ARGENTINA, Claudia Echenique. Sunday, February 26th, was a sunny day after a torrential night in Florencio Varela. The usual sounds of street vendors and Paraguayan music could be heard throughout the neighborhood. Slowly, numerous cars and buses begin to arrive at the land of Zion.
It is a day of festivity. The Zion of the Father Shrine is celebrating its 18th birthday. It is an encounter time for the entire community of Schoenstatt Fathers who are concluding their annual meeting. It is also meeting time for the Schoenstatt Family from the Gran Buenos Aires Region. They come from Escobar, San Isidro, Villa Ballester, Buenos Aires, Avellaneda, Lomas de Zamora, Florencio Varela and La Plata.
This year, the festivity plans and logistics were in the hands of the community from Villa Ballester. The choir outdid itself with its many voices and instruments.
In the procession at the beginning of Mass, new faces could already be seen. The eight novices who will continue their studies in Chile led the procession, and behind them came the twenty-four priests from a community, which continues to grow year by year.
“The Blessed Mother’s prank”
While giving the welcome, the new Regional Superior, Fr. Francisco Pistilli, with a bit of humor, mentioned the Paraguayan music (which could be heard in the background during most of the Mass) as a “symbol” of welcoming him. He also mentioned that his election as superior was – undoubtedly – a “prank” by the Blessed Mother.
He thanked Fr. Juan Pablo Catoggio for his twelve years of service and personal dedication to the task of leading the community, and he cheered him on with his new tasks.
He also presented Fr. Bernardo Parra from Chile who will succeed him as Novice Master. He will accompany the four new postulants: Juan Molina from Buenos Aires, Carlos Sandoval, Santiago Yegros and Víctor Manuel González from Asunción, Paraguay.
The Father Eye Symbol, which is on pilgrimage at this time in Argentina, accompanied the Fathers during their meeting and was present at the altar alongside the image of Blessed Mother during the celebration.
The agenda for a new year
In his homily, Fr. Francisco made reference to the fact that in our daily life we have “four agendas.” The first is that of the year ending and a new, year beginning. There he included what the Community of Fathers and the Family had to be grateful for: the new steps taken so that the Original Shrine remains in the Family; the new course of novices which began in Nigeria (a community for which the Region of the Father is responsible); the transfers and new tasks for some of the Fathers. He also expressed gratitude for the crosses during this time: the death of Father Jonathan Niehaus and the illness of Father José María García.
In particular, the Community of Fathers was shaken – on the afternoon prior to this celebration – by the sudden death of Horacio Dell’Oca, Fr. Tommy’s father. He stressed that although very shaken, they felt fully accompanied by the Family. Therefore, give thanks for the graces received, but also give thanks for the trials which God places on our way. We experience it all in our Covenant with the Blessed Mother in the Shrine.
The agenda during the time of Lent
The “second agenda” he mentioned was Lent. “God who invites us to again board the Ark, proposes a plan to us. United in Christ, we enter the dynamics of the new times. It is the time for the full Covenant where God builds his house and always invites us to enter it and to merge our lives into His agenda.
The agenda of life
He then referred to a third agenda “which is that of our life” and which we want to coincide with God’s agenda. At our Meeting, we Fathers made our agendas: the plan for the year, petitions, offerings, projects, strategies, and highlights during the year… In the beginning, we all make our agendas and plan many tasks. With so many agendas, at times it seems as if “we want to manage” God’s agenda. We want Him to listen to our pleas.
But God manages his own agenda and wants to live it with his Covenant partners. And what is often troublesome is “synchronizing our agendas” with God because we do not always have the same commitments or the same appointments. The life agenda often consists in knowing how to synchronize our time with God’s time.
The 2014 agenda
The “fourth agenda” that Fr. Francisco presented is that of the Schoenstatt Family, the 2014 agenda- the Shrine’s agenda. What does the Shrine mean in our lives…the Daughter Shrine… the Home Shrine…the Heart Shrine?
“Often – he said – we go to the Shrine, making ‘an opening’ in our life, there is not much time to go to the Shrine. And although in daily life it seems to us that God does not have much time for us, when we come to the Shrine we discover that God does have time…in the first place, so that our feet can again touch the earth…take responsibility for what we are, what we are able to and what we have.
Secondly in the Shrine, God has time to remind us of Heaven, and that we can touch a little bit of Heaven. That we may again experience that He is at the center of all we experience in these changing and convulsive times. And, especially, God has time to complete with us the pages of our life. That is Covenant.
Upon concluding the homily, he asked, “that our life be a Shrine, that our Family be a Shrine, that our sharing with those around us be a Shrine experience. And that the Shrine may be the place where we come to be able to “synchronize anew with God and with the Blessed Mother.”
Homily of Fr. Francisco Pistilli in Spanish (mp3 – for downloading))
Personal exchange
At the offertory, a bouquet of eighteen flowers was taken to the altar representing the eighteen years of the Shrine, and a chalice which was presented by Rosa Buccafussa, president of the Vocations Circle and grandmother of Fr. Andrés Rodríguez. Then Olga and Diego Yegros, Santiago’s parents, took up the bread and wine in the names of the parents of all the postulants.
The Fathers administered Communion throughout the park since there were so many present. Before the renewal of the Covenant of Love and the final Blessing, two of the postulants said a prayer marking the path they will begin toward the priesthood.
After Mass, it is now a tradition that all the Fathers remain for a good while greeting the families and all those present. For many, it is the first meeting of the year after summer vacation and the beginning of activities.
For some of the Fathers, it is the only opportunity to see them and to talk to them since they soon depart to fulfill their pastoral tasks in the other houses in Córdoba, Tucumán, and Paraguay.
Lunch was served in the Joseph Engling Hall since the weather allowed eating in the open air. The festivity ended in the afternoon with Adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA 03142012
