GERMANY, psf. Since the beginning of the week you can also find FatherSayings in English and Spanish. When the Schoenstatt Youth meet in Madrid at the start of the World Youth Day, they will be able to see and take along the FatherSayings. So the repeated request from Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and the USA, as well as other countries, is being answered: FatherSayings in their own language! The first English and Spanish FatherSayings will be in the hands of the youth … much as they were a hundred years ago when our Founder placed his words into the hands of the young people for the first time in the shrine and reached their hearts … and then they began to have an effect.
What is the effect of FatherSayings on a wall? Stephan Jehle (who took part in the carrying a torch to Rome, and the brother of the author of the FatherSayings) put this question critically one evening. He was naturally not talking about a Schoenstatt wall (there is no question of their effect, but what effect will they have on people “perhaps even further afield?”) So a wall “further afield”. So could FatherSayings appear in a courthouse of Mayen-Koblenz (a gift idea!), or in the Design Academy Berlin (fact), in a bar in Buenos Aires (Little joys: whoever does not despise them will never lack joy), or in the largest hydroelectric plant in the world in Paraguay (so many Schoenstatters work there), in the offices of an international concern in these times of anxiety caused by the recession and the hysteria generated by the media (Our greatest care should be at every second to be endlessly carefree – not out of thoughtlessness, but because we trust in God), or a hotel entrance (Where we find and give shelter, we are at home).
His words do what they say
But if no one knows who “Kentenich” is? Isn’t the saying worthless? Stephan Jehle doesn’t give up so easily. Then one of us remembered a sermon given by Fr Angel Strada that was broadcast on schoenstatt-tv a few weeks ago. He quoted and interpreted the words of Isaiah in which God says about his word: “It does not return empty to me, but does what I will and achieves what I sent it out to do.” Doesn’t that also apply – by analogy – to the words of Fr Kentenich? His words are sent out to touch people, to move them, to help them to grow. They are sent out with the help of people who have been touched by his words, and who spend hours to depict them graphically, so that they “live”. They are sent out by people who have been so deeply moved by those words that they set out to stick them to the walls of this world, so that this world is given an opportunity through them. These are words of trust and home, of joy and serenity, of freedom and strength. In the sudden silence someone said, “When you ran with the torch to Rome, no one who saw you knew anything about Schoenstatt and Kentenich. But you and the torch – that had an effect.”
It seems as though everyone in the group is starting to think on which wall “and even beyond” they could stick which FatherSaying … “Just imagine, you come into the parish office and you find hanging above the parish priest’s chair: ” I now place myself completely at your disposal with all that I have and am: with my knowledge and ignorance, my abilities and inabilities, but above all with my heart.”
If all join in…
If the FatherSayings are to hang on many walls, and to start with are displayed at the World Youth Day, we will have to work quickly and in a co-ordinated way: Translations to be made, corrected and improved, designing the English and Spanish texts graphically (No you can’t change the sequence of the words, definitely not! – Actually it looks much better in English than in German!), at the same time to produce the first, to pack them, and … transport them to Spain, that is, to motivate young people from Germany to take them along when they travel to the World Youth Day …
At the same time to consider: How are the many young people who want to have FatherSayings in South America and elsewhere to obtain them at a favourable price? Good to know that Schoenstatt-Verlag in Schoenstatt has been selling FatherSayings in German for some time. Perhaps they could also sell them in English and Spanish? Carmen Rogers from Santiago is going to contact Editorial Patris in Chile: Perhaps we could get them to sell FatherSayings. … Or: Young people could take along a starter set from the World Youth Day so that people can see what they are like, for example, one of the many who helped with the translation. “Bring one along for me!”
Now also postcards
Almost unnoticed postcards with FatherSayings have been produced – black and white, or black on a coloured background, also in German, English and Spanish. According to Franziska Jehle they are very popular particularly with young people. A whole pile are on the way to the World Youth Day. And even beyond.
Orders and ideas: patersprueche@schoenstatt-memhoelz.de or in Internet
More about FatherSayings:
- Dem Trend voraus und voll in der Strömung 2014: PaterSprüche
- PaterSprüche: jetzt online zu bestellen
- PaterSprüche: „Ich finde die Zitate von Pater Kentenich einfach genial“
Translation: Mary Cole, Manchester, England
