17 July 2024 · 2024-07 newsletter
Walking Together, Loving the Church
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
We are now well into the winter season, and I send you warm greetings and blessings from the Shrine for this July Covenant Day. In our newsletter last month, we looked at Mary’s relationship to Christ and how, if we give ourselves completely to the Mother of God, she leads us to her Son, and through Christ, to the Holy Spirit and the Heavenly Father – to the Triune God.
In Schoenstatt, we believe that the place where we find Mary is in the Shrine. Our Shrine is for us a place of grace where we come to find Our Blessed Mother, together with the Triune God. It is a place which offers us peace, a home and many blessings. It is also a place from which Our Blessed Mother educates us. But of course, all this isn’t possible without the contributions we make to the Capital of Grace and offer to Our Blessed Mother in the Shrine… “Nothing without you, nothing without us”. We hear the words of Father Kentenich:
“A very simple but beautiful thought which we must never forget is that we not only see the position of the Blessed Mother within the entire plan of salvation; no, but we also see her and her mission in a special way – we may surely put it like this – as bound up with our shrine. From there, from this little spot, she wants to fulfil her mission through us, her small instruments; she wants to bring about a renewal of the newest times and to imprint the features of Christ as perfectly as possible upon them. Our shrine has such a mission, such a task, such a central task for the formation of the newest times, for the formation of the new time into Christ, for the formation of a new world.”
(J. Kentenich Retreat for Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary, March 9-14, 1966)
When we renew the covenant we made with our Blessed Mother, with our father and with one another we do so asking for the graces we need to continue the mission which Father Kentenich was given for Schoenstatt and for the Church.
On this covenant day, my prayer is that Our Blessed Mother may continue to guide us so that we can continue the mission which was given to our Father and founder, so that Schoenstatt may be a blessing for the Church and society.
In covenant loyalty, may we as Australian Schoenstatt Family, continue …
Walking Together, Loving the Church
Father, I may awake with new strength to rekindle my love.
Let me joyfully greet you together with all your Schoenstatt.
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.
We kneel in the Holy Spirit and sing jubilant hymns to Christ, who sends us with her as instruments to change the destiny of nations.
(Father Kentenich, Opening lines of the morning consecration in Heavenwards)
Shirley Hall
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