CHILE, Sr. M. Ivonne Latsague V.•
Beneath a sky with sunny clouds and occasional drizzle singing “Mary is passing through here…” the missionaries arrived at the Ayinrehue Shrine in Temuco on pilgrimage from Valdivia, Vilcún, Cunco, Puerto Saavedra, Labranza, Angol, Victoria, Los Sauces, Padre Las Casas, Pillanlelbún, Carahue and other communities. They came for a regional gathering of the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign.
The Mother and Queen of Schoenstatt, the Great Missionary had convoked them to make a stop on the road, to gather the experiences of so many years of mission, to review their apostolic commitment, and to renew themselves in training as missionaries to better respond to the pastoral needs that the Church of today presents, and to be better prepared to be a part of a Schoenstatt reaching out that wants to take the covenant of love to everyone without distinction.
For this purpose, it is urgent that we renew ourselves personally, to resume the mission with the same zeal that we began with several years ago, to pass it on to those who follow us, even if we no longer have the strength or health. We know that being in charge of a Pilgrim Mother does not end, instead it is transformed. Because what would everything be without the capital of grace? Those missionaries who gave everything to the Campaign for more than twenty or thirty years know, like Joao, of the sorrows and joys, successes and failures, rains, winds and the sun on their pilgrimages. Now before the Great Missionary, they are the great guarantors for the new generations. Who, like the first ones, should soak in the identity of the Campaign, unite to its origins and transmit Joao’s inheritance and testimony.
Every Pilgrim Mother received a tri-color ribbon with the inscription: “Behold your Mother,” as a visible symbol of Mary’s great protection during the fires and floods that our homeland suffered at the beginning of the year. We ended a blessed gathering with the Eucharist; Fr. Francisco García Huidobro celebrated and there was a renewal of the missionary sending forth in the shrine.
Source: Revista Vinculo, May 2017
Original: Spanish. 5 June 2017. Translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, TX USA. Edited: Melissa Peña-Janknegt, Elgin, TX USA
