This week’s SoroptiVoice is another wonderful
portrait of a Soroptimist, written and researched by Christina Höfferer. In one of the most beautiful monasteries of Rome
Christina, a Soroptimist from Vienna, who works as a journalist in the Italian
capital, interviewed a Soroptimist from Austria, Marina Meuser Kasimir, who is on a
spiritual retreat for one year.

In the charming streets of Trastevere a
group of nuns have recently witnessed an enlargement. Marina Meuser-Kasimir,
Soroptimist from Austria, decided to spend one year with
the nuns, sharing their life in the monastery, following the Benedictine Rule
and studying Gregorian Chants. Upon our visit Marina shows us the foundations of the
monastery. Strong brick walls and decorative mosaic floors have survived from
the antique Roman house, the home of Saint Cecilia, a woman who died for her
belief and conviction in the second century.

Marina Meuser-Kasimir leads us
into the church with the recently discovered Frescoes by Pietro Cavallini.
Thanks to Marina we are able to see also the rooms of the monastery where nuns have been
living for many centuries and which were absolutely closed to the public. In
former times no one from outside the spiritual community not even
family-members of the nuns were allowed to enter.

Marina has been a Soroptimist since 1995, she
served as a president of her club in Salzburg and as a vice president in the
Austrian Soroptimist union. After the loss of her husband last year, Marina went to Rome where she now lives in the
monastery and keeps contact with the local Soroptimist Clubs. "Soroptimism is
about giving not about taking“ Marina says whilst sitting with
us in the garden of the monastery talking about projects she has organized
during her Soroptimist career. She then collects the lemons that have
dropped from the trees and brings them to the kitchen. She makes a fine marmalade
from the lemons from a recipe that was developed a hundred years ago in the
Hotel Gerbeaud in Budapest. The marmalade can be bought by visitors and this helps to maintain the community of sisters in Saint Cecilia.