17 February 2022 · 2022-02 newsletter
On 20th January – the 80th anniversary of the 20th January 1942, a new foundation was laid here in Australia in our Women’s League group when three members of our Sydney group were “implanted” into Father Kentenich’s Mariengarten. This was the first time a community from our Women’s branches here in Australia have made this commitment.
The Mariengarten or “Garden of Mary” is one of the important life streams in Schoenstatt, especially within the women’s communities. It refers to an historical event of Christmas 1941. Although this event took place before January 20, 1942, it is considered to be a concrete realisation and unique embodiment of the spirit of Schoenstatt’s second milestone and the Inscriptio consecration.
Just before Christmas 1941 when Father Kentenich was in prison in Koblenz, one of the Sisters in the nearby Koblenz community wrote a Christmas letter to the Christ Child asking for Father Kentenich’s release from prison. Her name was Sister Mariengard. Her superior sent the letter to Father Kentenich who replied – as the Christ Child – to say that if she and the entire Sisters’ community in Koblenz was to create a “Garden of Mary” (a Mariengarten) through their strivings and sacrifices then father would soon be freed.
This life stream spread through the entire Sisters’ community and at the October Week in 1950, Father Kentenich spoke about this to the whole Schoenstatt Family.
As mentioned above, this event is linked to the 20th January, 1942, and as such includes a conscious consecration in the spirit of Inscriptio. The Mariengarten is a garden of Christ-formed and Christ—forming little Marys, who in and with Christ, centre on God the Father. In and through Mary, they strive to fulfil the mission that Father Kentenich was given for Schoenstatt and the Church.
The whole preparation undertaken by Edna Aldana, Agnes Aldana and myself (Shirley) took nearly three years. As this is a “community” consecration, it can only be entered into when all the members feel they are ready to say their ‘yes’. Thankfully Sister Elizabeth who was leading our formation, was very patient.
However, towards the end of last year the Holy Spirit seemed to ‘intervene’ and during one of our formation meetings, we all agreed that it was now time for us to say our “yes”. As we had already been working on what our mission would be in the Mariengarten, it didn’t take us long to formulate this. And again, the Holy Spirit must have been working because simultaneously Edna and I suggested the symbol to represent our mission, which Agnes readily agreed to.
Together with Sr. Elizabeth we carefully made our preparations to be ‘implanted’ into father’s Mariengarten on 20th January this year. We wanted to take this step on that day as it seemed the most appropriate time and it was also the 80th anniversary of the 20th January, 1942.
We had all our preparations organised. We had our Implantation ceremony prepared, our symbols organised and Sr. Elizabeth had asked Sr. Marion in Schoenstatt (Germany) if she would live-stream us (via zoom) from the Founder Chapel where these ceremonies normally take place.
We had invited the members of our women’s group and members of the Mary and Martha Mothers group to join us. We had organised to have a 3 day retreat at Mt. Schoenstatt with the final day to be one of quiet prayer.
However, the first ‘surprise’ came when God decided that he had a better plan for our commitment ceremony. Just two days before our planned retreat days, we were told that some of the Sisters at Mt. Schoenstatt had COVID. This put all our plans into disarray. We could not have our retreat and celebration as planned at Mt. Schoenstatt.
We were all bitterly disappointed, but after reflection, prayer and discussion, we came to understand that we needed to trust in God as He always knows what is best for us. This was our first lesson in the Inscriptio spirit. It was also a great experience for us when we realised that as soon as we accepted God’s providence and didn’t stress about it, we became interiorly free and calm.
After much discussion we decided that our celebration should go ahead although in quite a different way to what we had imagined. We had our three day retreat prior to our commitment ceremony via zoom. Sister Elizabeth prepared a beautiful talk for us for each of the days. Then each evening the three of us came together to talk about our reflections from the day. This was our next surprise. We found that in spite of doing everything via zoom, it was truly a time of personal and community spiritual preparation and growth in a way we couldn’t have imagined beforehand.
These times together showed us how the seeds were being planted and nourished and cared for and fast growing even before the Implantation in father’s Garden.
Our Reflections revealed that although our interior thoughts were quite diverse, they all were pointing in the one direction, ‘upward’ to the Implantation. Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit was present, empowering to keep us together in the spirit of joy, unity and knowledge.
Thanks to Divine Providence, Sister Marion one of the English speaking Sisters whom we knew, had been able to organise to be in the Founder Chapel during our celebration. As this is a conscious consecration made with Father Kentenich as the “Gardener” in the Mariengarten, and with Our Blessed Mother, “Queen of the Mariengarten”, the ceremony would normally takes place in the Founder Chapel. So for us, our whole focus was able to be in the Founder Chapel spiritually with Father Kentenich.
