ARGENTINA, P. Javier Arteaga. A month ago we were celebrating the centenary of the Covenant of Love and the founding of Schoenstatt. We did it with great joy in each of our diocesan communities in Argentina: we celebrated at Shrines, wayside shrines, cathedrals and parishes. We celebrated and gave thanks because 100 years ago God wanted to manifest once again in our history, opening a new source of grace for our time at the Schoenstatt Shrine.We celebrated and gave thanks for 100 years of the Schoenstatt Movement, a spiritual path in Church where the Blessed Virgin has given renewal in the Christian faith and love of thousands and thousands of people.
In Schoenstatt, Germany it was also celebrated, where pilgrims from over sixty countries participated from Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. One of the most exciting moments was seeing the Blessed Mother (whose picture had been taken out of the Original Shrine in procession) passing between her children as we were singing and waving flags, and then, she was placed back in the Shrine. Mary, who once hurried out to greet her cousin Elizabeth to help her, this October 18, she left the Shrine to meet her children and give us the grace of her Son Jesus, our Lord. Amid the deep silence, each person and everyonegathered together renewed their Covenant of Love with Mary. She touched the very soul! A couple from Resistencia, Chaco, told me that they were moved to hear the consecration to the MTA prayed in many different languages and all were united in one spirit, one family.
Culture of the encounter is culture of the covenant. And that creates solidarity
The pilgrimage continued to Rome, where on October 25th, we met the Pope Francis. Paul VI’s Hall was packed.The immense joy of the encounter of the International Schoenstatt Family with the Pope was framed in a kind of question/answer dialogue format in five themed areas: family, youth, social engagement, pedagogy and the Church. He finally left us with this message:
“Culture of the encounter is culture of the covenant.. And that creates solidarity. Ecclesial solidarity. And covenant means solidarity. It means the creation of attachments, no destruction of attachments. (…) And this is what I wish you. That in this world of misunderstandings, defamation, slander, destructions with the tongue, you carry out the culture of encounter renewing the covenant. Of course, no one can be educated alone. Need to be educated by the Mother. So I commend you all to the Mother keep on walking your path forward in renewing the covenant. Thank you”.
(Read the full text in
https://www.schoenstatt.org/en/news/2215/261/A-culture-of-encounter-is-a-covenant-culture-that-creates-solidarity.htm)
Everything in Schoenstatt is the result of Mary’s Covenant
Everything in Schoenstatt is the result of Mary’s Covenant: by this Covenant the Movement was born 100 years ago, by this Covenant the Founder Father gave his life over and over again, by this Covenant with Mary a way to live and continue in Christ has enabled us to be Christians in the world, a Covenant culture.
But in our times the culture is different, the way of life and “trends” are different. It is not difficult to see that we are a very divided and polarized society: it costs us much to seek ways of encounter. We are an individualistic society: it costs us to dialogue, to agree and to join together. Individual interest always prevails over the common good. We are a society of increasingly isolated people; nevertheless we have more media. We are an increasingly aggressive and violent society corroded by corruption and impunity, which generates more poverty and hunger, more misery and exclusion, more violence and death.
To go out and share, is Pope Francis’ great missionary call
In view of this situation, as the Schoenstatt Movement, we believe that we have much to offer and to help. Mary – as the Pope Francis says – drives us today to go out and share what she has given us– the Covenant of Love. This Covenant of Love is not “for us” but is a good of the whole Church, for all men and women child of God. So the motto of 2015, which we arrived in the delegates convention is:
IN COVENANT, GO OUT TO THE ENCOUNTER!
We have received the gift of living in the Covenant of Love with God and with Mary. A gift to give away! So we want to reach out to the brother/sister: to go out and share, is Pope Francis’ great missionary call; go out and give away what we have – the Covenant – go with an open heart to give and to receive from the brother. To go out makes us humble, and it makes us brothers and sisters; to go out moves us out of ourselves, it pulls us out of a self-centered focus. To go out renews us, and it heals us. It is in this Covenant way of life with Mary and in the way out towards a brother/sister that we encounter Christ our Savior who awaits us there.
But getting out, meeting and sharing, is not always easy, comfortable or safe. So the Pope Francis challenges us with love: “I prefer an accident-ridden Church to a sick Church” (Vigil of Pentecost 2013).
In Covenant, go out, meet, share. Nobody is so poor as to not have anything to share with others, or so rich they need nothing from anyone. This is the key to the second century of Schoenstatt that has just begun and for this time of the Church.
To serve
Dear friends, I finally want to share with you a new gift that the Lord has given us in this Jubilee year: His Holiness, Pope Francis, appointed Fr. Francisco Pistilli – regional superior of the Schoenstatt Fathers of the Father Region. (Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Italy, Nigeria) –as Bishop of the Diocese of Encarnación, Paraguay, whose Episcopal ordination will be on December 20, 2014 With joy and gratitude we pray for Father Francis, who in Covenant goes out to continue serving Church as a Father and Pastor.
Let us thank the Lord and the Virgin for the many gifts we have received by offering our renewed commitment to get out and enlighten our society with the light of the Covenant of Love.
Happy Covenant Day and blessed month of Mary!
From the Shrine I send you a cordial greeting and blessing,
