ROME, Fr Stephan Mueller, Rector. It was Friday, 7 December 2012. After filled days of pilgrimage to the “holy places” in Rome, a hundred pilgrims from Germany gathered once more at the Centro Internazional di Schoenstatt at Belmonte, Rome. On this day the “Ave Maria” plaque was put up in the shrine.
To begin with, the pilgrims took in three testimonies about this holy place and the life bubbling up from here: Sr M. Ivone, who works for the Italian Schoenstatt Family, reported on the “miracles” that are taking place all over Italy through the growing groups of the Madonna pellegrina (Pilgrim Mother). She went on to talk about the great festival at the crowning of the Blessed Mother as Queen of the New Evangelisation, when eighty pilgrims from Italy represented their country. Finally, she summed up the life around the shrine at Belmonte, which is increasingly becoming the shrine of the Italian Schoenstatt Movement. Fr Georg Egle, who in the last three-and-a-half years has been the cappellano (chaplain) at the shrine, and oversaw the construction of the large house for pilgrims and conferences at the Centre, told them about the “miracle” of the visible progress of the Domus Padre Kentenich, and explained the essential elements that had to be tackled in the near future. Don Stefano, as the new Rector of the Centre, Fr Stephan Mueller, is called in Italian, focussed on the “miracle” connected with his being granted leave to serve at Belmonte. Indeed, the God of Life is working here and now; he is working “miracles” around the Matri Ecclesiae Shrine!
Together with the local Schoenstatt Family
In addition to the Movement Leader of the Italian Schoenstatt Family, Fr Ludovico Tedeschi, a Schoenstatt Father, representatives of the various sections of the Movement living in Rome attended the solemn Vigil Mass of the Immaculate Conception. On account of the cold weather, it was celebrated in the hall that is in the process of completion in the Domus Padre Kentenich. They wanted to be present when the AVE MARIA plaque was put up in the international shrine.
In his sermon, Fr Georg Egle said, “When we enter our MATRI ECCLESIAE Shrine here in Belmonte in the time to come, we will see this plaque with the words AVE MARIA and recognised in it an invitation to greet the Blessed Mother. She will return our greeting and welcome us warmly, listen to us and enter into a fruitful dialogue with us. Our Founder, Fr Joseph Kentenich, encouraged us to greet Mary very often and to let her greet us.”
Our covenant – your mission
He continued by taking up a life-process in the team that is living and working in Belmonte. The Antependium in the shrine with the motto for the Jubilee Year 2014 “Your Covenant – Our Mission” has been rendered in the mother tongue of the three Brazilian Sisters who live and work around the shrine at Belmonte, and whose home province donated the AVE MARIA plaque, as: “Nossa Aliança – tua missão” (Our Covenant – Your Mission). Is it a printing error – and on top of that in Portuguese? “We began to interpret it another way,” Fr Egle said. “The Holy Spirit was at work. The Holy Spirit wants to come upon us as he came upon the Virgin Mary. He wants to lead us onwards. Your covenant, dear Blessed Mother, has to become our covenant. We have to enter into a covenant of love with one another, not just with the Blessed Mother, not just with the Triune God. No, with one another. All who speak Portuguese have to make a start. We here at Belmonte, at the international centre, have to make a start and awaken enthusiasm in many to do the same. The covenant of love has to lead to great solidarity with one another.”
A quiet reference to Fr Kentenich
Before the AVE MARIA plaque was given its final place in the shrine, Sr M. Ivone told those present about how this special image came about: It was embroidered by two Sisters in Atibaia, Brazil, the Provincial Centre of the Sisters of Mary, who prayed as they worked. For each of the 22,550 beads they prayed a “Hail Mary” and asked the Blessed Mother, “Embroider with me!” The initials “JK” embroidered into the picture point to Fr Kentenich, who was personally in Belmonte on three occasions. Two dates were also embroidered into the whole: 8 December 1965, when Fr Kentenich gave a talk in the House of the Mainz Sisters of Providence in Rome on the subject of the Church as the shores of a new era, in the sense of a “Founding Document” for the MTA shrine in Rome. The other date is 2 February 1966, when he made a pilgrimage to the wayside shrine at Belmonte, which had been put up in his absence as the symbolic laying of the foundation stone for the shrine. On this occasion he gave a talk about “Simeon’s Candlemas Vsion” and the Holy Father’s and Bishops’ Candlemas vision of Schoenstatt. The frame for the AVE MARIA plaque was donated by a group connected with Sr M. Carol in Milwaukee, USA. Since the Founder had come to Rome from Milwaukee in 1965, they again wanted to accompany him from his place of exile to the City of the Pope.
The plaque was blessed and carried in procession to its destination. It reminds the International Schoenstatt Family of its task to help the whole Church to guarantee a high degree of love for the Blessed Mother, and invites its members to allow the Mother Thrice Admirable to greet them again and again, and to greet her: Ave Maria!
