18 September 2026 · 2026-09 newsletter
United in the Covenant
Pilgrims of Hope
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
Greetings on this September Covenant Day. This month we conclude the Novena we have been praying for vocations to the Sisters Community world-wide, but especially in Australia and the Philippines. We are offering this novena as a gift of appreciation for all that the sisters have done and continue to do for our Schoenstatt Family here in Australia and the Philippines.
For the past eight months, and again this month, we shared some of the events that have marked the sister’s presence here in Australia and the Philippines during the past 75 years. Each month we have looked at a characteristic of the sisters that has inspired them in their Schoenstatt apostolate.
This month we are looking to the future and while we don’t know what God has in store for our Schoenstatt Family, we do know that the future is in the Father’s hands. In the spirit of Inscriptio, we do know that if we hand the unknown future over to our loving Father God then we have nothing to fear.
On 7 September 1968, a week before he died, Father Kentenich wrote a message to the members of the Schoenstatt Family who were taking part in the 82nd German Katholikentag in Essen.
His message ended with an analysis of the activity of the Blessed Mother in Schoenstatt’s history, which justified the motto he gave to the Schoenstatters in Essen:
With hope and joy, confident in the victory, we go with Mary into the new era.
He wrote in part: “We wanted to surrender ourselves completely to Mary and allow her to educate us. And she, the great educator of the people and of peoples, accepted the obligation to draw us to herself from her shrines in order to educate us to become useful instruments in her hands for the Marian formation of the coming world into Christ to the glory of the Father.
We know how both partners carried out their task. All of us have experienced it for ourselves to a greater or lesser degree. She has shown that she is not only the masterly educator of the elite and the masses from her shrine; as the great Missionary she has not only worked continuous miracles of helping people to find a spiritual home, transformation and fruitfulness; she has also proved on a small scale in the many and varied formations of our Family, that she is the brilliant reformer of human society, and the one who crushes the serpent in the battle for Christ and against all diabolical powers. It is not without reason that she is praised as the terribilis acies bene ordinata – a terrible army in battle order. Our morning prayer in “Heavenwards” leads us to give thank with all our hearts for this, when we pray:
We give you thanks for all the gifts we have received in such abundance:
for choosing Schoenstatt as the place of Christ’s rebirth
and the place where you radiate into the world
the glories of our Mother,
so that streams of love may pour forth to warm cold hearts.
……..We also want to repeat in spirit what the first members of the Family at that time promised on oath on their banner as an expression of their consecration, or covenant of love, with the words, “This is the banner I have chosen, I will not abandon it, I swear it to God!” We hope that like them we will be allowed to hear the answer of our covenant partner: This is the instrument I have chosen, I will not abandon it, I swear it to God! This oath applies to the whole Family; it also applies to each individual member. Let us go out with this attitude into the dark future. We do so with the motto,
“With hope and joy, confident in the victory, we go with Mary into the new era!”
To the extent that we are on fire for it, we will not be able to rest until all whom we love at home and abroad have adopted the same motto. All will then be able to repeat with us: I firmly believe that no one will be lost who remains faithful to the covenant of love!
(From: Kentenich Reader 1, P284-286
As we conclude our Novena for vocations to the world-wide sisters community this month, hopefully we can take to heart these words from Father. We hand the future of our Schoenstatt Family here in Australia and the Philippines over to our Blessed Mother, to our father and founder Fr. Kentenich and to our Heavenly Father God, trusting that they always know what is for the best.
It is in this Inscriptio Spirit that we can now share in the message that Father Kentenich gave to the people in Essen:
We now want to look to the future. We don’t know what God has in store for our Schoenstatt Family, but we do know that if we hand the unknown future to our loving Father God then we have nothing to fear.
Love for Love, Adsum
United in our Covenant, we look with confidence to the future, knowing that in our Shrine we have a loving Mother, our father and founder always with us and our Heavenly Father carrying us in his loving hands.
Covenant blessings to all,
Shirley Hall
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