Schoenstatt.org 2012 in round figures

mda. Upon ending 2012 – a year of great challenges and great accomplishments at the service of the real life of the Covenant of Love – and in beginning another year, it seems timely to present a summary of schoenstatt.org in round figures, to make the users participants in the work of spreading the Schoenstatt message that was carried out over 366 days. Three figures will give an idea: 298,000 weekly bulletins were sent in five languages, 2,610 news articles were published in five editions; there were visitors from 143 countries.

Besides the current news articles, life testimonies and motivations in the spirit of 2014, the presentation of 65 apostolic projects of the Covenant Culture were published; the basic information about Schoenstatt, and the information for visitors of Schoenstatt and the download area of material such as classic photos were broadened and up-dated. A channel of videos related to articles, a downloadable current photo gallery is maintained, and a direct line to the Original Shrine was opened, where people from more than forty countries can send, week by week, not only petitions and prayers; but rather, their personal giving of self to be placed in the jar of the Original Shrine, as a contribution for the preparation for 2014. “Love letters” for the Blessed Mother… more and more, filled, the 2014 jar…

Visitors, visits and more

Approximately 370,130 visitors have visited a total of 586,000 web pages this year. As members of the schoenstatt.org team – some sixty people, among them editors, coordinators, advisers and translators – daily pray the Consecration Prayer and the Pilgrimage Prayer 2014 for everyone who visits the website…you can imagine a little bit, the stream of life and graces behind these serious figures.

In detail…

The most visited web page is the Spanish one, with 104,767 visitors (859,209 visits) – 42% of whom were new visitors.

The German web page had 30,247 visitors (272,125 visits, 33% were new), the English page had 22,488 (142,712 visits, 39% were new), the Portuguese page had 22,165 visitors (125,522) visits, 45% were new) the Italian had 5,398 visitors (10,156 visits, 52% were new).

The cities with the largest number of visitors in Spanish are Santiago de Chile, Asunción, Buenos Aires, and Madrid; in German, Koblenz, Vallendar, Munich and Vienna; in English Waukesha, New York, New Bend and Milwaukee; in Portuguese, Sao Paulo, Lisbon, Londrina and Aveiro; and in Italian, Rome, Palermo, La Plata, Milano, and Florence.

The 15 countries with the largest number of visitors (in all the languages together) are:

1 Germany – 16%
2 Argentina – 15%
3 United States – 14.5 %
4 Brazil – 9.4 %
5 Chile – 7.8%
6 Paraguay – 6%
7 Mexico – 5.7 %
8 Spain– 3.8 %
9 Ecuador – 2.9 %
10 Portugal – 2.4 %
11 Switzerland -2%
12 Italy – 1.9%
13 Canada– 1.5%
14 Peru – 1.3%
15 Colombia – 1%

Although there is always a peak of visitors after the arrival of the bulletin… 41% of visitors visit the web page every day at least once…

This only one side of the coin…

However, this is only one side of the coin, this is data that can be measured and it is worthwhile to do it once a year. But what is worthwhile is the life that enkindles life, it is the commitment of hundreds of people of sharing what they experienced in their places where they live the Covenant of Love, it is the feeling of being urged to write testimonies, reflections, letters, greetings… to motivate and to inspire the life of others, in a selfless service according to the example of Father Kentenich’s himself…

Everyone who shares something of the life that is experienced – in their place, their shrine, their heart – everyone who fulfills the mission of witnessing, motivating, and of inspiring those who need and seek the word that gives life, shares Father Kentenich’s mission of communication and of the most Holy Virgin, She, who by singing her Magnificat opened the way for the Good News in person to the Lord.

Everyone who visits the website and allows him/herself to be touched and moved by a shared life has an opportunity of transforming themselves into a shepherd or a magi who returned to their places to give testimony of their hope.

This is what it is about and nothing more. Let us continue to sing and sing once again the Magnificat with each of its words.

For this, on behalf of the schoenstatt.org team: Thank you very much to everyone who makes schoenstatt.org what it is: a mirror and source of life, that motivates and nourishes us on the pilgrimage toward 2014, toward the grace of 2014.

Original: Spanish – English translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, Texas, USA