Dear Pilgrims

We are all familiar with the law of the “Open Door” and “Creative Results”. Engaging with the projects, initiatives, communities and individuals who have shared with us their “results” in connection with the Tents of Covenant Culture, it’s clear there have been many “open doors” we have gone through in these last 100 years of our history and we have the “results” to show for it.

Here in the Schoenstatt International Communications Office 2014 you can experience many threads coming together. Not everything we share though is joyous. As in any organization you have the good, the bad, the ugly…. and the sheer brilliant. Putting on a feast fit for a king – but one that does not cost a kingdom – in these narrow valleys is a real task as we all long to gather around the Original Shrine in 2014.

Next month the youth of the world will gather with our new Pope in Rio. If I look back over the struggles in the preparation that they have had – and overcome – it is nothing short of miraculous. But – the youth of the world – and the Schoenstatt Youth of the world – will come together to celebrate their roots in faith and be sent on a missionary journey once again. It can be done – and in style… We have also just had news of great youth accommodation for the Pilgrimage 2014

The power of this gathering makes a challenge of 2014 clearer for me, not that we go through many doors as we journey toward 2014 – but to pass together through “one door”! Of course each nation will approach the Shrine with its gifts and prayers showing the great diversity and richness of our family. But ask yourself as you prepare – how can we pass through the door as an “international” family? What hinders us? What inspires us to become international? Will all our pastoral energy that comes from the spirit of our Founder and his vision be enlivened and empowered by our gathering, sharing and collaborating to strengthen a spirituality and pastoral of the next one hundred years?

As you read today, plans are underway for the “Holy Door”, the Jubilee Entrance to the Holy Domaine of the Original Shrine. On it will be the handwriting of our Father and Founder, words from the First Founding Document. A door as a sign of our willingness to carry the “mantel of the prophet” and be renewed in the covenant of love.

On the 18th May representatives of the movements will gather with the Pope for a vigil celebration in preparation for Pentecost. Many representative of Team2014 will be there to pray – but also to meet and plan for our great jubilee.

On the agenda for me is the question of live transmission for the whole of our family. Pictures of our family in Schoenstatt and in Rome will be beamed throughout the world. What picture they will see depends on us….

God Bless

Fr. Andrew

A request for Prayer

Over pentecost a number of team 2014 will be in Rome.. There an international meeting will take place and the clarification of the involvement of Pope Francis in our celebrations will be clarified. The meeting will be held in Belmonte – our centre in Rome.

On Sunday, 19th May – after the vigil with the pope – we will gather with around 20 people in Belmonte to discuss the preparation of the celebrations in Rome for 2014.

The Rome Team 2014 has made headway – and so has our Rome Centre. We will see first hand what that means for our celebrations and presentation in Rome

Pilgrim Arena

Build for the celebrations in 1985 – the hundredth Birthday of Fr. Kentenich – the arena has seen many events since then. Plans have been drawn up and approved to develop the arena to make it fit for a 21st Century Celebration. Teams of movement members and engineers are meeting in these coming days to look at the application of the plans.

Health and Safety

Regulations regarding your “health” are taken very seriously here. In several meetings plans were drawn up and systems put in place to make sure that the coffee you drink in the morning dose not k… well lets put it like this – that it will be the nicest cup of coffee you will ever have. Unfortunately frikadelen will not be on the menu as it could be warm in October and we would not be ale to guarantee that they remain cool enough… Shame…

Joy is a pilgrim virtue.

“Joy is a gift from God. It fills us from within. It is like an anointing of the Spirit. And this joy is the certainty that Jesus is with us and with the Father. Can we ‘bottle up’ this joy in order to always have it with us? No, because if we keep this joy to ourselves it will make us sick in the end, our hearts will grow old and wrinkled and our faces will no longer transmit that great joy only nostalgia, melancholy which is not healthy. Sometimes these melancholy Christians faces have more in common with pickled peppers than the joy of having a beautiful life. Joy cannot be held at heel: it must be let go. Joy is a pilgrim virtue. It is a gift that walks, walks on the path of life that walks with Jesus: preaching, proclaiming Jesus, proclaiming joy, lengthens and widens that path. It is a virtue of the Great, of those Great ones who rise above the little things in life, above human pettiness, of those who will not allow themselves to be dragged into those little things within the community, within the Church: they always look to the horizon.” Words from Pope Francis in the Holy Mass at St. Martha last Friday.

“Of course I am tired after leading a week-long camp for nine-year-old girls. But the joy of faith I can share these days, and ever more the tremendous joy that this week brings me, carries me through at least three months of my demanding studies in tourist and event management!” These are the words of 20-year-old Miriam S. at an Open House Presentation in a German Schoenstatt Center. And her face has nothing, but nothing, to do with pickled peppers.

