works of mercy Category

PARAGUAY, Cristi Santa Cruz • I met Juanito when he first arrived at La Esperanza Educational Center (Youth Prison). He had just turned 15 and in between conversations he told me that he was not baptized. Talking a little more with him, I convinced him to begin the catechism classes for his baptism.  — With a very basic schooling, we started the catechesis, putting all the intelligence and the few pedagogical tools acquired, more by experience and intuition than by instruction, and we were learning who is God, his SonRead More
PARAGUAY, CMT educators: Lourdes, Victor, Magdalena, Rosi Minerva, Alicia and Ricardo Acosta • The coronavirus pandemic turned the life style of people around the world upside down and the House Mother of Tuparenda (CMT) was no exception, since it also had to stop its activities, with the great challenges that this implied in the process that we had been working with each participant. —     The life in confinement of the participants and their families, as for any person, needed a reinvention to face the consequences of the pandemic.Read More
CHILE,Fr. Francisco Pereira, Jorge Gómez Alemparte / María Fischer • The Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) joins the efforts and actions against all forms of violence against children. This is message was expressed on June 4th, the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression. “Our children need tenderness and protection at all times, for they are the hope of society, the Church and humanity”.  What does Schoenstatt do to protect children? The answer is not only education for children or schools and all kinds of strengthening of families, butRead More
COSTA RICA, Tatiana López •  March arrived, a month of great significance for Costa Rica. The 19th was awaited with great illusion, because the anniversary of the blessing of our Family of Hope Shrine would be celebrated. Everything was going relatively normally and the preparations for this great day continued. News arrived from the old world that Milan was suffering from the contagion of a virus that came from China, and at the same time they informed us that Madrid had its first victims.  These events seemed so far away.—Read More
SCHOENSTATT SOCIAL, Maria Fischer • “The visit to the Vatican continues to circulate”, writes Father Pedro Kühlcke. The visit to the Vatican: through Pamela Fabiano from the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Development, Father Pedro Kühlcke was invited to the International Congress of Catholic prison chaplains at the Vatican. During the concluding audience with the Pope he was able to present him with the book “Libertad en la cárcel”, Freedom in Prison, in which he describes his experiences with Father Kentenich’s pedagogy of working in prisons. The texts ofRead More
ARGENTINA, Mercedes Verón, Director of the Casa del Niño Padre José Kentenich  • La Casa del Niño (Children’s House), a private institution, is in Florencio Varela, Province of Buenos Aires and was created on June 16, 1985, in the year of Father Joseph Kentenich’s centennial, from whom it takes its name. With the support of the Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement, little by little, with much effort and with the unconditional generosity of many people, this little house was built, which at this time gives 340 children between the ages of 3Read More
PARAGUAY, HOUSE MOTHER OF TUPÃRENDA, Ani Souberlich • WhatsApp’s messages are pouring in. Twenty young people in quarantine, twenty young people recently released from the juvenile prison, where they were mostly for robberies done to calm their hunger, twenty young people who with great commitment and even greater hope began a path of human development and job training at the House Mother of Tuparenda (CMT – Casa Madre de Tuparenda), are hungry. Not only hunger for lack of food, but hunger for closeness, comfort, justice and peace. They calm theirRead More
Maria Ayuda
CHILE, Fr. Francisco Pereira, spiritual director of Maria Ayuda /mf • Every April 12th, Maria Ayuda celebrates its anniversary with a thanksgiving Mass open to the whole community. In the Eucharist, boys and girls, representing their houses, bring their offerings, symbols of the results of the past year, their achievements and difficulties, as well as those of the different instances of the institution.—   This anniversary, which fell on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection, caught us in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and, therefore, with restrictions on socialRead More
CHILE, vía mariaayuda.cl • “Entrelazadas” [Spanish for interconnected] is a project that brings together girls, teenagers, elderly women, and women from the Women’s Penitentiary. Once a month, the girls and teenagers from a Maria Ayuda Center visit the older women for group handcraft activities, as well as to chat and get to know their stories. Their crafts are then given to women who have been incarcerated, forming an unerasable bond among them. — The “Entrelazadas” project connects a group of elderly women from the Roses of Independence Foundation with girls and teenageRead More
PARAGUAY,  Cristy Santa Cruz • If December is a month of parties, farewells and other festivities…. unfortunately, sometimes we forget the deeper and original meaning of this feast.  And on the other hand, we also forget those who have no idea of what Christmas is.  It is the sixth year for those of us who make up the jail ministry “Mary’s visitation.”  We do remember the meaning of this feast and we remember, and we take care of those who many have forgotten.— “They are going to come to seeRead More