mkf. Last week Patricia Fernández from Costa Rica had the grace of being in Schoenstatt for 48 hours after visiting her family in Croatia; it was quite a pilgrimage. She has known about Schoenstatt for a year, and she belongs to one of the Family Work groups in her country. A few days after returning to Costa Rica, she sent a testimony to our international web- page.
Testimony of a pilgrimage
I have returned to Costa Rica, thanks be to God and the Blessed Mother, everyone at home is well. I am very grateful to all the people who made my experience in Schoenstatt something more than a simple visit.
I have always felt accompanied by the Blessed Mother since I left Schoenstatt. In reality She was with me at all times, but the fact that I met Sister Mariana on the plane was more than a beautiful sign that the Blessed Mother was taking care and waiting. What I did not know was the gift that she had prepared for me.
The first thing I did on the first day of my arrival was to visit the Original Shrine, a beautiful place…every time that I passed in front of it, a kind of magnet attracted me; it invited me to enter again, to sit down and contemplate on the Blessed Mother. Then, the second visit was to the Pilgrims’ Church. There I found a large photo of the Father and some little sheets for petitions.
Everything started here…I asked him to bless me day and night.
Through Schoenstatt in the hands of the Father
The following day, I began a pilgrimage through the life of the Founding Father after I visited Sister Kornelia in her office, and she told me to ask the rector of House Marienau to show me Father Joseph Kentenich’s room and office. It was very impressive, and Sister Maria Andrea guided me. I learned about the greatness of his life from the time he entered the orphanage, his Covenant with the Blessed Mother, his openness to God in all the events that marked his life, and gave life to everything that is now Schoenstatt.
To see where he departed for Dachau, to visit the beautiful place of encounter with him – the Father Kentenich House, on Mount Schoenstatt – that covers every milestone of his holy life, to reach the Adoration Church where he died…There in front of his tomb, I felt that he entered my heart. I saw the devotion of the people who asked for his intercession. It touched my heart, when as we continued our tour, I saw his little bench on the hill among the trees, where he prayed and meditated, where he liked to admire nature and finally to arrive at his last room – in the Training Center of the Sisters of Mary -from where he left on September 15, 1968 never to return. There, at the end of the visit, he gave me the most beautiful gift, a beautiful message: “I will bless you everyday.” My eyes fill with tears even now, when I recall it. I am filled with emotion; he answered my petition, now he is written in my heart.
