ARGENTINA, Clara Bianco Herbón. We travel many roads daily, some with joy, others with sadness, and others because of obligation. However, there is a road we take with special willingness and joy; it is the one to the home of our Queen and Lady, the Virgin Mary.
Every person needs a home at any stage of his/her life, one needs to attach oneself to a place that feels like one’s own as a point of reference one leaves and to which one returns, a space for the intimate experiences, for satisfying their needs… It is something that is basic for physical, psychological, and spiritual health.
God knows this reality of the human person because He created them this way! He gives these special places, holy places, places of grace, where He is experienced as the home, as Saint Paul says. “For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28).
Thus we arrived at the home of the Father, the home of the Son and of his Mother, Mary.
In the Shrine, God gathers a family for gathering, joyous celebrations, reconciliations and sharing the nourishment of Life that strengthens and enkindles.
Pilgrimage also provides the opportunity to grow, not in new ideas; but rather, in discovering how God is working in the hearts of people who walk as one. So, during the time of the pilgrimage, strangers become friends and friends become brothers/sisters, everyone with a similar story, everyone with a Father and a Mother who shelters and transforms.
Mary was waiting for us
In this spirit and with an open heart to receive what the Blessed Mother had prepared for each one of the pilgrims, on Monday, November 18th, more than twenty people arrived at the Shrine of Puerto Montt in the neighboring country, where the Chilean brothers/sisters, who were celebrating the 13th Anniversary of the Shrine, were waiting.
The trip lasted a little longer than what had been planned, but it could be done because many songs sung had been prepared accompanied by guitar.
Among the pilgrims, there were a great number who were visiting the MTA’s Shrine for the first time.
Father José Parodi (Schoenstatt Institute of Diocesan Priests) who resides in Bariloche, celebrated the Holy Mass in the Shrine. It was very touching because not only was a Covenant Day recalled; but rather, they also recalled the Founding Father’s birthday, which was on November 16th.
Every pilgrim arrived with his bag full of things to present to the Blessed Mother: sorrows, joys, worries, desires and they left them at the foot of the altar knowing that Mary would take them and in turn would give them the graces of the Shrine.
There are no borders in the Covenant of Love
It was a wonderful day, sharing with the people from Bariloche, who accompanied us in this first pilgrimage. Surely, it will not be the last, since Puerto Montt is the closest shrine to our city.
Hopefully, in the future, many more will undertake this pilgrim road inviting them to bond with their brothers/sisters, opening hearts and receiving the graces that the Blessed Mother wants to give them to fulfill the mission that each one has as well as to deepen their Schoenstatt roots so that everyone can sing with the Founding Father:
Do you know the land so warm and dear
which Eternal Love has built itself:
where noble hearts beat with affection
and bear with each other in joy of sacrifice;
where they glow and shelter one another,
and flow as one into the heart of God;
where streams of love well forth with might
to quench the thirst of the world for love?
It is my home, my Schoenstatt land!
(Heavenward p. 158)
Original: Spanish – Translation: Celina M. Garza San Antonio, TX. USA
