GERMANY, Wolfgang Fella. The various forms of giving and receiving gifts were the focal point of the two Advent weekends for families on the Marienhoehe, Wurzburg. It’s a subject not just for the time of Advent before Christmas and the marathon of exchanging presents that follows.
At one of the weekends for couples with older children we started by taking a critical look at this subject. In one scene all the gifts were ordered very prosaically via the internet; the following scene showed a mother rushing along laden with parcels and totally exhausted through a less attractive store. In the third scene teenagers showed their dissatisfaction as they unpacked their presents at the Christmas tree. There was little joy. That things could be different was the purpose of this time together on the Marienhoehe for the families on both weekends, and many suggestions were offered.
Give time
After Sr Louise Schulz had pointed brilliantly to an alternative gift project “Time instead of Things” in the morning, there was plenty of time afterwards for everyone to find time for each other. Time to be attentive to one’s marriage partner, time to enjoy things together, or time together with God. That afternoon other alternative gifts appeared on the programme. The participants who enjoyed making things could create a lantern out of a tin, others made envelopes and cards. If they wanted a very special Christmas card, they could also mount a photo of their own family. The cafeteria became the photo studio and the costume room offered a huge selection for the families to dress up in proper style to create a crib scene.
Advent celebration for the jubilee
That evening there was a relaxing Advent celebration accompanied by much laughter. Young and old were drawn into a quiz about Schoensatt’s jubilee and could guess what didn’t exist a hundred years ago, or which football club had not been founded in 1914. Amusing advertisements in between were also not lacking to encourage participation in the Jubilee celebrations in October 2014. During a game a shrine was constructed from banana boxes, and the message was brought home by song and dance to the tune “Will you be there?” Once the shrine was completed balloons and flyers were distributed to all in the room.
The secret in a large box
At the closing Holy Mass with Fr Bernhard Schneider a secret was revealed. It was in a huge gift box at the centre of the weekend. No one could miss it. A large statue of Jesus was lifted out of it and carefully and joyfully passed from one child to the next. It was a sign of what we might not lose sight of at Christmas. Despite all the joy over this or that other present, the greatest gift of these days is still the Child in the crib.
And on the streets of Asuncion the second Wurzburg house will be built at the beginning of January
The families were also able to give a joyful gift in this Jubilee Year to people at the other side of the world. During Holy Mass money was collected, and in the end it was enough for the Wurzburg Family Movement to finance house No 90 for the current house building project for poor families in Paraguay, in addition to house No 4 (cf. “A hundred houses for a hundred years” at www.schoenstatt.org).
Since the start of this initiative the first thirty houses had been built before Christmas to save thirty families from immediate need before the start of winter, as well as 56 houses resulting from the project “A hundred houses for the hundred years of our home in Schoenstatt”. In all 41 shrines (in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Burundi, Poland and England) have their solidarity house there (some shrines have two or three), and the other houses are coming from donations that have “simply” been given to the project.
In all probability the second house for the shrine at Wurzburg will be built on 11-12 January 2014.
