18 November 2020 · 2020-11 newsletter
One Heart in the Father for the Family of God
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
Greetings and blessings for this Covenant Day – 18th November.
During this month we remember two significant dates in our Schoenstatt Family history. The first occurred recently – 16th November – the anniversary of the birth of Father Kentenich (1885). The second is the 20th November – the anniversary of the death of Venerable Sr. M. Emilie Engel (1955).
During his life, Father Kentenich believed that he and his spiritual family had been given a mission to proclaim the message of a merciful, loving Father to the Church and world. Father himself was a transparency for us of the image of the merciful, loving Father God.
Now, as we look to the future, uncertain of what it might bring, we are called to keep alive Father’s “founding spirit” and place ourselves anew on the foundation he laid, so that we can with confidence and faith, answer the present challenges we face in our society and our Church. Above all we want to promise father our availability and loyalty: loyalty to him and his charism, loyalty to his work and his Family, loyalty to his mission for the Church.
We are reminded of our responsibility for realizing his charism and mission for the Church and world, and making it fruitful. However, it is never separated from him as a person. That is why we now need to work for his canonization so that he and his Schoenstatt work will be recognized by the Church. If we live our personal mission in conjunction with Fr. Kentenich’s mission, then his beatification and canonization by the Church will follow at the appropriate time.
In a letter from the General Presidium for the 50th anniversary of the death of Father Kentenich, Father Juan Pablo Catoggio said:
“The first thing we would express is our gratitude for the gift God gave us in Fr. Kentenich. We owe him a debt of gratitude for Schoenstatt and all it means for us: the Shrine as a source of grace, a spiritual home and family, the spirituality and its orientation, a purpose and mission. For us Fr. Kentenich is an example, a father, and a founder and prophet. That’s why we are grateful from the bottom of our hearts. As we tell the Blessed Mother, so we can say to him: “Where would we be without you”! (8/7/2018)
Conscious of these foundations upon which Schoenstatt is built, we want to once again accept the mission we have been given for the Church and society in our present times. Especially now in these uncertain times, we do this consciously, united as one family, and in the strength of the covenant of love we have made with our Blessed Mother, with our father and founder and with one another.
November is also the month in which we remember all those who have died. In particular we remember the members of our own families and close friends who have died and we give thanks for the example they left us and all they did for us during their life.
On the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of Ordination of Father Kentenich (8th July 1935, but celebrated on 11th August 1935), he said he wanted to use the celebration to thank “all Schoenstatt children, the dead, the living and generations to come.”
“I thank those who have worked and given their lives for Schoenstatt”, Father Kentenich said. “Our deceased are not dead, they are with us today. The work that has been created here is just as much the work of those who co-operated with me. I am inconceivable without you. My whole work cannot be explained without your most personal and profound co-operation. This applies in the first place to our dead……. We want to be faithful to our deceased….. I know what this loyalty to our dead means to our generation. The Family has brought forth great people. We want to remain true to them. Faithfulness to them is faithfulness to our MTA, to our shrine, to our ideal.
We could say the same about the many people who were part of the “founding generation” here in Australia. We remember those Sisters, Fathers, Priests, members from all States and from all branches- the Families, Mothers, Single Women, Men, Young Men, Young Women, Girls and members of the Pilgrim Mother Apostolate who loyally lived their Covenant of Love and were an example for us all.
We pray for the repose of their souls and can best repay them for their contribution to Schoenstatt by remaining loyal to our MTA, to our father and founder, to our Shrine and to our Schoenstatt Family.
At this time we also remember all those who have died as a result of the Corona Virus and all those who mourn their loss.
United in our Covenant of Love,
Shirley Hall
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