23 September 2022 · 2022-09 newsletter
“Schoenstatt’s Way: Authentic Witness to Holiness”
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
Greetings and blessings for this Covenant Day – 18th September. On Thursday we remembered the death of Father Kentenich on 15th September, 1968.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Jubilee of the death of Father Joseph Kentenich, Father Alexandre Awi Mello, a Schoenstatt Father, reminded us in his sermon, of the words of Bishop Tenhumberg at the funeral service for Father Kentenich. The Bishop had said that "Every great person is a letter from God to his time, a message to us. A letter, written "not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not upon clay tablets, but into living hearts "(2 Cor 3: 1-3)."His book of life is our book of God.”"
Father Mello continued to say…”but (for me) the most interesting aspect of this unforgettable sermon is that the preacher has not only applied the words of St. Paul to the life of our founder, but also to the book of our own lives. We are the letter of recommendation for our father and founder! "Our lives will decide what the church will one day say of our father and founder"- so said Bishop Tenhumberg – “The Church will read the letter from God which he wished to be from the way we live it."
How do we live this message, this letter from God, in our lives?
In a conference he gave on the 17th November, 1965 while in Rome, Father Kentenich shared his understanding of a mission as sharing in the mission of Jesus Christ and explains his deeper understanding of the apostolate. This highlights not just the apostolic action, or the valuable service of proclamation and administering the sacrament of baptism; it emphasizes the living witness and influence of the apostle based on his or her Christ-likeness. What matters is making Christ increasingly present in our modern world.
He said further, that evaluating the various forms of apostolic and missionary activity, the witness of the life and being of the apostle takes first place. This explains the emphasis placed on education and self-education in the Movement. According to our Founder, the grace of apostolic fruitfulness that Schoenstatt expects is not least connected with the Blessed Mother’s education and formation of its members in the shrine, which remains the source of life for the apostolate…..
Further in this talk he said:
“Today people say: The most important thing is to make Christ present in the world. How are we to make Christ present? First of all through the way we are, through bearing the divine life within ourselves…..
…..We Catholics today have to do more to exemplify and demonstrate this complete way of making Christ present, than to talk about it. That is why we do not try as in the past to drag others to join us. We have far more respect for the person as a whole. So how can we describe the apostolate? It is, as was often said in the past, the apostolate of exemplifying the fullness of religion. Everything has to be exemplified! I can no longer remember the definition of the apostolate in “Everyday Sanctity” in detail, but it is the overflow of divine life from an inner fullness. So I have to live. I pass on my life. I may also do so through what I say, but the most important thing is the apostolate of what we are.
(From “His Mission, Our Mission”, Pp.48-49)
May we continue to live the mission we have been given through our father and founder so that Schoenstatt may be fruitful here in Australia. We do this in the strength of our Covenant of Love with our Blessed MTA and in unity with each other.
Blessings and graces from our Schoenstatt Shrines as we journey towards the celebration of the Foundation Day of Schoenstatt on 18th October.
United in our Covenant,
Shirley Hall
Filed underNewsletter · Reflections