18 January 2021 · 2021-01 newsletter
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
Family, be what you are: Domestic Church
Welcome to our first Covenant Day for 2021 – the 18th January. I wish you and your family many blessings and graces from the Shrine today. I hope that you have all had a good start to 2021.
As we look back over the past 12 months, it has been for many of us a challenging year, for others it may have been a time of inner growth and quiet achievements. For many of us it has been a time when we have come to appreciate what is important to us and particularly realise the importance of our family and close friends. Whatever 2020 has meant to us, I think it has certainly been a year we will never forget.
And now, as we look to the future, we want to explore during this year what has been one of Schoenstatt’s gifts to the church – the lived home shrine, the church of the home, the “Domestic Church”. As we focus on the importance of our families, we want to deepen our understanding of the Domestic Church and develop a deeper sense of community.
This month I would like to focus on the 20th January, 1942 which is referred to as Schoenstatt’s Second Milestone. Such is its importance that Father Kentenich often spoke of it as “the axis of Schoenstatt’s history” and the “interwovenness” of fates between himself and his Schoenstatt Family.
How does this relate to our striving this year to be the “Domestic Church”? The 20th January demands of us a decision to look at what the Covenant of Love means for each one of us in our life. We can ask ourselves what responsibility I take to continue the work of our Father even in the midst of difficulties and frustrating experiences that may come our way during these challenging times. One way we can do this is through living our daily lives in the “shadow” of our Home Shrines where we gain the graces and strength we need to live each day in covenant unity with the members of our family (whether it be our immediate natural family, extended family or Schoenstatt family).
On one occasion in reference to the 20th January, 1942, Father Kentenich said:
“Seen in a supernatural light, we are a real family: I and my followers – my followers and I. If we are a real family in God’s plans, then our destiny is interwoven, our destiny is interconnected in the supernatural sense. Practically speaking, the sacrifices my followers make on my behalf are really for my person; I count on this reality, and it has proven effective. By the same token, the sacrifices I offer on behalf of the Family are a means to save the Family. This offers a much greater security than if I had the whole Gestapo on my side…. Do you understand the extraordinarily deep supernatural attitude? I did not want to be liberated by natural means; I did not want to be liberated by the doctors or the Gestapo….
We have made a covenant with the Blessed Mother, and this is a reality. We were earnest about the covenant of love… Seen within the framework of the whole Founding Document and the covenant of love, it had to be taken for granted that the condition of my freedom was the inscriptio made by the whole family.”
My inscriptio protected Schoenstatt, and the inscriptio of the Family gave me back my freedom. This is a classic example of spiritual interconnectedness, of mutual interwovenness. Here you see the new person in the new community, not only talked about but exemplified and lived.”
(From: “In Union with the Father” – JK Brazil, 1952)
In the spirit of the 20th January, 1942, with faith in our Covenant of Love, and the loving Providence of God, I wish each of you many blessings and graces from the Shrine for this Covenant Day and throughout the coming month.
United in our covenant,
Shirley Hall
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