org. She has already uploaded the first texts on schoenstatt2014.org, has already written her first article for schoenstatt.org, and already has her office in Covenant House. She already has met with her boss, Father Andrew Pastore, communicated with several of the communications equipment partners who work long distance, and with many people who give their contributions to the Jubilee 2014.
It has now been a week more or less since Maria Elena Vilches from Guayaquil, Ecuador, came to Schoenstatt as a new collaborator of Jubilee 2014. Although she is not a stranger here having spent five weeks last year in the Press Office at Schoenstatt as a volunteer and for several years, has been a translator and a correspondent. “My biggest motivation was thinking I would not be a spectator of this great jubilee, but I want to be participant.” That explains it.
Maria Elena Vilches came to Schoenstatt seventeen years ago when she was a member in the Guayaquil Girl’s Youth. She is now a English teacher in a primary school, and in the last year tried to combine her work and studies with some apostolate outside the country. Thus she had the opportunity to accompany the first groups of Ladies and Married couples in Panama in formation, where last October 18th they sealed the first forty-four Covenants of Love (including both pilgrims and the Mothers’ Branch). “I also had the joy of working for five weeks in the Press Office, where I had my first close experience with schoenstatt.org and preparing for the 2014,” she explains. And she adds, “I think there is much work to be done and sometimes there are not enough hands. In the Covenant of Love, we have taken on our Father’s mission, and I found that this is how I want to contribute to help make the Covenant culture become a reality. My first day at work was very interesting; starting from scratch, familiarizing myself with the place a little, with the new office in Covenant House, but more than anything, starting to learn to walk this way at Father’s hand.”
Maria Elena Vilches is at the service of the communication’s area that in turn is one of the teams in Team 2014: working for schoenstatt2014.org and also for schoenstatt.org through translations, onsite news coverage, and continuing the task already assumed last year in the “virtual tents” of the Covenant Culture i.e., the presentation of projects in the five fields of the apostolate as defined by the 2014 Conference.
The “virtual tents” of the Covenant Culture
Speaking of the Covenant Culture’s “virtual tents”: How does that work? What were the most interesting discoveries? What do the projects, the apostolate fields mean for someone who devotes his/her time to present them? Maria Elena responds with the enthusiasm of someone who has found a treasure in the field:
“Last year, the work centered on the development of the virtual tents. Since I am a teacher, I was principally focused on the field of education. It was a great experience: I could contact representatives from colleges, schools, Kentenich Pedagogical Centers and even a university. It was fascinating to see how despite being located in different countries in America and Europe they were all united by a desire to renew the world by applying Father Kentenich’s pedagogy. It was also a great joy to see many of the representatives of the projects submitted beginning to get excited about the idea of being here in Schoenstatt and showing the world their project as the way they have made a Covenant culture life.”
Give us strength to shape a Covenant Culture in our world
What fascinates one most in 2014, she says, “Is to think that 100 years later, the words of the Founding Act have the same effect they had on October 18, 1914, discovering the fruitfulness of the Covenant of Love, and the realization of the Covenant Culture on the five continents in the more specialized areas of the daily life of so many Schoenstatt children.”
Her favorite phrase in the 2014pilgrimage prayer is: Mother, give us the strength to spread a covenant culture in our world today and educate us to be your true missionaries for this century.’
She explains why: “I like this part because here it is clearly the ‘nothing without You, nothing without us.’ Schoenstatt is a response to the Church for our time, and we are small with a great task, but it is the Blessed Mother who is in charge of strengthening us and preparing us for the mission.”
In Message 2014 are two phrases that she especially likes:
“We were surprised to discover that our deep faith in the reality of the covenant of love with the Blessed Mother is what moves and inspires us globally. This is the source of our fruitfulness and the concrete way in which live and follow Christ. This is exactly what we want to celebrate throughout our jubilee in 2014..” Because the Covenant of Love is what makes us a family and because through it, our piety is not something that exists only within the Church but is something that exists in real situations everyday. And… “We know that the covenant of love has the ability to develop a culture responding to all needs of our time.” Because the covenant of love never goes out of fashion, we are called to live in this time and in this troubled world, and it IS an answer and an ‘anchor’ for humanity.
Being able to greet her everyday in the Original Shrine, to ask the blessing of the Father in his resting place is something that is priceless
What was the biggest challenge upon deciding go to Schoenstatt for the adventure of working on the Jubilee? “Perhaps the biggest challenge was to discover if this was really the God’s will … Once that was more or less clear, I started thinking about how difficult it could be to be so far away from my family, the difficulties inherent by the lack of knowledge of the language, [and] in the fear of leaving the familiar to face many new things …”
But these challenges prove to be small on having thought “that it is a gift, a privilege and simultaneously a big responsibility to be able to work from here for 2014. What fascinates me is in knowing I’m in the same place where it all began, and today almost 100 years later, the Blessed Mother is giving her graces from this place. “To greet her every day in the Original Shrine, to ask the blessing of the Father in his resting place is something that is priceless.”
Maria Elena Vilches returned to Europe just over a year to the day of leaving Germany in 2011. Much has changed since then also in the context of her work. Among the things that changed involved the desired date of return (it was postponed for several weeks to what had been planned in 2011) and – later – the date of delivery of the Original Shrine to the usufruct of the Schoenstatt Movement. With that, in spite of all the changes, is the realization of a dream: to be present in the Original Shrine on this same day.
“I had asked the Blessed Mother to be here that day!” she commented. “For me it is to be a witness to the perfection of Divine Providence. God gives us this gift in the year in which the worldwide Schoenstatt Family are living out the year of the Shrine Current. This surrender could have been at any time in history, but God intended it to be right now. It is also a commitment and a call to keep praying that one day this will be a complete surrender.”
Maria Elena will write the article on the Mass in the Original Shrine on April 1 … Now that’s loyalty, Covenant solidarity by the MTA.
Translation: Melissa Janknegt, Elgin, USA
