Sr. Ona Mikaila

Honoring a Courageous Woman

Sr. Ona Mikaila is a writer and editor of Bendradarbis, and belongs to the order of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Lithuanian order in Putnam, Connecticut.

When the "Siberian Prayer Book", as it was popularly known among Lithuanians, was first published 40 years ago in 1959, no one could have predicted that it would attract worldwide attention. The first English edition of Mary Save Us! was published by the Paulist Press in New York in 1960. Three other English editions subsequently appeared, the last being a large commemorative edition titled The Living Testament of Faith and Courage, published in 1965, the 25th anniversary of the Soviet occupation of Lithuania.

During the 1960's the little book was translated into many languages: German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Polish, and even into Korean and Chinese. These editions contained glowing introductions by the Catholic cardinals and archbishops of these various countries.

The Archbishop of Westminster in London commended the little book especially to those suffering from depression: "Written in conditions of utmost misery and hopelessness these prayers are a proof that the soul can rise above material degradation on the wings of faith and love." Cardinal Cushing of Boston wrote: "Four young Lithuanian girls wasting away in the very flowering of their lives, as a result of inhuman treatment, secretly wrote the thoughts that they spoke to God, as day by day they saw no hope of liberation...No more beautiful or promising document could come from a Siberian prison…" The ‘day of liberation’ was still very far in the unknown future.

Although four young women helped make the prayer book, its author was actually a young teacher, Adelė Dirsytė who died in Siberia in 1955. During the half-century of Soviet occupation, neither she, nor her book was known in Lithuania. Only as recently as 1997 has she been brought to the attention of the public. This year marks the 90th anniversary of her birth in 1909. A wooden relief sculpture depicting the Blessed Mother has been put up in the Kėdainiai churchyard where she is buried. On April 17, 1999, a special memorial Mass was offered by the parish priest in the church of Kėdainiai, which was filled with people. Among them were Adelė’s two sisters who had also been exiled to Siberia with her. After the Mass, the sculpture was blessed while the students from a local high school recited poems, sang hymns, and placed flowers around the memorial.

Kėdainiai itself is in the news this year because it is celebrating the 400th anniversary of one of the oldest Lithuanian books. This is a book of homilies translated into Lithuanian by Canon Mikalojus Daukša and published in 1599 with a famous introductory essay on the importance of the Lithuanian language.

Adelė Dirsytė was only 44 years old when she died. She had already served most of her ten-year sentence in various Siberian labor camps and was due to return home. Her health was broken, however, and she died not knowing that her little prayer book would travel the world as a "living testament of faith and courage".

A university graduate, just before World War II Adelė worked with various Catholic charitable organizations and taught in several high schools. In 1944 she joined a Lithuanian resistance movement working against the Soviet government and was also active in the Catholic youth organization "Ateitis". In 1946 the KGB arrested her for helping someone to evade the them. Sent to the Siberian Gulag the following year, then being 38 years old, she would spend the rest of her life in Siberia.

Adelė not only survived the horrendous conditions of the Soviet labor camps, but she also helped others not to fall into despair. She used her influence and skills as a teacher to gather young girls around her. They would discuss books and say poems they knew, but especially Adelė tried to keep up their spirits by speaking of the meaning of life. They would celebrate religious feast days together; she taught them to pray, and in the evening, after a hard day's work, they would say the rosary, counting their beads on rosaries made out of their bread ration. All this had to be done in secret, but Adelė risked the wrath of the camp guards, because she saw how important it was to keep up the religious faith and morale of the young people so far from home.

In 1950 Adelė began to write down the prayers she had composed on little scraps of paper. With the help of three young friends, the bits of paper were sewn together to form a book. It consisted of 70 small handwritten pages about 2 by 3 inches in size with a homemade cloth cover. One of the copies of this little prayer book was smuggled out of camp with a note to a friend, Pranute; "We are sending you this little book so that you will be better able to feel, reflect, and worship the Lord with us. Lionė G. made it, Valė B. drew the pictures, Levutė V. glued it together, and I wrote it." She signed herself: Ad for Adelė. The note was dated February 16, 1953. The date is significant since it is Lithuanian Independence Day.

The wooden relief sculpture depicting the Blessed Mother in memory of Adelė Dirsytė stands in the Kėdainiai churchyard.

Photo from Sr. O. Mikaila

One of the three girls who helped make the prayer book, Levutė Vizbaraitė, survived the Siberian ordeal and returned to Lithuania, where she was married and lived to see Lithuania regain her independence. In 1997 she was interviewed for a Lithuanian Catholic magazine and shared her memories of Adelė. Adelė was often punished by camp authorities for her "subversive" activities. She endured many interrogations, beatings, and solitary confinement. Levutė remembers her courage and self-sacrifice: "I could see how much she suffered. She always offered her pain to our Blessed Mother Mary for Lithuania. The continual torture weakened her health, and she was often in pain. After one interrogation she came back with a bruised face and spitting blood. Later she admitted that her teeth had been knocked out."

In the late fall of 1953 Adelė was again taken out of the camp and returned the following spring. She was in a terrible state but was put back in confinement as a psychiatric case. Her friends pleaded with the guard to be allowed to visit her. They found her black and blue, her hair shorn, very thin. She ate some of the food they brought. They managed to visit her again, but this time she was very quiet and very sad. She would not eat any food saying, that they needed it for they were working, while she was not.

In 1954 she was placed in the psychiatric ward of the camp hospital. Her friends still came to see her and brought the Christmas wafer to share with her. She accepted it. At that time she was enduring forced feeding. In 1955 many of the Lithuanian girls were being allowed to return home but Adelė Dirsytė did not return, she died.

The title of the Siberian prayer book, Mary Save Us! (Marija Gelbėki Mus!) is a prayer in itself, a prayer that was heard many years later when Lithuania finally did regain her independence. Today, as we reread the simple and achingly poignant words, "the poetry of suffering" as one of her former students calls it, we can appreciate the great faith and courage of a woman who never gave up. We can appreciate the cost of freedom and continue to hope for the spiritual rebirth of Lithuania. Adelė Dirsytės prayers have not grown old.

Mary, save the land
woven with blood and tears,
with self-sacrifice, resolution and love.

Mary, awaken in our breasts
the power of mighty giants.

Preserve the pure spirit of our nation,
fostered through the ages
by our forefathers.

Mary, enlighten those
who have wandered astray,
intercede for the souls of fallen heroes.

Raise up our holy Lithuania
that it may radiate and shine
among other nations like a splendid star
to glorify you and your Son’s
boundless mercy and love.

Note: The Siberian prayer book was first printed in Putnam, Connecticut where the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception have the various editions of it on display in their Lithuanian museum.