ARGENTINA, Pepe and Cecilia Sanguinetti, Family Institute •
After several months of work and a family mission, we departed from Salta to Jujuy. Destination: the Diocesan Assembly. It has been held for thirty-four years with some 3,000 people participating.
The topic: the Family. The Motto: “Let’s Celebrate the Family: A Gift from God.” For the first time in its history, a couple led the Assembly, and it happened that we were invited to take charge. Cecelia had presented a philosophical reflection on Amoris Laetitia to all the clergy from Jujuy several months ago, and to her credit, we ended by working at the same table with the bishop and his collaborators.
We decided to get out of the traditional formula of the “brief talk – 3 questions – conclusion” and we thought about the Assembly as a key to mission. What would happen, if instead of us leading alone, having thirty families work that whole day? The words of the Holy Father inviting us to a “Body to body” ministry resounded. The preparation work for the Synod that we held in our diocese along with the bishop several years ago, resounded. The mission of Schoenstatt of our community resounded.
That is how we found twelve generous families with a certain “madness” and “imprudence;” we organized ourselves and prepared the task. We presented our project, and we got our modality approved. It was not only the first time that a couple led the Assembly, however it was the first time that they would work coordinating other couples, everyone in the same space, and showing the results of the work in real time.
That the Church “open the field” to couples so that they talk about the subject of Family is innovative to say the least, and during the last three years, the Diocese of Jujuy’s theme was also the topic of the Family.
Encounter. Joy. Shared faith.
As we told Bishop Fernández, (Bishop of Jujuy) at the last preparatory meeting: “Bishop, we are making history with this” – we said – “It will turn out either very well or it will turn out bad; there are no compromises.”
4 March arrived and along with the Christian Family Movement’s ten families who joined the mission, the team was complete. We had never spoken before so many people. They arrived in droves, and the gymnasium was filled, the chairs, bleachers, halls, every corner… there were approximately 3,000 people!
The Diocese of Jujuy has 700,000 residents, according to official statistics, forty percent of them live in poverty. The reality of Jujuy was represented there in folks from all circumstances: families, women, youths, children, priests and religious. A family celebration, music, dances and prayer. Encounter, Joy, Shared faith.
The Family Altar
The proposal was simple: during the morning, we worked on values common to all families and lifestyle proper for a Catholic family. Two brief introductory talks about the subject, then the moderators worked with almost 100 people on site extracting the main values that could not be absent in any family (of any kind) through the presentation of a case. The results were shown live in the following presentation. There was a great richness in those two periods of community work; how did our monitoring couples manage such a multitude? …only the Holy Spirit can give that answer. We definitely did not. Before beginning to work, Pepe gave an example on how Christ in the Sermon on the Mount managed through transmitters who repeated what he was saying to the multitudes… something like this happened in the Assembly.
In the afternoon, we presented the Family Altars project (adapted from the original one developed in Mexico) to those interested in the Family Ministry. In two and a half hours, 250 people were trained to present the six corresponding talks with a dynamic of “skill stations.” Thus the seed of the Home Shrine entered in the form of a Family Altar. People were touched and grateful that they could carry out this project with their neighbors and in parishes. The purest form of Schoenstatt reaching out was genuinely shown there.
And in the midst, life: stories of difficult lives, that wound the heart, and enthusiastic people, grateful and motivated to see the family as a celebration and gift from God.
Therefore we went to the encounter – families for families, taking witness of values, of life, of Nazareth as an ideal and lifestyle for every family, with its weaknesses, with its history, with its strengths, and with its dreams.
Nazareth, heart of the world.
Original: Spanish. Translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, TX USA. Edited: Melissa Peña-Janknegt, Elgin, TX USA
