ARGENTINA, Inés Petiti • On January 31st, L.T.6 Radio Goya celebrated its 71st anniversary, and as every year, a Mass of thanksgiving was celebrated in which the missionaries of the Campaign were present with their banner. The Schoenstatt Pilgrim Mother Campaign has been present on this radio station for 20 years. — This FM radio is unique in the city and in the region, it is the link to the rural area, a radio that is supported and loved by the community. The Pilgrim Mother Campaign has its place on
Read More ARGENTINA, Fr. José María Iturrería • It is January 2024 and the Family Missions in Argentina have completed 25 years of existence. In 1999, a group of intrepid couples and young people from La Plata dared to travel to Paraguay to bring a missionary experience that today has expanded throughout the length and breadth of the country. — What began as a daring initiative and a trust-based challenge to the Blessed Mother has become an experience of family in faith that has transformed the lives of many people of all
Read More CHILE, Rafael Mascayano • In these days, the Region of Valparaiso, Chile, has suffered the dramatic situation of fires that have claimed the lives of more than 50 people, and the destruction of entire villages, houses and buildings. Numerous people have had to evacuate due to the danger of the fires affecting their homes and also compromised by the heat and smoke as a consequence of these events. — Unfortunately, the high temperatures caused by climate change are mixed with human intentionality in causing these fires. Given this reality, many
Read More Manuel de la Barreda, Spain • In several articles and comments that I have read for some time in this medium, I seem to glimpse a need for change, even a desire for change in our Family, in our Movement, although it is also true that this vision, this need that some of us see, is not shared by all. — It also seems that we need someone else to come to us with the given change, someone else to put the bell on the cat. As much as Schoenstatt
Read More Maria Fischer, Germany • Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27, 2024, a bright sunny winter day. As I drive to the nursing home, the home where my sister lives since some years, as I do every Saturday, I hear on the radio about the many demonstrations today against right-wing extremism, against xenophobia, against anti-Semitism, for an open, colorful, diverse democracy. And I regret that I didn’t take a few hours off work on January 22 to attend the demonstration in Bonn. Thousands were there. At the end we sang the Ode
Read More ORIGINAL SHRINE, Roberto M. González • Schoenstatt and the Church rejoice when a young layman decides to consecrate his life in the midst of the world, because today it is not easy to understand this decision and especially to take the risk of living as a Schoenstatt Brother of Mary. The Family of the Brothers of Mary, in a simple but touching ceremony, received a new novice into their community. — On January 20, 2024, Ignacio Suazo, a Chilean sociologist, was admitted to the Novitiate of the Secular Institute of
Read More BRAZIL, Cássio Leal • Last week I accompanied a group of pilgrims from the city of Várzea Paulista, in the interior of São Paulo, to the city of Salvador in Bahia. — It was a pilgrimage to several historic churches, many built by the Portuguese when Salvador was still the capital of Brazil and belonged to one of the many Portuguese colonies. Bahia was the cradle of Christian and Catholic evangelization in Brazil, the place where the Portuguese arrived with their caravels in 1500. Saint Dulce of the Poor This
Read More ARGENTINA, Gaby and Gastón Zurrita • On Wednesday and Thursday we shared with the Family Missions two days full of emotions in Maipú, a town that we have been missioning for 23 years. The reason for the visit: It was the 25th anniversary of the Family Missions in Argentina and we went there. — We do not want to share memories, but concrete experiences, encounters with people with material and spiritual needs and so many with illnesses. In each house that we visited, where the doors were opened, there the
Read More CHILE, Maria Fischer • “Today, while the bells were ringing at 12:00 noon in Bellavista, our dear Kiki Quiroz de Tagle departed to heaven. The mass will be tomorrow in Bellavista, her shrine, her home, her home, her mission”. On January 17, this news went around the world. Whoever wrote it managed to summarize the life of our dear Kiki Tagle, of the first group of the Family Federation in Chile, in a few words. The Bellavista Shrine was her shrine, her home, her home, her mission…and beyond, as the
Read More PORTUGAL, Ângela Roque and Paulo Rocha, Agencia Ecclesia • The 2024 edition of ‘Misión País’, promoted by Catholic university students, will take place in about 70 Portuguese locations, with more than 4,000 participants, open to “everyone”, as in the recent WYD, said Pedro Rodrigues, one of the national leaders. — “What we experienced this week doesn’t have to be just this week, just as what we experienced at WYD doesn’t have to be just that week. It is about taking what we have learned, what we have experienced and taking
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