19 December 2022 · 2022-12 newsletter
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
I wish you all many graces and blessings from the Shrine on this Covenant day, the 18th December, as we continue our journey through Advent and approach the wonderful season of Christmas.
On the 8th December the Church celebrated the Solemnity of The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This feast honours that Mary was immaculately conceived so that as the mother of Jesus she could hand on to her Son a perfect, sinless humanity.
Like Mary, God chose us in Christ. Just as Mary said her ‘yes’ in the Annunciation story, so too, God invites us to spend time with Mary and like her, say ‘yes’ to all the challenges that God sends us in our lives.
This year we have been reflecting on what it means to be authentic witnesses to holiness through our Schoenstatt spirituality. We have come to appreciate that what is important in our witnessing is not so much what we do, but how we do it, not what we say, but how we live it.
With this in mind, I would like to share with you some words from our father and founder, Father Kentenich:
“….May the Blessed Mother bless us, may she lift up her Child and bless us with him and may she place this Child deep in our hearts. She wants to give us this Child – who is so great, helpless and full of grace.
To entrust this Child to our arms, to us just as we are, is an exceedingly great and wonderful reward. She is the official Christ-bearer. Through our consecration she wants to see us in a very definite way at her side. We should become like her, the great Mary, the great Christ-bearer. It is as though our Lady is calling out to us today:
See in my Child all that you have heard about true and genuine leadership! If you want to become the leaders of the Family, you must take on the features of the great Leader, you must become inwardly and outwardly like the Leader of the world. He should go before you. You should increasingly bring out his features in yourselves.
So today the Blessed Mother give us her Child so that we can look at him and increasingly become like him, so that through giving ourselves to Christ, the King, we ourselves may increasingly grow into our leadership tasks. "Christ – Lord of the new era!" These are the words our Lady wants to call out to us. You give yourselves to him. As a result you share in his task for our times: Christ should be the Lord of the new era in the whole world.”
(From: Christ my Life, P.127)
Your shrine is our Bethlehem, pleasing to God through its sunrise.
There you gave virginal birth to the Lord who chose you as his Bride and Mother.
In your miraculous fruitfulness you brought forth the Sun of Righteousness.
You have graciously established Schoenstatt so that our times can see the Eternal Light.
From there you want to go through our dark world as the Christ-bearer sent by God.
Jubilantly place the Lord into my soul anew, so that, like you, I may perfectly resemble him.
Let me be a Christ-bearer for our times, that they may shine in the brightest radiance of the sun.
Glory be joyfully given to the Father through Christ with Mary, highly praised, in the Holy Spirit full of splendour from the universe now and in all eternity. Amen(From ‘Heavenward’, Lauds)
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.
As this is our last newsletter for 2022, on behalf of the members of the NCC (National Central Committee) I thank you for your support of our Schoenstatt Family during this year and wish each of you and your families a very happy and joy-filled Christmas season, full of hope, light and God’s blessings. May the Blessed Mother and her Son, send you and your family rich blessings and graces from the Shrine, and continue to be with you in the coming year. United in our Covenant of Love
Shirley Hall
Filed underNewsletter · Reflections