Column – Fr José María García Category

ENCOUNTER WITH FR KENTENICH, Fr José María García Sepúlveda • “Where is my potato?” A somewhat surprising question put by Fr Joseph Kentenich, Schoenstatt’s founder, when he looked at a photo of seminary students of the Schoenstatt Fathers. “My potato” was Fr Kentenich’s nickname for one of them. I was told this story recently by Juan Fernandez, who is a sculptor today, and whom Fr Kentenich called “his potato”. A nickname or a symbol, which he passed on with great joy as we prepare for the fiftieth anniversary of FrRead More
Fr. José María García Sepúlveda. The “periphery” of man and his actual culture is the primary aim of the evangelization mission assumed by Holy Father Francis at the beginning of his pontificate, and with him, by the entire universal church.  It is a certainly surprising challenge, considering the level of tasks and problematic situations which the Church faces within herself and clearly made evident with  papal dimension on behalf of Holy Father Benedict XVI.Read More
EASTER 2014, Fr. José María García. Dear friends, Heartfelt Easter greetings to all.  A greeting that is also a prayer, imploring that the Risen Lord's words to Mary Magdalene can come to life among us, especially during this time of grace, of jubilee for our Covenant Family and of renewal for our Church.      Read More
Fr. José María García. Advent - Christmas 2013 Dear Friends, How nice it is to celebrate a feast when everything has been properly prepared and when the central reality is not the preparation as such, but meeting others. This is true even in the joy occasioned by gratitude to the one who has invited us, and the surprises and gifts that are generously exchanged, and that make us feel "richer, more blessed, better people".Read More
Fr. José María García. While reading today’s Gospel (John 2, 14-22) and celebrating today’s feast day (Nov. 9), two thoughts spontaneously came to me.  One is that the Lord is faithful, not only to his plan, but He is faithful to us.  Why?  We are working with the essence of our vocation, with our vocation as businesspeople and leaders.  And what we have heard in today’s readings is exactly how the Lord, in the background, makes reference to his faithfulness, to that fidelity which allows us to be leaders.  Read More
Fr. José María García - Shrine of Madrid, August 2013. Dear Dream Team*  friends,In preparation for a jubilee meeting of one of the university youth groups from Santiago de Chile, one of those young people recently wrote to me about our Holy Father Francis as someone valiant in his fatherhood, someone who is a “father without complexes” and who leads the Church without complexes or strange commitments.  Read More
Fr. José María García - Madrid Shrine on the Eve of 31 May 2013. Dear Friends, At the Pentecost celebration our Holy Father invited us to allow God to surprise us. In the last few months we have not ceased to be surprised, or it would be better to say, God himself has surprised us far beyond our expectations. Surprises that filled out hearts with joy and hope! He obviously wants us to see clearly that HE is taking the initiative – and he "urgently" wants us to see itRead More
SPAIN, Fr. José María García. Candlemas, Presentation of the Lord in the Temple 2013. Dear friends,While we were preparing for Candlemas, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, we received the official news from the General Presidium informing us about the official negotiations with the Pallottine Fathers on the transfer of the Original Shrine to the Schoenstatt Family.  At best the negotiations have been blocked and at the moment there is no solution in sight which would allow us to take over the Original Shrine and the OldRead More
Fr. JOSÉ MARÍA GARCÍA - Dear Friends, We are coming to the end of a hard and difficult year with ever increasing conflicts, which we ourselves have created and about which we have no idea how we are to resolve them, or how we are to cope with them in the present political and bureaucratic set-up. There are all sorts of wars, conflicts and crises, even in proud and enlightened Europe. The crises seem to rob us of all hope in everything human forces have built up until now. TheyRead More
Fr. José María García. Today, Good Friday, is a day of total surrender and sacrifice...a day on which, in the gesture of yesterday, the gesture of Jesus doing the work of a slave, kneeling before us to wash the dirt from our feet, is made absolute; He allows himself to be raised on the cross of scandal, making himself undesirable to his contemporaries, and He does this for our unfaithfulness and sins...for our most authentic and tangible weaknesses...and thus frees us from them.  His love of complete servitude has freedRead More