17 January 2023 · 2023-01 newsletter
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
I welcome you to our first Covenant Day of 2023 – the 18th January. I hope you all had a very happy and holy Christmas and a good and safe start to the New Year. As we begin this New Year I also pray that Our Blessed Mother will send you many blessings and graces from the shrine.
This month we not only want to remember and renew our Covenant of Love as one Australian Schoenstatt Family, we also want to reflect on Schoenstatt’s Second Milestone – the 20th January 1942. We look back with gratitude and remember the significance of this date which Father Kentenich often spoke of as “the axis of Schoenstatt’s history”.
We know that this was the day on which Fr. Kentenich decided not to use any natural means to avoid possible transportation to the concentration camp. He believed that his freedom would be secured if the Schoenstatt Family took seriously their commitment to the Blank Cheque and Inscriptio. He put his fate in the hands of his Schoenstatt Family.
The 20th January was for Fr. Kentenich the deepening of his Covenant of Love with our MTA, the deepening of the first milestone of 18th October 1914. The 20th January asks each of us to look at what the Covenant of Love means in my life and to decide what responsibility I take to continue the work of our Father even in the midst of difficulties and frustrating experiences.
Living the spirit of the 20th January means for us walking towards the darkness of obscurity, but with faith and trust in the Covenant of Love and the Providence of God. Father Kentenich called it, “standing in divine confidence”.
In speaking of the 20th January, Father Kentenich said:
“I have to go back again to the Covenant of Love. I personally believed unshakably in the Covenant of Love with our Blessed Mother. This is for me a reality, much more real than perhaps the book or the table. It is a tangible reality. You see, it (the Covenant of Love) must be taken seriously. I took the covenant seriously and the Blessed Mother also took it seriously. And what did she promise? (If we) surrender ourselves completely, then she will take care of the Work (Schoenstatt). Yes, and then I told myself; No, I do not want any more natural means; we have used enough natural means.”
(Fr. Kentenich, Talk to Families, 25th June 1955)
FOR REFLECTION:
- As we celebrate this Covenant Day and reflect on the importance of the 20th January 1942, Fr. Kentenich challenges us to raise our Covenant of Love to a higher degree of heroic love. How does my Covenant of Love challenge me each day to live in greater trust and confidence in the Blessed Mother?
- Through the 20th January 1942 Father Kentenich challenges us to continue the work of Schoenstatt with trust in our covenant and the loving providence of God. Do I believe that I have a mission for Schoenstatt? How do I live this mission in my daily life?
I wish you many blessings and graces on this Covenant Day and for the 20th January. I pray that Our Blessed Mother will be with us all as we continue to live our Schoenstatt mission in Covenant Loyalty as Australian Schoenstatt Family.
One Heart in the Father for the Family of God
Shirley Hall
Filed underNewsletter · Reflections