18 July 2023 · 2023-07 newsletter
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
I wish you many blessings on this July Covenant Day. As you know, our national motto for this year focuses on aspects of our father’s life that can be seen as a letter of recommendation from God to us. We know that for our father, two important aspects of his life and mission were to share with others his great love for Our Blessed Mother and his strong belief in Divine Providence.
The following is a glowing testimony to Father Kentenich’s great trust in the power of the Blessed Mother to always lead her Schoenstatt Family in all situations. These words were spoken at the end of the 1951 October Conference. Father Kentenich knew at this time that he would be leaving Germany only three days later for Switzerland and then Rome, where the decision would be made that he would spend the coming years in Milwaukee. Aware of the gravity of the moment, Father Kentenich spoke these words of faith and trust and encouragement in this "swan song" leading into uncertain times.
“Truly, the Blessed Mother has always remained faithful to our Family. Over the years she has proven herself unshakable in her loyalty to the covenant of love which she sealed in 1914 with this simple piece of land (the Original Shrine) and with the persons who were present here as our representatives. It is only in this way that we can explain how this unassuming place and these unassuming instruments who represented us all could become such a great and worldwide work.
How often have we recalled the insignificance and inadequacy of the instruments! We are these instruments. We are proud of our smallness, our insignificance. It serves to make the fame of Our Lady shine into the world of today even more brightly and gloriously through our work. ……
How often have we used the image of little David and the giant Goliath. The sling which we take into our hand and have taken into our hand so often in the past, is on the one hand the acknowledgement of our powerlessness and on the other hand the proclamation of our boundless trust in the power, greatness, and kindness of the Blessed among women. From the beginning it has been my personal approach, an approach which has proven itself in every situation, that the greater the battles became, the more naively and unaffectedly I proclaimed the Blessed Mother out of my deep faith in the genuineness, the power, and the fruitfulness of our mutual covenant of love. Loyalty for loyalty! ….We acknowledge once more how helpless we are as a family against the powerful foes. But then a great, genuine, warm emotion pours forth from our souls: Clarifica te! Glorify yourself, yes, glorify yourself, Mother Thrice Admirable and Queen of Schoenstatt, glorify yourself in your work!
From all eternity—so we believe—Divine Providence has planned that Schoenstatt become a monument of your might, your kindness, and your wisdom. This is the only way we can explain the previous growth of our family, the only way we can explain the family itself, the only way we can explain the individual history of our own souls, the history of each of the secular institutes—out of the conviction that in all of this the Blessed Mother wishes to erect for herself a monument, an unprecedented monument of her might, her kindness, and her wisdom, so that she can thus shine forth on the horizon of our day and age.
"Do not worry about the fulfillment of your desire! Ego diligentes me diligo! I love those who love me!4" That is what Our Lady says to us in the Founding Document…
Ego diligentes me perfecte diligo! I love those who love me perfectly!
How did Vincent Pallotti put it? How do we put it? We may be outdone in everything else, but there is one point in which we refuse to be outdone—in love, in gratitude, in total surrender to our Mother Thrice Admirable and Queen of Schoenstatt! No one may outdo us in our instrumentality, our all-embracing character as her instruments!
Fr. J. Kentenich “Schoenstatt’s Instrument Spirituality” 19 October, 1951 (Extracts from P.195-201)
May our Mother Thrice Admirable be with each of us today and throughout this coming month. May we have the courage to live in Covenant loyalty with Our Blessed Mother, so that Schoenstatt may continue to grow and flourish here in Australia.
United in Covenant loyalty,
Shirley Hall
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