mkf. “You do not know the surprise we had on our pilgrimage to the Holy Land when we saw the picture of the MTA in one of the grottos in Bethlehem!” Hildegard Beck, from the Our Lady of Schoenstatt Institute, is one of the most faithful participants of the “Covenant Mass” on the way to 2014, and cannot keep from expressing her joy for being there shortly after this experience in the Mass “in covenant with Israel!” (even though Bethlehem is in the autonomous territory of Palestine, it is the Holy Land, the Land of Jesus…..). A few days later, Mr. and Mrs. Ponce de León from Tucumán, Argentina visited Schoenstatt after being on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and they narrated – with profound emotion – the same experience: the surprise finding of the Blessed Mother in the Bethlehem grotto. They did not know – as many of the Schoenstatt pilgrims who yearly go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land – that the Covenant of Love is also lived there, especially through the Home Shrines.
In the land of Jesus
It is what Fr. Jonathan Niehaus, celebrant of the “on the way to 2014” Mass, said in the introduction last May 7th. There are two Schoenstatt “sprouts” of the Covenant of Love in Israel: one, the most known, is that of the countless pilgrims from the Schoenstatt Family who continuously take – in their Heart Shrines – the graces of the Shrine to this country, the country where Jesus lived and sealed the new and eternal covenant. He highlighted that at this time, for example, present were the Chilean pilgrims who had participated the previous week in the “on the way to 2014” Mass which was celebrated in covenant and in gratitude with the benefactors.
But there is another sprout of the Covenant of Love in Israel as there is also in the autonomous territory of Palestine: a Schoenstatt Family made up of Arab Christians, congregated around dozens of Home Shrines in Bethlehem – they were the ones who erected the Wayside Shrine of the Blessed Mother in Bethlehem – in Nazareth, Jerusalem and other places….. Prayer was offered especially for them, for in situations sometimes difficult and dangerous, they maintain flowing on high the banner of the Covenant of Love for peace in the Middle East.
An image of the MTA
This “in Covenant” Mass is more and more a moment of unity and family attachment, a moment to pray together for the intentions of so many who direct themselves to the “Original Shrine” or “to the entire Family,” asking for prayers….. It is the moment in which prayer cards with the 2014 Pilgrimage Prayer are blessed and sent…..it is the time for sharing dreams, concerns and joys…..
This Saturday had a special moment: at the end of Mass, Fr. Jonathan Niehaus blessed a picture of the MTA. A German lady who spent her childhood in a home for children run by the Sisters of May, asked for an image of “that Virgin of Schoenstatt who accompanied me in my childhood in that Home of the Sisters…..a time I remember with much gratitude…”
“In covenant with…..” also in the Shrine of Los Pinos, Chile
The Mass “in covenant with…..”is no longer only the one celebrated in the Original Shrine or the one transmitted directly on the first Saturday of the month. Andrea Figueroa, from the Los Pinos Shrine, writes: “I am in charge of the intentions at the Los Pinos Shrine and since January, I include weekly the Mass in Covenant for each country ‘on the way to 2014.’ On Saturday the 14th, for example, it is in Covenant with Italy…”
Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA 05172011
