: “Yes!”
As an applicant to the community, she continued to remain in her family before she entered the community at Borzony Street.
On Holy Saturday, March 30th 1956, her clothing ceremony took place. On that day she received a white ribbon on her shoulder. It was the bare minimum semblance of a religious habit but it was a sign of her total dedication to the Lord. Externally she was a girl like the others, but everyday she lived her monastic life together with her fellow-sisters ever more fervently.

Every morning, long before dawn, she spent an hour in meditation after which she attended Holy Mass and received Holy Communion at one of the churches in the city where Mass was still celebrated despite the prevailing atheistic rules. Her days were filled with work and study and she went around helping those in need.
So as not to arouse suspicion, the “monastery” often changed its residence and in spite of the frequent movement there were new vocations. On Easter Sunday 1958 Monika offered herself to her Spouse Jesus through the profession of her vows: the prioress placed on her shoulder a red ribbon, a symbol of her availability to give her life for Him to the extent of shedding her blood. She wrote in her diary: “Jesus, bind me to you, that I may be truly free.”

Finally on March 12th 1959, community found a permanent residence in three rooms: the innermost room was turned into a chapel with the Blessed Sacrament exposed. It was like having Heaven on Earth. The sisters spent long hours in adoration interceding for their country that was oppressed and without God, and for the conversion of those who were persecuting the Church. They lived in poverty and joy like Jesus of Nazareth. For Monika and the sisters this was called their “monastery” and they christened it “the Madonna’s House.”

“Only to Become Saints”
After taking her vows, Monika became the mistress of novices and she carried out her responsibility with tender gentleness and with exceptional strength. The little seed did not disappear, it grew tall and strong. For two years that house became the cradle of consecrated life.
But on February 6th, 1961 a spy informed the communist police and they discovered the sisters and they came and seized “material evidence.” It was a crime to belong to Jesus Christ instead of following the creeds of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. “Can you imagine?” commented one of the police, “after 10 years of disbanding religious orders, we have discovered, here in the capital, Budapest, a real monastic community, alive and growing, composed of young women!”
They couldn’t believe their eyes.
The superior and three others were immediately arrested. Those who remained, remained kneeling and were introduced to the police by Monika as they renewed their vows into the hands of their newly elected prioress. She was just 23 years old:
- You are to substitute Christ in our monastery.
Those who were arrested were tried and even Monika was called to the court to testify. The judges seemed very subdued as if they were in the presence of angels. They were terrified by Monika’s answers. She revealed a superior intelligence that was influenced by the presence of the Holy Spirit who inspired those young women.
Monika often went to prison to visit those who were “imprisoned for Jesus” and she offered her life to God for them:
- Lord, take me, but free Mother Agnes and our sisters. Give me pain and death but deliver them for the sake of the life of your Church.
In the mean time having finished her studies in infant psychology, she succeeded in baptizing very many children who were on the point of death, thus opening for them the gates of Heaven. She was relieved of her position because of her faith and so she went to work with a team of surveyors who were surveying the grounds of the real Benedictine Monastery.
On Easter Sunday 1962 she and her sisters went to the abbey of Pannonhalma to take part in the Easter Sunday Services. She offered herself once more to the monastery, the Church, the Pope and she prayed that her homeland return to Christ once more.
On November 17th, 1962 she went to visit her sisters in jail. There she told Mother Agnes:
“Tomorrow I am going to the hospital. I’m a little yellow.”
As it happened she had contracted a serious form of hepatitis.
She prayed:
- Lord, I give myself to you. Like flowers give off their fragrance on summer nights in silence... I don’t want anything; only mould me by your hands as your instrument, a completely docile soul. I only want what you want.
December 13th, 1962 Monika went to meet her Spouse. They dressed her in a white habit, with the red ribbon of her monastic profession on her breast. It looked like a spurt of blood that had come from her pierced heart out of love for the Crucified Christ.
Three months later, on March 21st, 1963, Monika’s birthday, the sisters who were incarcerated, were finally released. They went back to their regular religious life. It was just as Monika had proposed at the long drawn trial, when the judges forced her to testify that she had angered the government, she smiled and said:
- What could we do? ...We wanted to become saints in spite of the regime. We wanted nothing else.