16 September 2024 · 2024-09 newsletter
On 4th October 1918 Joseph Engling died on the battlefield near Cambrai, France. His death, coupled with the total offering of his life on 31st May 1918 for our Mother Thrice Admirable and for her mission, gave the Schoenstatt Movement its first outstanding witness of our Schoenstatt mission. We can learn much from the short life of Joseph and the seriousness with which he accepted the mission he had been given.
The axis of his life was a living faithfulness to the Mother Thrice Admirable in her shrine and to the founder. In the relationship of Joseph to his spiritual father it was evident that one could only enter wholly into Schoenstatt, in the way God had designed, by being united with the founder. The offer of the sacrifice of his life to Our Lady, was offered expressly for the Movement founded by his spiritual father.
Joseph Engling had entered deeply into the covenant of love with Our Lady. He had lived the covenant to such a degree that he became, in Father Kentenich’s words, “the classic example of the new person in the new community” whom Schoenstatt wanted to fashion. The offering of his life to the Mother Thrice Admirable, has since become known as “The Joseph Engling Act” and God accepted this sacrifice of his life on the evening of 4th October 1918.
The prayer in which Joseph had offered his life to the Mother Thrice Admirable for the work of his spiritual father, (Fr. Kentenich) read:
“I give myself to you anew as your sacrifice. I offer you everything I am and have, my body and my soul with all its abilities, all my possessions and goods, my freedom, my will. I want to be totally yours. I am yours. Use me and whatever is mine entirely as pleases you. But if it can be reconciled with your plans, let me be a sacrifice for the aims which you have assigned to our sodality. In humility, your unworthy servant, Joseph Engling’
In Joseph Engling we have a worthy witness of one who lived his Schoenstatt mission through his deep devotion to our Mother Thrice Admirable, who continually offered his contributions to the Capital of Grace so that Schoenstatt would flourish, and the founder’s mission would be fulfilled through his Schoenstatt Family.
Filed underNewsletter · Reflections