“Their Hearts Are Already on Fire!” A Book in the Year of the Father Current

The author, Sr. Gretelmaria Wolff, makes known the origin of this book and responds to the question, why is this a book for the year of the Father Current?

>> How did this book come forth?

It was not a very common inspiration. During the work for the process of beatification of Father Kentenich, the question emerged: would it not be good to present, in some texts, a brief picture of personalities who possess the reputation for sanctity and who were formed in the school of Schoenstatt, and especially by Father Joseph Kentenich? What relationship did they have with Father Joseph Kentenich and what importance did he have for their own way to sanctity?

Our Founder did not exist only for himself, he has always been seen in profound union with his family. This is how this project came about. It was conceived as a small treatise of one or two pages.

>> How were the six personalities selected?

There are a great number of men and women who have lived a holy life in Schoenstatt. The selection is deliberately limited to the six individuals whose processes for beatification have already begun or have been completed: Joseph Engling, Gertraud von Bullion, Carl Leisner, Emilie Engel, Mario Hiriart and Joao Pozzobon. Each personality is presented from three aspects: biographical notes, their spiritual profile, and their relationship to Father Joseph Kentenich. The order is chronological, according to the date of their death, and comprises – surprisingly – almost the entire history of Schoenstatt’s foundation between the years 1918 and 1985.

>> How did the title emerge: “THEIR HEARTS ARE ALREADY ON FIRE!”

It was the response to the question: What do these six very different Schoenstatt biographies have in common? It is the same question I have always asked myself: What kept the young sodalists of the founding generation “in line” during the tumultuous time of WWI? The words used in the First Founding Document seem to summarize it: “Their hearts are already on fire!” on fire for the “daring idea” and likewise for the charisma of the personality of their spiritual director who guided them to the mission of the Blessed Virgin from her little Shrine in Schoenstatt.

>> What do these very different persons have in common?

Sooner or later they discovered Schoenstatt as the spiritual way for their lives. They were inspired in Schoenstatt, enriched their spiritual profile and their apostolic commitment. They made it a point to maintain personal contact with Father Joseph Kentenich. They allowed him as ‘father’ to show them the way and to form them. They are united in the diversity of their vocations and Schoenstatt missions. They all aspired for the modern ideal of sanctity, everyday sanctity as Father Joseph Kentenich taught them and as he demanded from them as proof of the seriousness of the Covenant of Love with Mary: “This is the sanctity which I demand from you.” The spark of fire for the mission was ignited, the Schoenstatt Shrine of Graces was for them the “cradle” of their sanctity.

>> They all have in common that they all maintained a relationship with Father Kentenich. What would have been of Joseph Engling without Father Kentenich?

Naturally, we cannot respond to that, but without Schoenstatt, probably no would know him today. In his life, one can get a glimpse of how he was led by the God of life: He took the fourteen year old boy from East Prussia – precisely at that time – to the Rhine, to Schoenstatt when the Founder was struggling to announce to the youths the Covenant of Love with the Blessed Virgin. And the Mother of God placed next to the Founder – at the beginning of Schoenstatt’s history – a youth who had the capacity to independently assume the ideas with perseverance and coherence, and additionally, to convert them into action. Joseph had no Schoenstatt model: only his spiritual father: “I want to be a saint through my spiritual director.” That was his secret.

Each seed planted during the weekly conferences of Father Joseph Kentenich were very fruitful in Joseph – totally occult – but under the attentive and vigilant gaze of his spiritual father who said of him: “It is not an exaggeration if I say : rarely did some profound proposal from my part go to waste in him. The head and the heart guarded it with great fidelity” (JK 1957). With certain awe, Father Joseph Kentenich could see how Joseph’s spiritual life was developing independently. Joseph was the “explorer” of Schoenstatt’s system of education. “This was a little morsel of how his spirituality was: the unity of the highest ideals with the smallest things of everyday life. This led him to an admirable mastery – this kept him from being a dreamer or a person suffering from delusions – and it also helped him in his daily life not to waver or fall into triviality” (JK 1957).

Joseph’s consecration at the end of May in 1918, included the offering of his life “for the tasks you have entrusted to our congregation,”…..the exalted form of the Covenant of Love with the Blessed Virgin which is known in Schoenstatt history as the “Joseph Engling Consecration.” It is astonishing how in latter times, Schoenstatters – not only here, but in other countries – guide themselves on Joseph in the search for their vocation and sanctity: “I want to be a second Joseph Engling” is the motto – sometimes formulating it in explicit terms – of many “Schoenstatt saints,” without copying him. Joseph was a model, the “big brother.” He outlined the first footprints in Schoenstatt’s school of sanctity.