The next surprise was that we had the Founder Chapel all to ourselves during the time of our commitment ceremony (and for some time afterwards). Thanks to Sister Marion, there were three lit red candles and three white lilies on father’s sarcophagus. In the vase with the lilies were two Australian flags. At the end of the ceremony Sister Marion placed each of our candles, one at a time, on the father carpet together with the lilies.
Because the whole ceremony took place via zoom, there were some parts of the celebration that we had to change. For example, we couldn’t say the prayers, nor sing the hymns together. However we had split up the prayers between us and although we still included our hymns, these had to be sung by just one person with the others humming softly in the background.
For myself, just before the ceremony I got out of my casual at-home clothes, put on good clothes and shoes and although I only had to take a few steps into the next room, it meant I was now in front of my home shrine and when I saw the Founder Chapel in front on me on the screen, I felt that I was truly taking part in a special and blessed event. We each had our home shrines in the background and had lit our special candles.
True, on the day of the celebration, there was a mixed feeling of joy and ‘nervousness’. There were some exchanging of text messages amongst us just before the start of the ceremony to check how each one of us was feeling. However, when Sr. Marion let us into the Founder Chapel with the three lit red candles and the three white lilies . . . behold! the atmosphere was delightful and looked divine, awaiting for the three letter word ‘YES’ to be said together with, ‘Yes, Father, everything out of love, through love and for love. Adsum”.
We had originally planned to be in our Father Room at Mt. Schoenstatt for this celebration. However, Sr. Elizabeth had the Father Room as the background for her computer, so we were also there via zoom. After the ceremony, Edna, Agnes and myself came together (as always via zoom) with Sr. Elizabeth to reflect on the celebration and what the whole experience meant for us. We were all feeling extremely blessed and bursting with joy. This whole week had been a week of surprises. We have heard it said before that God is a God of Surprises, but this was a definite experience of that.
And although some of the surprises were not ones we wanted, there were others that were also mixed with many blessings and joys.
It proved to us that if we do indeed trust in God, then all things work out for the best. His plans are always the best ones, even if we can’t see it at the time. He is truly a Father and a God of Love.
However, as Father Kentenich often said, every gift is a task and we know that we now have the task to see that the mission we have been given in father’s Mariengarten is fulfilled to the best of our abilities. We need to see that father’s Garden is nourished and comes to full bloom, especially here in Australia, and particularly in our women’s communities.
As we prayed in our Consecration prayer
We want to strive together as a loyal guardian ring in the Mariengarten. With one mind and one heart, we offer our commitment and dedication to the Mission to be authentic witnesses to our Schoenstatt spirituality so that our father and founder’s heritage may continue to be sustained and flourish. We want to be women, like Mary, who are firm, free personalities, constantly centred on the […]
We know that if we want to become authentic witnesses to our Schoenstatt spirituality especially here in Australia, we need to strive to live the Inscriptio spirit in our daily lives. To do this we know that we have the help of our father (as the Gardener) and Our Blessed Mother as the Queen of the Mariengarten.
In this spirit we had prayed:
Mother and Queen…..We fervently ask you: teach us to comprehend the spirit of the 20th January, 1942 and to live out of it; for only in this way can we sustain and make fruitful our mission in the Mariengarten, and help our father to fulfil his mission as a blessing for the Church.
Another special surprise and delight was the spiritual support we had received. The women we had invited to join us for our celebration were with us spiritually. Some spent this hour in front of their home shrines, another went to our Shrine to pray. There were also Masses said for us. The Sisters at Mulgoa had offered their prayers and Masses for us and each had a candle lit for us in the shrine during the week. So we indeed felt truly blessed.
It made us appreciate once again that we are indeed part of a Schoenstatt FAMILY and that together, around our Home Shrines, we can be a powerful force for each other and for our Schoenstatt mission.
Our special thanks and our prayers go to all who have supported us on this journey, which we realise we are only just beginning.
Our very special thanks and prayers go to Sister Elizabeth who has supported us throughout this whole journey. We thank her for the formation she has given us in preparing us for this commitment, her patience and perseverance throughout the whole journey, her praying with us and for us and for all that she did to help make our Implantation into the Mariengarten such a blessed event for each of us.
“Love for love, loyalty for loyalty, Adsum”
Shirley Hall, Edna Aldana, Agnes Aldana
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