“Sure we`d have enough to do with our children, jobs and house, but since we know what Father Kentenich`s pedagogy changed in our life and that or our children, we are set afire for sponsoring pedagogical courses for parents”, add Tanja and Stefan L. Their faces beam with joy… missionary joy, missionary power nourished by sharing, by “preaching, proclaiming Jesus, proclaiming joy”, joy that walks with Jesus, joy that walks with Mary, who more than 50 years ago made herself a Pilgrim Mother who walks the streets of this world, as mother and model of this new church that Pope Francis proclaims and lives: “It’s true that accidents can happen when you go out into the street, as can happen to any man or woman. But if the Church remains closed onto itself, self-referential, it grows old. Between a Church that goes into the street and gets into an accident and a Church that is sick with self-referentiality, I have no doubts in preferring the first.”

Mercedes M. from Buenos Aires had just returned, fear-ridden from cancer treatment, when a she read a forwarded mail from Eastern Siberia: a priest working in a parish at the Chinese frontier urgently asked for a Pilgrim Mother picture. “I simply forgot my fear”, she said. Within less than 24 hours, a Pilgrim MTA was at hand, photos taken, blessings and prayers guaranteed, material packed and an Express Parcel on the way to Siberia… where the Pilgrim Mother started to visit families a week ago.

Ani from Asunción has lost her heart to helping homeless families to get food, learn to cook and get simple houses instead of ramshackle tents made of plastic bags. “For Christmas I sold books from my personal library to sponsor a simple, good Christmas meal for them.” Now she is thinking what she could offer to fundraise for houses for the families in greatest need – those with many small children – before winter sets in. “I have a small holy card with the handwritten signature of Father Kentenich. Yes, I would give this away for these families to have a roof…and with such a deep joy!”

Pablo O. visited inmates in the local jail together with a priest. “Prison smell is horrible”, he says. “But if you see how Christ comes to visit them, in the middle of this smell and all the horrible things they have done, if you see their eyes when they find that Jesus still and ever more loves them, then you miss this visit already when you are still there…”

Rosana Z. was 44 when she happened to find the MTA in the Shrine – “I did not even know the Our Father…” she says. She received first Holy Communion in the Shrine and a few months later committed herself as missionary of the Pilgrim Mother, visiting severely sick children in the wards of local hospitals… for several years already, and “with growing inner joy and closeness to Jesus and Mary”.

When we reach the goal of our jubilee pilgrimage in Schoenstatt and in Rome, we bring as gifts our missionary steps, our apostolic projects… and the pilgrim virtue of joy. The face of each of us, and of Schoenstatt will then not be not like pickled peppers but reflect sheer joy…

Joy is a pilgrim virtue.

Pope Francis prays: “In these days of waiting for the feast of the Holy Spirit, we ask: Come, Holy Spirit, come and give me this big heart, this heart capable of loving with humility, with meekness, an open heart that is capable of loving. And let’s ask this grace of the Holy Spirit. And may He free us always from the other path, the path of selfishness, which eventually ends badly. Let us ask for this grace. “

The National Schoenstatt Family Meeting took place in Fatima last week. The pilgrims who walked met with those who came by bus or in their own vehicles, so that everyone could go the last few kilometres to Valinhos together to participate in the Holy Mass.

The motto for this year’s Fatima Pilgrimage was “Do Everything He Tells You,” recalling Mary’s word during the wedding feast at Cana. In reply, Jesus, told the servants to fill the jars with water, which He then transformed into good wine and asked that it be served to the guests.

As we walked towards Fatima, we emptied out the jars of our hearts of all the unnecessary things, leaving space for God to enter and transform our lives.

We then sought to fill the jars with our offerings and willingness to allow God to mould us, so that our deeds of love could become the water that He required to perform the miracle of joy.

Finally, we were challenged to take the jars, serving the good wine of God’s love and placing ourselves at his service around the table of life.

Each step of our pilgrim way

Along each step of our pilgrim way, we also became jars. In fact, each one of us, each according to his measure and unique reality, carrying out the mission to which God has called us, can be a far filled with God’s gifts which become blessings, joy and new life around us when they are distributed. We can, therefore, ask: How am I a jar in my life?

By living out the Covenant of Love, we can daily experience the miracle of Cana and our pilgrimage to Fatima: emptying out the jars, conversion to fill the jars, and becoming full jars made to serve.

The questions included in the Pilgrimage Prayer 2014 help us to set the daily pace of our pilgrimage.

• What am I thankful for today?
• What will I place in the jar today?
• Which missionary step can I take today?

During this month of May, Our Lady also says to us: Do everything He tells you…and fill the jars with proof of your love.

As the Schoenstatt Movement in Portugal, we also can unite ourselves with two initiatives during this month of May:

The Pentecost Vigil will take place on 18 May. We can pray for the Original Shrine from our four shrines and we can also unite ourselves with the vigil in Rome, prepared by the ecclesial movements.

Life Week will take place on 12-19 May to mark the International Day of Families. We can unite ourselves in prayer at our shrines, in our communities, groups and homes by following the especially prepared programme.

Towards 2014 … Your Covenant Our Mission!

Fr. José Melo, Movement Director – Portugal