18 March 2021 · 2021-03 newsletter
Family, be what you are: Domestic Church
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
Greetings and blessings for this Covenant day – 18th March. On this special day each month, we join together as Schoenstatt Family around our Blessed Mother and our father and founder, to renew our commitment to our covenant of love and accept once again the task that Our Blessed Mother gives to each one of us from her shrine.
As you would be aware, this year we are exploring what has been one of Schoenstatt’s gifts to the church – the church of the home, the “Domestic Church” and its centre, the home shrine. In continuing our focus on the significance of the family, we hope to deepen our understanding of what is meant by “the Domestic Church” and its importance in these times.
We understand that in speaking of Domestic Church it can mean a single person, a family with small children, or a family unit consisting of two or three generations.
During our Covenant Sunday presentations so far this year we focussed in January on the family as the domestic church. Then last month we looked at the Home Shrine as the centre of the Domestic Church.
With this in mind, I would like to offer you some words from Father Kentenich that he spoke during a family’s consecration on 2nd October 1966. Father Kentenich said:
“……You may not ignore the fact that we are living in times of radical change, in times which are said to be the newest times. (…)
When we look into the present-day situation, when we pay attention to what is preached, when we listen to discussions in the work place, we realize the efforts to simply remove the Blessed Mother from these newest times, from this newest Church, so to speak. It seems to me we are justified in saying that the Blessed Mother has established herself in our shrines. What does she want in the shrines? She wants to speak her Fiat for the newest Church on the newest shore.
What task does the Blessed Mother have? …..She has the task to glorify herself in the newest Church on the newest shore by bestowing graces of transformation wherever people entrust themselves confidently to her. She wants to form this new person who is capable of dealing with the newest times. (…)
You see, for these times, too, she wants to act from her shrine. Let me repeat, it does not matter whether we think of the original shrine or of daughter shrines. That’s why we are well-advised to respond to the intentions of the Blessed Mother. Naturally, it is not just a matter of establishing a corner for God or a Schoenstatt corner in our homes; we may not be satisfied with offering the Blessed Mother a little spot; on the contrary, we have to allow the Blessed Mother to take care from this home shrine that a religious atmosphere permeates the whole house, that a religious atmosphere unites father and mother, that a religious atmosphere also enters the heart of the children and grandchildren. But the greatest task which the Blessed Mother wants to fulfil in the home shrine is to see to it that slowly a heart shrine will develop in us and that this heart shrine will increasingly influence and permeate all of life.”
We are united in the shrine where the flames of our hearts beat for our Mother Thrice Admirable who, through us, wants to build your kingdom.
(From: Heavenwards, Morning Consecration)
You might like to consider how our Blessed Mother helps you to become “this new person who is capable of dealing with these newest times”?
I again wish each of you many graces and blessings from the Shrine on this Covenant day.
United in our covenant,
Shirley Hall
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