INTERNATIONAL, Eva and Erich Berger, Hertha and Martin Schiffl. The model of Academy for family pedagogy that emerged several years ago in Austria and Bavaria is extending more and more. Here the Kentenich principle, the hand on the pulse of the times and the ear to the heart of God, is also applied. It is for this reason that every year an international conference is organized for all the teachers of rhetoric that collaborate in the Academy. This year the conference was held in Tihany close to the Balatón Lake in Hungary.
Annual Conference (2011) for teachers of rhetoric of the Academy for family pedagogy in Tihany, Hungary
How did Father Kentenich do it? How did he reach the people so that they would feel: this man knows our desires and he has the correct responses?
These questions are behind the title that at first glance seems difficult: “Working with combined values,” which was the main point of the annual International Conference 2011 of the Academy of family pedagogy. The teachers of rhetoric from the Acadamies for the Schoenstatt Family Pedagogy in Kahlenberg, Austria, Berg, Germany, New Schoenstatt, Quarten, Switzerland, and the hosts from Casládakadé, Hungary attended. It is the eleventh annual conference with these members, and it was the third time it had been held in the Tihany Benedictine Monastery close to Lake Balatón in Hungary, approximately 30 km. from the Schoenstatt Shrine in Obudavar. Outside it was very hot (37ºC/98.6ºF) and it was very noisy. The Pilgrims’ Church close to the monastery is a great tourist attraction and also for Hungary. It was just the opposite behind the thick cloistered walls, where there was an agreeable, cool, and silent atmosphere.
Working with combined values
The couples who attended concentrated on explanations given by Father Leonhard Erhard’s, he is a retired pastor, a member of the Schoenstatt Federation of Diocesan Priests and he spoke about the main conference subject: Working with combined values” – through a video conference.
Using the simple concept of a “balanced diet”, he clearly explained how Father Kentenich prepared a cocktail for his listeners for “reason, willingness, and inclination,” and how he fed them with “nourishment for development, functioning, and maintenance,” and how he took care of the personalization of values, above all, seeing them in the person of the Holy Virgin. It speaks of the “combined Marian values” and of the hunger for values in the present time.
It took one hour to listen and a year to develop -that was the sentiment of the listeners-as they oriented themselves to Father Kentenich.
… and they orient themselves in Father Kentenich
His observations of young, modern families serve as an example of application. They are different from those of ten or fifteen years ago. In the subject area, “woman, mother, work, children,” the value and the importance of attachments is discussed. The ideologies and the knowledge of the natural and social sciences, especially in the area of investigation about attachments, are more and more separated was how one of the participants expressed it. The uncertainty of the participants is how to help families in this situation, so that they can freely decide to accept what God wants of them.
The teachers of rhetoric search for new ways to orient themselves in Father Kentenich. They should appeal to reason, willingness, and inclination. But, with what? And how? This weekend will continue with a broad work of investigation.
After three days of an intense exchange of experiences, they all agreed: we are at a new beginning, and in the next year of work, we have to develop the subject “Working with combined values” very well and to seek how we can make the objective values subjective, so that they will give impetus to the will of the people.
Next year, in Vienna
In 2012, the Conference will be held in Schoenstatt am Kahlenberg, Austria. Expansion is pending, since the Academy of the Family has already begun to function in Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania, and there is great interest in Spain and Portugal as well.
Spanish/EnglishTranslation: Celina M. Garza English edit: Melissa Peña-Janknegt
