Covenant Solidarity in Times of Coronavirus Category

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
MEXICO, María Esther Aragón • The situation we are going through today, is truly transcendental and has made us question many things and situations in our lives, but the flag with which we all march on this road, all of us who are Schoenstatters, is the Blessed Mother, our Thrice Admirable, Queen and Victress of Schoenstatt. Why? Well, because she is the center, the queen, our way to God, to sanctity.  It is a charisma that must be lived to understand it.— Our course decided to prepare and join theRead 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
PARAGUAY, Maria Fischer • “Trade in Ciudad del Este is one of the areas most affected by the Covid-19 quarantine. Despite its difficult situation, however, the merchants began a huge solidarity crusade, delivering thousands of kilos of food and hospital supplies”. This is how an article in the newspaper ACBC Color de Paraguay begins, on April 12, Resurrection Sunday. And it is truly an article worthy of this day, since it speaks of what is most typical and at the same time most challenging for those who believe in theRead More
CHILE, Pablo Gaete Martínez, Ñuble Region • It has been a couple of years (twelve to be exact) since I wrote for the Family International, but perhaps this historical moment that we are living as humanity made me reconsider the idea of writing an article. The contexts in which the coronavirus has changed our lives and even our way of living and being a community, of living our Covenant; in summary: the way of being family and family life in Schoenstatt. The Shrine to which I belong is called MonteRead More
JOSEPH KENTENICH, Sr. M. Elinor Grimm/mf • So many things that had been planned and prepared with love and dedication are cancelled during these weeks. Sporting events, concerts, congresses, fairs, anniversaries, travel. Processions and stations of the cross, dozens of missions for hundreds of youth, 500 years of the first Holy Mass in Argentina. And also the celebration of 75 years of the release of Father Kentenich from the Dachau concentration camp. We stay at home because we take care of each other, and relieve doctors, nurses, and all thoseRead More
EASTER 2020 in the time of the coronavirus, Maria Fischer • A recycled Easter candle from last year, in my home shrine; an LED flame candle with an Easter cross attached (for the first time in my long life, it’s acceptable) for a relative in a nursing home that I haven’t been able to visit for weeks. A bottle of holy water found in some corner of the house. And the most important thing on this Easter night of 2020: a candle in the window of my apartment, to beRead More
SPAIN, Paz Leiva • This confinement thing is getting long. Even with so much time on our hands, we’re busy all day. — Yesterday was Holy Thursday. In the middle of the afternoon, a WhatsApp made me fix my eyes on my mobile: it’s Tita, from Vienna, I’m going to answer. “I’ll be with you in a while.” It took me half an hour to get to my friend. Tita was “struggling” with a text from Father Busse. A profound text, full of humanity, like Father Busse, joyful, full ofRead More
ARGENTINA,  Claudia Echenique • Today I want to tell you about the experience of Mirtha, a lady in her 70s, during this time of coronavirus quarantine. She lives alone in her apartment in Buenos Aires, since her family live in different cities in Argentina. — Mirtha loves Jesus Christ and loves “her” father Joseph Kentenich. She collaborates as a volunteer in Confidentia, the house of the Schoenstatt Movement downtown. There she participates in the Circle of Members of the Mothers’ Branch, she makes adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and oneRead More
SPAIN, Paz Leiva • In a few days it will be my birthday again. Years back, I knew by now who would come, how many of us would be there for lunch, for dinner. — This year is rare and different from any other. Even different from birthdays spent away from home, in which, for lack of a mobile phone, I had to phone home to be congratulated.  My birthday usually falls in Lent, sometimes even on a Friday – the menu gets complicated, I’ll have to think about servingRead More