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Melanie
“Muska” von Nagel was born in 1908, one of three
children of General-Major Karl Freiheer von Nagel, commander
of the Bavarian First Heavy Cavalry Regiment and Chamberlain
at the Bavarian court, and Mabel Dillon Nesmith, from a
prominent New York family. She spent her early childhood
in Munich and the surrounding Bavarian countryside until
the death of her father in 1918, the victim of a
Spartakist bullet during the Revolution. |
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For
Melanie von Nagel, the years between the wars marked the beginning
of her introduction to international society as well as the
beginning of her life as a serious, published writer. She
lived for a time in Florence and in 1944, having returned
to Germany and with World War II in full progress, she met
and married Halil-beg Mussayassul, a Moslem émigré
from North Caucasia and a highly regarded portrait painter
with a studio in Munich. During and after the war, they gave
shelter to refugees, mostly Russian, including many concentration
camp survivors. Speaking eight languages fluently, she was
also a great service to the Displaced Persons camps. |
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the close of World War II, she and her husband Halil began
a life in New York. After his death shortly thereafter,
Melanie continued
to live in New York, pursuing her writing, and supporting,
fostering and contributing to its cultural life. Notwithstanding
this stimulating
existence, she felt an emptiness that led her to pursue
her long-standing attraction to monastic life. Visiting
the Abbey of Regina,
she instinctively realized that she
was suddenly and finally “at home”. |
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On
March 18, 1957, she entered Regina Laudis as a Postulant, writing,
“I’m being led. Who else can plan the ways that rise
from roots to tips of meadow grass?” She embarked upon a
forty-nine year commitment to monastic life. Her life at the Abbey
was simple and humble, in stark comparison to her previous life
in Europe and America, but she took it on and was stretched by
the very differences. Always faithful to the Divine Office, sung
in Latin, she received through it the energy necessary for the
many duties of daily life.
Perhaps
her most outstanding public accomplishment was her work
as the well-known author Muska Nagel. Progressing from book reviews
early in her life to her own poetry and translations of other
authors, most significantly Paul Celan, was a life-long work.
She continued writing and publishing until her death, her long-standing
professional
relationship with the late Constance Hunting, founder of Puckerbrush
Press, editor, friend and confidante, being one of the great joys
in
her life.
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She
also treasured her personal and professional relationship
with
the writer, thinker and philosopher, Ivan Illich. They developed
a
professional collaboration over time, with an unusual mutual
understanding. Professor Illich’s last book, completed
before his death in 2002, will be coming into print within
the year, carrying an introduction by Mother Jerome. |
Understanding
the strength of an abbey as a stabilizing center, Mother Jerome
worked with the land records of Bethlehem and neighboring towns.
She gave those interested, including the young
in her own community, a stronger sense of their roots and the
spiritual richness of the land which nurtures them. She also participated
locally in the Bethlehem Historical Society, the Bethlehem Library
“Literary Coffeehouse” and the Sharon Book Club anchored
by Mrs. Judy Schwerin.
Mother
Jerome was a magnet for young and old, who sought out this woman
of inspiration, hope, wisdom, humor, faith and unquenchable thirst
for life. Groups of young persons travelled regularly from Germany
to learn from her, as did the people of Daghestan, the country
of her deceased husband, who affectionately considered
her the mother of their country.
When
Melanie von Nagel was clothed in the Benedictine habit as a
novice, she received the religious name of Jerome, after the Saint
who devoted his life to scholarship, teaching, writing and translating.
She fulfilled her name throughout her religious life, by prayer,
teaching and study. Reverend Mother Jerome von Nagel Mussayassul
was privileged to receive the Consecration of a Widow on the Feast
of St. Benedict, March 21, 1975.
No good tree bears bad fruit....
Matthew 7:17
We
pray in gratitude for the fruitful life of Mother Jerome; princess;
wife; poet and translator; spinner and dyer of wool; lover of
plants
and their secret properties; citizen of the world, as much at
home in
Daghestan as in Bavaria or Florence or Bethlehem.
As
she returns to the Father, whom she will now see face to face,
fully
at home at last, and in union with all those she loved who have
preceded her, may we who have been privileged to taste of the
abundant
fruit she gave right to the end of her long life, pray to keep
alive
her spirit of love for the community and land of Regina Laudis,
which
she so firmly believed could restore the spiritually and culturally
displaced persons of our world.
Prayer
of the Faithful, June 28, 2006
 
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everend
Mother Jerome von Nagel Mussayassul, consecrated nun of the Abbey
of Regina Laudis, scholar and poet, died at the Abbey in Bethlehem,
Connecticut, on Tuesday, June 27, 2006, at 98 years old. Mother
Jerome entered monastic life in 1958 at the age of 50, having
lived an international life as a citizen of the world that took
her