20 June 2022 · 2022-06 newsletter
“The God of life wants to communicate with man through life. A key moment is the conviction of being able to discover God’s footsteps everywhere: what is within us interiorly, in encounters with other people, with creation, in the small and great events of history, in the scientific and technical processes.” (Hubertus Bransen: ‘Search for Footsteps’ – schoenstatt.org)
The image of God’s footsteps also conjures up memories of Adam and Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3:8) where upon hearing them, it caused them to hide. This idea of hiding is actually how most people treat God – the idea that God is playing a practical part in their lives does not seem feasible to them and so many times when God is trying to communicate they miss the point.
The gift of believing practically in God’s Providence is given to all the baptised because the universe is still in a “state of journeying” toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained” (CCC302). Yet many of us do not fully “trust in God’s care” or spend time in “constant dialogue with the God of life and history” and certainly many do not know “that we have to actively seek God’s will” (200 Questions: Q23).
Looking in to this further:
Trust in God’s Care:
For those who have a practical faith in Divine Providence they know that God is wise, powerful and loyal and has a plan of love for humanity and for each person within it.
Constant Dialogue with God:
Those who understand ‘practical’ faith, know, plan and form their real lives accordingly through the light of faith, the voices of the times, their soul and their being.
Actively seeking God’s Will:
Practical faith in Divine Providence leads them to actively seek the will of God in life and its events and with filial love respond to it. The trick is to continually seek this will and carry it out, believing that God has inspired the path and that way is the way to go.
Many of the Schoenstatt persons we have come across in the Camino Novena show exemplary understanding of belief in this practical faith. All the founding Sisters travelled from Germany to Australia believing in God’s and Mary’s plans for a Shrine in our country. Fr. Boes and Fr. Evans saw the Schoenstatt path as the only way for them to be truly able to fulfil their practical belief in Divine Providence.
Fr. Kentenich, the founding Sisters and priests have walked many miles in their lives listening for ‘God’s Footsteps’. Can you think of any time in your life where ‘God’s footsteps’ were heard in your life and pointed you to a belief in Divine Providence? Did your heart beat faster as your heart perceived His Will? Did the beating faster heart come because like Adam and Eve you perceived you might not be in a good place or you were ashamed to own up to God? Then there’s the times when beauty or some good deed gives the heart the immediate connection to God because of your practical faith. Only today as I write, an 89yr old friend told me “he knew what I was doing at ‘a minute after 10pm’ tomorrow!” When I looked at him very puzzled, he said, “13 years ago at that time you brought communion to Margaret in Palliative Care at Calvary”. That statement for me was a ‘Wow moment’ one that ties together ‘God’s footsteps’, practical faith in Divine Providence on two occasions 13 years apart and a fast beating heart in the present moment as well as goose bumps and humility.
The ‘voice of God’ is like the blades of the windmill that receive the wind and transform it into energy. That is what we discover in our own hearts and our surroundings as signs of the time that appeal to us and at the same time give us the strength and energy to respond to it in our lives. (Fr. Guillermo Camona, ‘What is Schoenstatt?’ Fr. Rafael Fernadez, ‘150 questions about Schoenstatt’ and Hubertus Brantzen: ‘Search for Footsteps’: schoenstatt.org).
As we move through life may more people through our understanding of Schoenstatt, become aware that they themselves like the universe are in a “state of journeying toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained” (CCC302), because they are hearing God’s footsteps and discovering a better understanding of “Practical Faith in God’s Divine Providence” in their lives..
Angela
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