Living the Spirit of the 20th January

Living the Spirit of the 20th January

18 January 2021 · 2021-01 newsletter

Living the spirit of the 20th January 1942 means walking towards the darkness of obscurity, but with faith in the Covenant of Love and the loving Providence of God.

The 20th January 1942 was the day that Fr. Kentenich, a prisoner of the Nazis in the Gestapo prison in Koblenz, Germany, freely chose not to use a legitimate opportunity to avoid transport to the concentration camp. That opportunity (arranged with great difficulty by his followers) was to request a re-examination of his health. A doctor had been arranged who knew that Fr. Kentenich lacked the use of one lung, meaning he could be easily declared “unfit for the camp.”

The cut off time for Father Kentenich to request a re-examination by the doctor was needed by 5pm on 20th January. The letters and notes of 20th January testify to how hard and uncompromisingly Father Kentenich wrestled with himself to arrive at a decision. He admitted that these were difficult days and hours and it was not easy for him to battle through to his decision. He knew that to go to Dachau could mean going to certain death and separating himself from the whole Family. Father Kentenich was given no inner clarity on what God wanted of him, and the decision he had to make was a momentous one. Should he take the step that led to the concentration camp? Was he allowed to jeopardize his whole work and the Family? And if the separation was forever through his death – was he allowed, in view of this possibility, to take this step of his own accord? Was that really God’s will?

“My restlessness over this matter gave me no peace,” he related some years later. “Those were a few terribly hard days. Inwardly I battled and prayed.

“The decisive question was: What did God want? I had no vision, no dream, nor even a special enlightenment. All that was left to me in this battle was simple faith in Divine Providence.”

He spent the night between the 19th and 20th January in prayer struggling inwardly to recognise God’s will. He admitted that during this time he did not close his eyes. On the 20th, during Holy Mass, he received an answer. He felt inwardly certain about what he should do. He concluded that God’s will for him and Schoenstatt was to turn down the offer and freely embrace the concentration camp. He wanted to use no human means for his liberation, but only the Schoenstatt Family’s self-surrender to God through the heroic striving to live the Inscriptio.

It was in this spirit that he wrote a few lines to Fr. Menningen, his faithful follower: “Please understand this answer through faith in the reality of supernature and the interweaving of the destinies of the members of the family.”

At first the Family did not understand his decision. All begged him to make use of the opportunity that had been offered and fill in the application. But Father Kentenich had come to a decision. He never departed from what he had recognised as God’s will.

“I know what is at stake, and I think of the Family, the Work…But this is precisely the reason why I must act this way.”

The final time of 5pm passed. Father Kentenich did not use the application form. He did not report sick. Finally on the morning of 11th March, Father Kentenich and other prisoners were taken to Koblenz station and put on a train. On 13th March, 1942, the train carrying Father Kentenich and the other prisoners, arrived in the concentration camp of Dachau.

Father Kentenich’s heroic decision to freely choose not to use this legitimate opportunity to avoid transport to the concentration camp had a deep impact on Schoenstatt and its spirituality. It was for Father Kentenich a deepening of his Covenant of Love with our MTA, the deepening of the first milestone of 18th October 1914. It raised this Covenant of Love to a new and decisive level of heroic maturity expressed in the Blank Check (total conformity to God’s will) and Inscriptio (love of the cross). Because January 20th was not a hidden act, but one that placed the whole Movement in a life-and-death situation, it also placed this level of covenant heroism at the centre of the Family’s awareness.

Fr. Kentenich characterized the inner meaning of January 20 as “standing in divine confidence” or an act of heroic hope or trust. He spent much of the rest of his life actively challenging the members and communities of his movement to “get up onto the stage of January 20” and make this milestone their own so as to reach the interior freedom so needed for our times.

The profound effect of this milestone can be seen in Fr. Kentenich’s characterization of January 20 as “the axis of the entire history of the family.” The importance of inner freedom, total self-giving and radical trust in God, always important to Schoenstatt, were now sealed in a way that made them inseparable from Schoenstatt’s identity. The role of Fr. Kentenich also began a new phase of development: whereas he was previously more in the background of the public awareness of the movement, he was now thrust more into the foreground because of a heightened public appreciation for his role as founder. Moreover, January 20 marked a new stage of growth for Schoenstatt’s experience as a family. The realization of the “interwovenness of fates” of founder and followers enhanced the sense of belonging together.

(Includes extracts from: “A Father to Many”, Fr. Esteban Uriburu)

Some questions for Personal Reflection:

Father, our heart in your heart, our thinking in your thinking, our hand in your hand, our life in your life!
Father, we go with you – we stay true to you.
Your Mission is our Mission.
Loyalty for loyalty. Heroic loyalty for heroic loyalty.

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