Shhh! Nun at work (repeat in Polish, please)

"Serdecznie" is the Polish word for "heartfelt."

"I looked that one up," admitted Sister Mary Beata Dombkowski, CR, folding her hands atop a pile of legal pads filled with neat cursive writing.

More often, Sister Mary Beata manages without the aid of a Polish-English dictionary in what has become her life's work: translating the biography of Mother Margaret Dabrowska, third superior general of her religious order, the Sisters of the Resurrection.

Bio in English

The order was founded in Rome in 1891, and much research has gone into the lives of its mother-and-daughter foundresses, Celine and Hedwig Borzecka.

Mother Margaret's story, however, is known only to the sisters overseas who can read her biography in its original Polish.

Sister Mary Beata intends to change that. Having just celebrated her 70th anniversary in religious life, she has retired from most of her previous duties as a librarian and teacher to devote all her time to translating the 400-page book into English.

Bilingual

The 87-year-old sister literally learned her language skills at her mother's knee. Born in Schenectady to Polish parents, Sister Mary Beata grew up with the admonishment, "At home, Polish; outside, English."

Her mother made sure her children learned both languages by making Sister Mary Beata and her siblings read Polish classics aloud while their mother ironed clothing for wealthy people.

Consequently, "I've been doing translations since I was a novice," Sister Mary Beata told The Evangelist. "I fell into it."

Life as nun

For decades, the busy sister squeezed that work around teaching and organizing libraries in Illinois, New Jersey, Australia, other areas of New York State and several schools in the Albany Diocese.

She shook her head, smiling, as she described running herd over a class of 60 first-graders when she was only 18. "I managed; they were good," she conceded.

Later, she found herself better suited to being a librarian: Her vocal cords were damaged during an operation, leaving her only able to speak softly. "That's why I work in a library: I whisper, and they whisper back!" she explained good-humoredly.

Taking time

Sister Mary Beata is about 60 pages into translating Mother Margaret's biography. It's slow work, she said, partly because some of the early-20th-century Polish words are hard to find in dictionaries and partly because idioms can be difficult to translate.

"There are times when I don't open my Polish-English dictionary, and there are times when I have to use it for every paragraph," she noted. "Very often, I can't find a word in the dictionary, so I have to read back; and, from what I read, I get to understand the meaning."

Hours of effort

Sister Mary Beata said she often forgets to look up from her work for hours, fascinated by what she's reading.

"I'm learning how they put into practice their religious life. It's so interesting," she enthused. "The love and kindness with which they treated the sisters under their leadership....It's made me more prayerful and considerate of others."

Sister Mary Beata regrets that she missed meeting Mother Margaret, who was still alive when Sister Mary Beata entered the convent as a teenager.

One thing she doesn't regret, however, is the help she's now getting to speed her work: She writes her translations out longhand, and another sister types them up.

"Isn't it wonderful -- I didn't have to type this!" she said gleefully, holding up a binder of pages. "God has been good to me."

Miles to go

It will be a while before enough of the biography has been translated to get a picture of Mother Margaret's life. Sister Mary Beata is determined, however.

"I feel that the sisters should get to know the lives of these people. It's our heritage," she said.

After the translation is completed, Sister Mary Beata plans to move on to translating books about Mother Celine and Mother Hedwig. The Resurrection Sisters aren't planning to distribute the volumes to the general public but will have them printed for members of their order.

"I can't wait to see the books in print! Then I can ask the Lord to take me," said Sister Mary Beata.

(Being a Resurrection sister, said Sister Mary Beata, means "getting rid of yourself -- not basing anything on yourself that is important. Christ means everything." In her free time, she likes to read biographies she doesn't have to translate. She's also a fan of mystery writer Mary Higgins Clark, a Catholic. The Resurrection order marks 100 years of service in the eastern U.S. this year. Mother Celine Borzecka will be beatified in October. Learn more at www.resurrectionsisters.org.)

Nun's own life story could fill a book

Sister Mary Beata shrugs off describing her own biography, dropping hints now and then about studying Polish at DePaul University in Chicago (in fact, she earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree there) and traveling to Poland to explore her order's archives (where she hand-copied faded manuscripts by early sisters that were nearly illegible).

She founded a library in Australia. When her superior asked for a volunteer to go to a school the sisters were running there, Sister Mary Beata assented. One of her brothers had been shot down there during World War II, and "I wanted to see the place where it happened," she said.

At the school, Sister Mary Beata discovered that the entire contents of the students' bookshelves consisted of old "readers," the textbooks used for each grade.

She held a paper drive to raise money for a library, telling students that if they collected enough paper, they could be the first ones to read the new books that would be bought. Not long after, one student's father found his son reading the biography of a Peruvian saint long after bedtime.

The father told his friends in a veterans' association, and the vets told Sister Mary Beata, "Anything you need for the library, we'll pay for."

"See how God works?" she told The Evangelist. (KB)

(7/26/07)