17 December 2020 · 2020-12 newsletter
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
On this Covenant day – 18th December – I wish you all many graces and blessings from the Shrine. As we continue our journey through Advent and approach the wonderful season of Christmas, we are united with our Blessed Mother and the Christ Child as we hear the words of the shepherds……..
“I BRING YOU NEWS OF GREAT JOY”
This has been an unusual and difficult year and many people are still struggling with the effects that COVID-19 has had on their life or the life of members of their family. As we look towards the coming year and what is being called a ‘new normal’, I would like to share with you some words from Fr. Kentenich that we might reflect upon on as we approach the season of Christmas and the coming new year:
Mary as the way to Christ’s re-birth today
Let me tell you one of my favourite ideas. You see, history repeats itself – salvation history. Salvation history began with the birth and the “Yes” of the blessed Mother. If the present-day world wants to find its way back to Christ, Our Lady must give birth to Christ once more. Allow me to presume that you accept this inwardly. But when you think about it, or talk about it, you will have to explain it in a new way and also study it in a new way, otherwise you will never understand the profound depth of Schoenstatt and its covenant of love. The Mother of God wants to create a whole new world, she wants to bring about a new world from here. Christ should be re-born! Here, too, I think you will feel much the same as someone who told me this morning: the more he studies Heavenwards, the more varied are the answers he discovers there. Often just a few words open up a panorama before us. It only takes time to grasp it:
‘We thank you for all the gifts which we have received in such abundance: for choosing Schoenstatt as the place of Christ’s rebirth” (Heavenwards, p.13).
Do you understand what that means? It is not just in the way Christ is re-born everywhere. Oh, no! You have to see its full impact, the great vision: he must be born again! That is why it is so important for us to uphold what we have wanted from the beginning. What is that? Love for the Mother of God. Our Lady is not just the way to a deep and tender love for the Father, she is also the way by which Christ will be born in our present times, in the new era.
So if we do not believe blindly in our covenant of love, everything is a chimera of the imagination, what we do is just a wild dream. We need to believe deeply that we have to do no more than lead the Mother of God onto the battlefield everywhere, and give her the opportunity to give birth to Christ once more.
(Fr. Joseph Kentenich from a Conference for the Schoenstatt Fathers, 1963, from: “Christ my Life”)
Blessed Mother, in Bethlehem in a poor and little stable you give birth to the Lord of the world for us all. Just as you showed him to the shepherds and the magi and humbly bowed before him in adoration, let us always be his loving instruments and carry him deeply into human hearts.
(Heavenwards, Third Joyful Mystery)
Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. May we never take Christmas for granted but continue to be filled with child-like wonder as we contemplate what God has done for us by becoming one of us. He is one with us, in times of darkness and hardship, in joy and celebration.
May the Blessed Mother and her Son, send you and your family, rich blessings and graces from the shrine during this Christmas season and continue to be with you in the coming year.
United in our Covenant,
Shirley Hall
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