org. For the feastday of Fr José María García on 19 March Sr M. Luciane Machens, who from 2008 shared with him the responsibility for preparing and conducting Conference 2014 and the time of preparation for the 2014 Jubilee that followed, has written him a personal letter to thank him for all he has done in these four years. We gladly fulfil her wish to publish this letter on schoenstatt.org.
In the Year of the Shrine Current –
Your Covenant our Mission
Schoenstatt, 19 March 2012
Dear Fr José María,
today on your feastday and the feastday of Fr Kentenich I feel urged, on behalf of the original Team 2014 and on my own behalf, to thank you with all my heart for all you have done in almost four years of planning and conducting Conference 2014 and the preparations for the 2014 Jubilee that followed, and which began with this conference and the Triennium.
When the Father Symbol for the Original Shrine, which is on its world pilgrimage in preparation for the jubilee of the covenant of love, was in the Schoenstatt shrine in La Loma, Paraná, a few days ago, the Schoenstatt Family there celebrated Holy Mass with Archbishop Puggiari. In his address he said, “As Blessed John Paul II said, we have to live passionately in the present in order to form the future. In view of the Jubilee 2014 this means: A jubilee is a renewal of the charism, and means living passionately in the present. The future depends on the passion of you Schoenstatters, on the way you understand how to pass on the riches you have received from earlier generations – the teaching, personality, spirituality and charism of Fr Kentenich. So it is a good thing that you are preparing yourselves intensively and for a long time. This is fitting for great jubilees. May this great pilgrimage to the jubilee help Fr Kentenich’s charism to grow, and to be awakened, renewed and strengthened in the Schoenstatt Family.”
For me those words summarise what you have repeatedly proclaimed in these years in the great vision of a world and Church renewed in the grace of 2014 by a renewing Schoenstatt Family, which allows its covenant to become its mission for a new Church and a new world. This is combined with the aspiration that in this time of grace of the triennium actual life will form concrete projects of a covenant culture in the covenant of love through “the fire of love” for the Blessed Mother, Fr Kentenich and the Family.
In your letter of 20 February to the Schoenstatt Family, you gave us a motto: “We continue our pilgrimage with the same attitude and the same goal”, and strengthened us on our further pilgrimage with the words, “In a covenant with many, and through the contributions of many, the Blessed Mother had brought about great things in our Family in this time of the triennium. She creates, tests and gives us a covenant culture. For the rest of our pilgrimage we have a secure and strong foundation. 2014 continues. In the strength of the currents of life in our international Family I invite you to shape the spirituality of the covenant of love with each step on our pilgrimage in such a way that the Lord can count on us.”
My and our thanks, which is at the same time our feastday gift to you, is the acceptance of this invitation in the certainty that there is “solidarity in the covenant”, so that we continue to work and sacrifice with and for one another for the Schoenstatt for which Conference 2014 gave us a foretaste.
With our prayers for rich strength for you and a rapid and complete return to health, and trusting in your contribution in solidarity with us,
I greet you on behalf of all who were privileged to work with you in these years,
Sr M. Luciane Machens
Team 2014
Translation: Mary Cole, Manchester, England – schoenstatt.org
