18 October 2026 · 2026-10 newsletter
United in the Covenant
Pilgrims of Hope
Dear Schoenstatt Family and Friends,
Blessings and greetings for this Covenant Day – 18th October, a day when we remember and celebrate the founding of Schoenstatt. This has indeed been a year of celebrations. The Schoenstatt Sisters commemorated the founding of their community on 1st October, with the official international celebration in Schoenstatt on 3rd October.
Here in NSW, we celebrated the sister’s jubilee centenary on 13th September, and it was a wonderful celebration of the sisters and all they have contributed to Schoenstatt in Australia since 1951.
The Sisters in W.A. will celebrate their Centenary Jubilee on 22nd November at their shrine and we wish them many blessings and graces for this special day.
While this has been a year of celebrations for the sisters, we as a Schoenstatt Family have joined in celebrating with them. We have commemorated the 75 years since the sisters arrived in Australia and 60 years since the founding of the Schoenstatt mission here in NSW. This has been for the sisters, a year of remembrance, gratitude and reorientation to how God wants to lead them in the coming hundred years. As a Schoenstatt Family we need to support our sisters and consider what we can do to help them in our shared Schoenstatt mission.
And now, on 18th October, we remember and celebrate the foundation of Schoenstatt on 18th October 1914. We pray that Our Blessed Mother will send us all many blessings and graces from her Schoenstatt Shrines, and in particular, from the original shrine in Schoenstatt, Germany.
Father Kentenich often said, “No one will be lost who is loyal to his Covenant of Love” and he also said, “If you look for me you will find me in the Shrine.”
This year, part of our National Motto has been: “United in the Covenant”. What unites us as a Schoenstatt family- no matter where we come from – our cultural differences, the different ways we express and live our faith? It is our Covenant of Love with our Blessed Mother in the shrine. The Covenant of Love shapes Schoenstatt in many ways. It puts a strong emphasis on being a family of Mary around the Shrine. It forms our spirituality and pedagogy, resulting in a covenant centred approach to faith, hope and love, and to education.
What makes us a family – what is the essence of this Schoenstatt family? In the prayer that Fr. Jonathan Niehaus prepared for our Australian National Conference in 2011, he summarized what being part of the Schoenstatt Family meant for him. The prayer reads:
We are a Family of Mary with our
helplessness and limitations.
We are a family of Mary with our abilities
and possibilities.
We are a family of Mary with our diversity
of backgrounds and longings.
We are a family of Mary with our mission –
great and small, with the shrine as our
home-fire and our lighthouse.
We are a family of Mary with one another
and with all our hearts.
We are a family of Mary.
May we continue to share in the richness of our covenant, as a Covenant Family, united in our Blessed Mother, with our Father and Founder, and with each other.
“The idea of the covenant has grown so deeply into our conscious awareness and our feeling for life that we may unhesitatingly call it our fundamental form, our fundamental meaning, our fundamental strength or force, and our fundamental norm.” (JK)
Many Covenant blessings as we celebrate, as a family, the Foundation Day of Schoenstatt.
United in our Covenant,
Shirley Hall
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