>> And what would have been of Father Kentenich without Joseph Engling?

The testimony of the life of Joseph Engling was for Father Joseph Kentenich the divine seal of his daring step on October 18, 1914. When he received the notice of his death, he knew: the young foundation had passed the first test of fire. It had in its beginnings, almost four years after its foundation, a saint. Joseph pre-lived, in his short life, what should slowly develop in Schoenstatt during decades. “Thus Joseph Engling was the only one who, personally, anticipated the entire development. Later the expression emerged: the history of the life of Joseph Engling is the anticipated history of the entire family” (JK 11-25-1965). With this conviction, Father Kentenich published in the MTA Magazine a first biography of Joseph Engling.

Father Kentenich refers only once to the significance of his person for Joseph Engling: The key for him was “his personal connection with the head of the family, that is, with his spiritual director, his spiritual guide and Founder of the Work. The fruitfulness of this personal relationship in Joseph’s life can be correctly expressed with the words “transference of life”….. Here for the first time, the Father Current became alive and fruitful.

>> What is it that makes this book a contribution to the Father Current?

Schoenstatt began with a “Father Current:” the founding generation and the following generations revolved around Father Kentenich who awakened their confidence in him. They believed him and became enthusiastic to be instruments for the mission of the Blessed Virgin from the Shrine. It is rightly so because of that, that these six personalities give a clear and immensely varied testimony of life:

Joseph Engling -after an enthusiastic conference given by his spiritual father on modern-day sanctity, he immediately met with his friend, Carlos, to formulate a mutual promise: “We cannot rest until we become modern saints.”

Gertraud von Bullion, teacher and nurse, is the first woman to actively integrate into the Schoenstatt Movement. She consecrates her apostolate, her illness and her death to Schoenstatt.

Carl Leisner, ordained a priest in the Dachau Concentration Camp, gives his life as a martyr for Christ and the Mother Thrice Admirable of Schoenstatt.

Sister M. Emilie Engel is a teacher committed socially and apostolically. She persisted, through her sanctity, in the foundation of the community of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary.

Mario Hiriart, engineer and university professor in Santiago, Chile, offered himself as a Schoenstatt Brother of Mary for the mission to Christianize the university and the world of research.

João Pozzobon, father of a family and permanent deacon, is the initiator of the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign which has extended from Brazil to the entire world.

They all reflect a diverse expression of Schoenstatt sanctity. They are men and women, priests, deacons and laity. They lived in Germany, Europe, Latin America, USA…..at different times and eras….. as witnesses of important milestones in the history of Schoenstatt or in the period of time since the going home of the Founder to Eternity. They were of humble origins and of nobility. They had little education or were university professors. They lived anonymously and discreetly or in public life. They were of different natures, temperaments, cultures and talents. They arrived as youths to Schoenstatt, disposed for formation, or found in their adult life the Shrine of the Blessed Virgin and the Schoenstatt spirituality as proclaimed by Father Kentenich.

They discovered Schoenstatt as a spiritual way exclusively for their lives, or they were inspired by Schoenstatt and enriched their already strong spiritual profile and their apostolic work. They cultivated a close personal contact with Father Joseph Kentenich or they came to know him indirectly through secondary causes of distinct forms. They all personally discovered for themselves the third contact point in the Covenant of Love. This is the way towards 2014 and beyond.

>> 2014, one hundred years in the Covenant of Love, they are also one hundred years of a lived Covenant of Love, one hundred years in which the Covenant of Love has taken form in concrete persons. Would it not be possible to still write about other persons? About whom, for example?

Even the selection of the personalities for this pamphlet was not easy. I am convinced: Schoenstatt saints exist in every community, in all branches, those known, those unknown, the important ones and the “smallest ones,” as Father Kentenich often said…..in all countries and cultures, in all the moments of Schoenstatt history to the present. Already in the first issues of the MTA Magazine, our Founder began to present individual biographies of the Sodalists. It would be worthwhile that the numerous Schoenstatt groups – in the countries where they are – present a brief biography of the personalities of their rich Schoenstatt history, perhaps as a gift of gratitude to the Blessed Mother for the one hundred years of history in the Covenant of Love and for the one hundred years of the Father Current in thanksgiving to our Father and Founder.

Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA 02062011