Calvin Synod Herald, 1972 (72. évfolyam, 8-12. szám)

1972-12-01 / 12. szám

REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

5

tf^ricjht tar

1 was sitting by a window,

At the end of a busy day;

As I looked into the distance,

A bright star began to sway.

Perhaps, it was my rocking chair,

Or maybe I was dreaming;

That lovely star so tenderly,

A light at me was beaming.

It beckoned me and I followed,

On a road called yesteryear;

The path was dark and rugged,

Yet I went without a fear.

It was two thousand years ago,

A bright star glowed down to earth;

It lead the way to Bethlehem,

To announce the Saviors birth.

Love, joy and peace fill hearts of men, Regardless where they are;

Of those who know the meaning of, That Brilliant Christmas Star.

Margaret F. Csóványos

Anniversary Address

delivered on Nov. 4, 1972 on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Hungarian Club of Chicago by the Right Reverend Arpad L. Beretz, Bishop

Mr. President, Honored Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Golden Anniversary of the Hungarian Magyar Club is a gerat milestone not only in the history of Chicagoland but also in the cultural, political and social life of the American Hungarian community and our nation.

Soon we shall celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of our great American Democracy.

Citizens of Hungarian background have been building and strengthening that Democracy for over a hundred years.

Hungarians, over more than half the history of this nation, have made significant contributions to the growth, the expansion and the defense of this land.

For the Magyar love for America came easily. The same unyielding love of freedom which motivated the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia was deeply rooted in the hearts of the men who followed, lived and died for the banners of freedom and

liberty carried by the great Rákóczi and Kossuth and recently by the Freedom Fighters of 1956.

These two traditions for freedom were never in conflict. They served rather, to grow stronger and more durable in the fusion.

As a boy I learned well the history of America; the struggle for mere survival by the Pilgrim fathers; the burden of taxation on the colonies; the fight for freedom by Washington and his ragged army; the Declaration of Independence and the great concepts of individual freedom and liberty embodied in the American Constitution, but it was the inspiring poetry of Sándor Petőfi and the brilliant speeches of Louis Kossuth that fired up my boyhood imagination and made the concept of freedom and liberty come alive for me.

Only twice in my life have I felt a similar surge of emotion. First in 1939 when the Polish army, forced to retreat before the Nazi onslaught, poured into Hungary to be received by the populace as conquering heroes. These Polish young men had only one passion — freedom.

The second occasion was in 1956 as I worked with the Hungarian Refugees who had fled their homeland into Austria. Here again, I felt the pulse of freedom, beating so strongly that nothing else seemed to matter.

It is the flame of freedom that we carry in this land. This flame gives people of every race, color and ethnic background, light and strength.

For fifty years the Hungarian Club of Chicago sought to enrich the life and work of our country by giving to this nation the best of its culture, social and political ideals and principles so that by the inter-mingling of all cultures, backgrounds, traditions a new man — the American Man — might emerge and find his place in the history of mankind.

Bartók and Kodály discovered, as they collected the folk songs of Hungary, that they were in reality recording a musical language common to all people. Bartók was a great Hungarian. But he wanted to be more. Using Hungarian folk music as his base, he began to reach out to all mankind to find that long lost common language that all people understood. This was the genius of Bartók. He began as a Magyar and ended up as a Man.

The Magyar Club of Chicago began as a fervent, passionate response to the injustices to Hungary in World War I. The love for the Mother Country was overwhelmingly intense.

Yet, early in the history of the Club, it became apparent that self-seeking self-serving “irredentism” would be self defeating.

Members began to bring their non-Hungarian friends to Club activities and functions in order to introduce them to Hungarian cultural and social life. But in the process they found that their own Hungarian culture was a door to the culture of the