GERMANY, fma. A small Father Symbol and two photos of the developing Fr Kentenich statue lay on the table. Sitting around it nine enthusiastic people, the core team (not all were present) for the feast on 20 May, the feast when the statue of Fr Kentenich would be placed at the centre of Schoenstatt auf’m Berg, also visibly. They actually believed that in two-and-a-half hours (150 minutes) they would be able to discover the central value and the motto for the feast. And since it was impossible in such a short time, they took time to read a passage from a text of our Father and Founder.
“We want to look at one another. I wouldn’t be surprised if we do so this time with a certain amount of amazement and admiration.” Those were his words when he laid the foundation stone for the shrine on 7 September 1966. He mentioned that we were “up on the mountain”, and that it was possible that it had never happened before in Schoenstatt’s history that a shrine was blessed at such a height, “high up on the mountain”. So it is fitting that the bronze statue of Fr Kentenich, the visible sign of his activity here, is the first one in Europe after Schoenstatt and Rome.
What is central?
What did we wish for on 20 May and for ourselves? What did we have to remember? Two pin boards were quickly filled with suggestions: joy, meeting Fr Kentenich and one another, fanfares, my name in the foundation and my hand in your hand, a gallery of projects, amazement at miracles, and joy and wonder that so much that had seemed impossible, and still seems impossible, has become a reality or is becoming a reality. What is the central element of this feast? One card after another was placed around the focal point. He is there. He remains. And we are there. Let us place our hand in his hand, whose ear is at God’s heart and whose hand is on the pulse beat of the times. Forming the world. His charism our strength. Johannes Hoefle wrote only one card: Impossible becomes possible. No one could recall when Fr Kentenich had said that. Around 5.23 p.m. Christine Hinterberger wrote on the flip chart:
My hand in your hand – so that the impossible becomes possible
That was the motto for the feast on 20 May, when it arrived. It is a motto that can become a prayer, not just for a little Schoenstatt Centre in the Allgau in Bavaria. Fr Erhard remarked that to be able to believe and experience “that the principles of Dachau also apply to a little feast at a tiny place in the Allgau, in the same way as for Schoenstatt’s mission for the world on 18 October – despite all the obstacles – awakens the trust that ultimately we don’t have to take our own strengths as our measure…”
The impossible…
The motto made an impression. “We have just received the news that the Joseph Kentenich School has been accepted as a private school according to Canon 803 CIC with a letter and seal of our Bishop. Bishop Konrad Zdarsa thanked us once again for our continued interest in the accreditation of our school by the bishop. This news proved to us that the Blessed Mother is at work as the Queen and Victress of our school. Last November it appeared that the whole undertaking had no prospect of success, and nothing has changed in the outward circumstances.” These words were written by Renate Immler in Kempten on the evening of 1 February. The impossible becomes possible…
It is hardly surprising that names from Chile, Argentina, Spain, Brazil, England and Northern Germany will be placed in the foundations for the Father statue. The impossible, and what we could not carry on our own, urges us to this step.
Is it possible that first there had to be the experience of “impossible”; did we need to experience that when we believe we have to try to take in our own hands, we soon see it is far too much and far too heavy for one hand, one mind, one heart, but not for my hand in his hand, my thinking in his thinking, my heart in his heart? My hand in your hand – so that the impossible becomes possible.
“With every step on our pilgrim way” to the fullness of the covenant of love and the renewed and renewing Family: My hand in your hand – so that the impossible becomes possible.
Translation: Mary Cole, Manchester, England
