ARGENTINA, Cecilia Mata. Sunday, May 11th, was an unpleasant autumn day, but our hearts burned, filled with the joy knowing that we would meet with the Schoenstatt family in the area of Villa Ballester, to carry out the Metropolitan Workshop of the Rosary Campaign.
Upon arriving, Father Guillermo Carmona said, “Let us form a circle, and introduce ourselves: your name, where you are from and identify yourself with a flower, an animal or an element of nature.” This is how he began speaking about the plurality of signs in a mission, in order to continue with three basic points: Concerns, an outgoing Church and specific actions.
He spoke about the culture of encounter and its connection with the Covenant of Love, attachment, bond, intimate betrothal of one with another. Closeness: to try to know the other person, to understand them, to know their needs; to look at them in the eye and to discover what is happening to him/her. To have the absolute certainty that the other is a neighbor, that is, close. Approach them with cordiality, and joy. The commitment that has to do with extending a helping hand, being with another, listening to them in a service of love.
All of this is perceived in the person of John Pozzobon.
A programmatic and paradigmatic missionary Church
The mission not only has to be programmed, but rather, attempt to keep it constantly working, live it in every moment. Father Kentenich spoke about modality. We have to have a missionary modality, never miss the opportunity to mission. Be a pilgrim Church, “outgoing”, walking together as an assembly. The pilgrim should never be satisfied; he/she should always want more.
Be a Church of the periphery, as Pope Francis says, a poor Church for the poor: dignify the other. Take a message of the merciful Father who is always present, a Father, who despite everything, continues to love you.
The mysteries of John Pozzobon
What is John’s mystery? He had the awareness that God called him for a task. Sister M. Teresinha simply gave him the picture and told him “take it on pilgrimage.” Behind all of this, he perceived, he felt the call of the mission.
- To identify himself with the campaign.
- Profound attachment with Mary.
- Profound attachment with Father Kentenich.
- Attachment with the Shrine.
- Trials: life was not easy. He interpreted these trials as a confirmation of this call.
- Ratification that this was the road: the “creative result”. He saw the fruits of this giving of self to the MTA.
- John’s death itself: he died on a Sunday, in the mystery of walking, going to the Shrine.
The Campaign within the context of Jubilee 2014
The missionary makes the Shrine arrive in the presence of the Pilgrim MTA and with its visit it generates the three graces of the Shrine. This place of pilgrimage is being conquered through the capital of grace that the pilgrims also make.
Closing of the Day
After sharing a very Argentinean lunch (sausage and beef loin sandwich) and enjoying a folkloric presentation, we prayed the Illuminated Rosary as a tribute to the Jubilee Year. There was a contest with questions about John Pozzobon’s life, and we had the grace of hearing Ana Echevarría’s narrative, who had traveled to Santa Maria, Brazil in March 1984, accompanied by her husband Guillermo and Father Esteban Uriburu; they took a group of thirty people, to obtain the first twenty-five Pilgrim MTA’s of the Campaign that were then sent out to the world.
We also heard the testimony of Susana López de Cavanagh, who was one of the promoters, along with other allies of the Blessed Mother, in placing the picture in the Basilica of Luján in 1985, and then to crown it as Queen of the Nation Family on May 25, 1988, on the occasion of another anniversary of the First National Government of Argentina.
Finally, the encounter ended with the Holy Mass, where we placed everything in Jesus’ hands, and we also prayed for vocations, since it was Good Shepherd Sunday.
As the afternoon fell and after praying in the Shrine, we began to depart with the idea of making an effort so the picture of the Blessed Mother will visit more and more families, giving peace and graces, “multiplying the Shrine for the good of the Church and of humanity,” in the words of Father Carmona.
Original Spanish: Translation Celina M. Garza San Antonio, TX USA
