In silence, but not alone

I can still hear the soft noise from my childhood while sitting in the church with my grandmother. As the end of the mass was approaching, she started clattering in her old but sparkling clean handbag and pulled out a white handkerchief in which she held coins: the savings for the Új Ember newspaper. It was a sort of small ceremony for her. After the blessing she stood up, went to the pile of the freshly printed newspapers, threw the coins into the money-box, took one newspaper, hid it into her handbag and walked home. She always spent an hour reading in her favourite armchair with a coffee mug in her hand. While turning the pages, she kept murmuring, smiling, sometimes even weeping a bit.

Új Ember has faithfully been serving its readers for 75 years by now. Once it was banned for six months in 1956, otherwise it has always reached those who loved reading it. After so many decades this was the first Sunday mass when people could neither go to church nor could buy the newspaper.

Although the churches are not closed, people cannot visit liturgical events due to safety reasons. This means that the main sales channel of Új Ember has been shut down. István Kuzmányi, Chief Editor had an idea and published a call that anyone sending an email with his or her name and address in 24 hours would get the festive special edition for free. In one single day, more than 2000 requests arrived to the publisher’s office.

István Kuzmányi has teamed up with volunteers and with the Secretariat of the International Eucharistic Congress. They have been delivering the newspapers for two days by post and personally as well.

The Új Ember has been received by the doctor, the lawyer, the teacher, the mason, the tenants of elderly’s nursing home, the patients in the hospital, and even by the farmer who happened to sit on his tractor when the paper reached him. He was so moved he could only say „God bless you all.”

It did not matter how old these people are or what their jobs are. Everyone was equally happy.

There is an old woman living near the Vásárcsarnok in Budapest. She spends her days alone. The volunteers brought the newspaper to her door on the third floor in a walk-up house.

„My husband died two months ago. I’m all alone. God has sent you. My children bring me food, put it down by the door and leave. Thank you for the paper, it gives me hope”,

said the old lady to one of the volunteers.

Most of the „thank you”-s were said through the entry phone. Some people waved and smiled from their open window. Upon the first call the requests were expected from Budapest and its neighbourhood. Finally, the management of the IEC volunteered to travel all around the country. Mayors have also requested the paper to make Easter even more special for their communities.

The citizens of Eger, Dunaújváros, Érd, Budaörs, Törökbálint, Pusztaszabolcs, Velence, Esztergom, Ősi, Várpalota and Székesfehérvár have received the soul-elevating, solemn newspaper as well. Many elderly’s nursing homes and hospitals have also asked for it.

„Although, we have delivered the newspaper only till the post boxes, lot of people found a way to say thank you by waving from the corridor, from the staircase, or were running after us on the street as if they could not believe this was all possible. They all said really honest and warm thanks for the special edition of the paper and the delivery”, remembered István Kuzmányi in his article written on the effect of the call in the Magyar Kurír.

I am quite sure that this special edition of Új Ember have got a special place in most of the homes while becoming a unique piece to preserve. Since the Easter of 2020 is the most extraordinary one not for the pandemic, but for the human selflessness and goodness.

Orsolya Gyarmati/IEC Secretariat

Photo: Marcsi Ambrus/IEC Secretariat

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