Agathe Hug/org. It was Saturday number one of the new chronology. It was the first Saturday with a Holy Mass “in covenant with…” after the contract to entrust the Original Shrine became effective. That Saturday’s Holy Mass was in Covenant with Slovakia, and the following Saturday, April 21st, it was in covenant with Slovenia.
Slovenia and Slovakia are two eastern and southeastern Europe states respectively. Slovenia was part of the former Yugoslavia and was declared independent on June 25, 1991, and Slovakia was a part of Czechoslovakia, when on January 1, 1993, by common accord, this country was divided into two states: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The official language of Slovakia is Slovak, and Slovene is the official language in Slovenia; Hungarian and Italian are also partly spoken (this once again stresses the international importance of the Italian version of schoenstatt.org and of schoenstatt2014.org). Slovakia and Slovenia are not very far from one another, but they do not have a common border; Slovenia is further west than Slovakia. Nevertheless, these two countries not only have the consecutive dates of the Mass “in covenant…” toward 2014, but, there is still much more.
For the second migration of the people
Both peoples arrived in their present territory during the era, which was called the migration of the people, where they arrived in these states’ territory. The present day Slovaks come from the former Magyar strains (formerly Celtic tribes that settled in
the present territory of Slovakia and subsequently with Germanic tribes). The migration of the Slovenians began in the 6th Century through the Danube in the territory abandoned by the Visigoths and marked by Roman settlements. There they pillaged the eastern Roman provinces of Iliria, Mesia, Tracia, Macedonia and Greece to the Peloponeso.
Among other things, this pillaging decided, in the end, that the sacked Slavs could not remain in the devastated country and for this reason; they had to remedy this circumstance through their own agriculture.
For a time, Slovakia belonged to the Ottoman Empire, and Slovenia, which is located further west, belonged to the Holy Roman Empire.
It is very hard to reconstruct where and when, each small tribe settled and how the territory was distributed, but it took place in the era of the migration of the peoples. The historians of former centuries possibly described our era as the second migration of the peoples. In the first migration, Benito de Nursia cried out: “Ut stet” (without a perceived, measurable echo for the length of several centuries until all of a culture was the fruit of the apparent inefficiency of its work). The invocation of Benito was: “you should have a very firm center; you should establish and root yourself.” In the new migration of the peoples, what does Father Kentenich cry out? You should go on pilgrimage to the Shrine, and as a living shrine, as a missionary people and a covenant pilgrim create a new culture, a covenant culture. Your covenant our mission. Hundreds and thousands of people joyfully go on pilgrimage to your Shrine; many of them come every day. Many people live like this.
The Saints Cyril and Methodius
The history of both countries is different. However, they have some common characteristics: they both belong to the large family of Slavic people, who in this case are defined by belonging to an idiomatic group. Investigators are still seeking the origin of the Slavs because Slavic writing was not developed until the 9th Century. Moreover, writings about them are rare, since the early Slavs lived away from the civilization that was expert in reading and writing.
The Slavic language nations are generally classified in eastern Slavic states, among them: Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia; the western Slavic states: Poland, Slovakia, and Czech Republic, and the southern Slavic states: Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.
The Slav apostles, Saints Cyril and Methodius, evangelized Slovenia and Slovakia. Both were priests of the Greek Church. They were born in Thessalonica in the 9th Century and they were consciously invited by the rulers to create a counterbalance to the power of the Roman Church.
Consequently, Christianity came in the 9th Century, among other things, because Saint Cyril created the graphic characters for the Slavic language (Cyrillic writing) and he translated the Bible into this language. For some time, Slav was recognized as the fourth language of the Church, and Saint Methodius introduced the celebration of the liturgy in Slav. This made him a target of calumny and of prison.
According to the 2001 census, 68.9% was Roman Catholic there was .9% in Slovenia; they are 57.8% of the population.
Schoenstatt in Slovenia
An article of the year 2000 reads: “Pilgrims from Slovenia in Schoenstatt. Two priests and several Slovenian lay people arrived in Schoenstatt at the beginning of September and they stayed for several days. Some of them had already been here several times, and they actively work in the Schoenstatt Movement in their country. Father Chrisostomus Grill accompanied the group during their stay in Schoenstatt, so they could learn about the origin of the place and to grow deeply in the Schoenstatt spirituality.”
The Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign has almost ninety Pilgrim MTAs visiting the families; it has existed in Slovenia since the beginning of 2008. A team of five people organizes and is responsible for the annual retreat.
After the Mass in covenant with Slovenia, the pilgrimage of country to country returns once again to the African continent, to South Africa. The Holy Mass in covenant with South Africa will be celebrated on April 28, 2012, and it will be transmitted live through schoenstatt-tv. Sarah-Leah Pimentel, from South Africa, wrote the introductory article.
Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, Tx: English translation
