GERMANY/EUROPE, Sr. Johanna-Maria Helmich. Let yourself be celebrated by the many people who revere you, who visit you in your Schoenstatt Shrines, who you visit as the Pilgrim Mother and who lovingly welcome your picture every month in their homes! Congratulations! Your birth is a three times wonderful event!
Mary, with you along the way
Mary is always on the go as our Pilgrim Mother. She is a dynamic force: she keeps us alert, encourages concrete deeds of love for God and for our neighbours, awakens missionary zeal and by means of our small gifts of love, she lets herself be moved from the Shrine to take over the greater part of our apostolic mission! She is and will remain, as Father Kentenich together with Vincent Pallotti convincingly states, “the great missionary” who “works miracles”!
HER concern: the New Evangelization
Those who bear responsibility for Rosary Campaign in Europe are deeply convinced of this missionary commitment of the MTA. Already in 2007, out of a profound common experience, representatives of the Czech Republic, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Slovakia, Croatia, Germany and Scotland / Ireland stated:
“We recognized that the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign, called into being by John Louis Pozzobon, is a dynamic reverse current from Latin American countries which gives the Church and the European Schoenstatt Movement a new momentum and missionary impulses. The Thrice Admirable Mother, Queen and Victress of Schoenstatt is the one who travels to us from the Original Shrine: She wants to bring Christ anew to the world through her activity from the Original Shrine. She has called us to cooperate as her instruments for the new evangelization of Europe.” (From the Final Document of the European Conference 2007)
Europe in transition – and SHE is right in its midst
Mary for Europe! With today’s 8 September begins the 365-day phase of preparation for European Pilgrimage to the Original Shrine in Schoenstatt on 8 September 2012. On that day SHE returns home. SHE, that is the Blessed Mother, in the sign of the Auxiliary (replica of the Original Pilgrim MTA with which Deacon John Pozzobon began the worldwide Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign) which at present is on pilgrimage through the countries of Europe and brings many people into contact with the stream of graces flowing from the Original Shrine. She is currently in Poland and in many towns is lovingly welcomed and revered.
Queen of the new evangelization of Europe
Mary will receive a crown – a sign of gratitude, of trust, and the missionary co-responsibility for a Europe, in which Christ needs to be “born again” because he has been forgotten by many or has faded into an abstract idea.
Bernd Posselt, member of the European Parliament, gets to the point, when he states: “The countries and institutions of Europe will only become Christian in as far as the people of Europe live a Christian life. The basis for such development of our law system, of jurisprudence and political life at all levels is developed through prayer and Christian formation as well as giving witness to a Christian way of life. This means that the church within Europe needs to recognize that together we have a missionary task for the evangelization of Europe. Only by means of a living faith can such a task be approached.” (1 December 2009)
SHE is at work!
As our Pilgrim Mother the MTA of Schoenstatt is on the way in order to carry Christ into the lives of peoples and nations – but not without us. In just one year, on 8 September 2012, pilgrims from various European countries will gather at the place of Schoenstatt’s origin – grateful for the experience: “SHE is at work!” and “SHE needs us!” This reality is expressed in a song in preparation for 8 September 2012: “Wherever YOU are, faith is brought to life, our confidence will grow, love becomes concrete …”
Many experiences from the countries where the “European-Auxiliary” already spent some time also speak of this reality. An article from Spain has already been published, in English, which gives a good insight into the experiences with the European-Auxiliary:
Spain: With you we want to evangelize Europe again (created on 2010-02-21)
https://www.schoenstatt.org/en/news/170/147/With-you-we-will-evangelize-Europe-again.htm
In a report by Pamela Fabiani we hear about the visit of the Pilgrim MTA in Italy: “For three months, from late August to late October 2009, the European-Auxiliary made a pilgrimage through Italy. She travelled by car, by train and airplane and in the process, as Joao Pozzobon had wished, always had a special place! In Rome, she was at the national meeting of the Italian Schoenstatt Family in Belmonte, on 13 September; she visited seven regions from Tuscany to Sicily, travelling through Sardinia and Lazio. She visited 43 parishes in 14 dioceses and in this way came into contact with approximately 10,000 people. It was moving to see how in small towns as well as in large cities the Blessed Mother was welcomed on the outskirts of the towns and led in procession to the parish church, with singing and praying. In some places she was welcomed in the truest sense of the word with great fanfare, in others none other than a police escort! People were moved by the visit of the Blessed Mother and accompanied her on these days with the Rosary, hours of adoration, holy Mass and Catechesis. Each parish had prepared a welcoming ceremony, some also included nocturnal processions on the roads, in others the celebration of the covenant of love and the sending out of new missionaries.”
Similar reports are given by the representatives from other countries that already were able to receive this distinguished visitor.
European-Pilgrimage 2012 – Hope, Awakening, Blessing
This life comes together, when the countries of Europe on 8 September 2011 gather in Schoenstatt, come to the Original Shrine. The European-Pilgrimage 2012 – a sign of hope, not only for those who can participate directly, but also for the more than 100,000 European households, where the image of the Pilgrim MTA is welcomed each month. A network of faith and love is born and continues to grow.
The European-Pilgrimage 2012 – a sign of awakening for many who have full confidence and the inner readiness let themselves be sent out “missionaries”, as Christians, who want to give testimony of what they themselves have experienced.
God lives! HE bestows blessings in abundance. HE has made himself tangible through the presence of the Blessed Mother in the Schoenstatt Shrine – very human – in one place, in the tangible nearness of his and our Mother Mary, in the community of those who in the covenant of love want to live their daily lives in the living relationship with God.
