Sarah-Leah Pimentel. South Africa – a bustling country on the southern tip of the African continent. Known as the economic powerhouse of Africa, South Africa is often viewed as an Eldorado – a place of gold – for the thousands of people who come here as refugees, as students, as families looking for a better life. It is also a country of miracles where the impossible happened: it transitioned to a multi-racial democracy without the bloodshed that is so common in other parts of the continent.
South Africa is also a place of great invention: the first open-heart surgery was performed at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town in 1952; the Kreepy Krauley, the world’s first automatic pool cleaner, was invented in Johannesburg in 1974; the CAT scan was the brainchild of two Cape Town physicists in 1979. It was the first African country to host a FIFA World Cup and introduce the world to the ear-splitting sounds of the vuvuzela!
How South Africa became a home for Schoenstatt
South Africa was also the place where Fr. Kentenich sent the first Schoenstatt Sisters in 1933 when the threats of Hitler’s Third Reich became clear. The Sisters were allowed to come here because the South African Nationalist Government of the time was one of a few countries that were sympathetic towards Germany. It was through this act of Divine Providence that Schoenstatt found a home in South Africa.
And in the same way, Schoenstatt has become a home for the many people who visit the five shrines around the country – one shrine in Cathcart, three in Cape Town and one in Johannesburg. The Schoenstatt Family in South Africa is small but they live out their Covenant of Love intensely with a mission to “draw Our Lady down as the great educator of the peoples” (in the words of Fr. Kentenich to the Schoenstatt Family during his visit to South Africa in 1947/8).
The Schoenstatt Family in South Africa, made up of people of different cultures who speak different languages and often come from such diverse backgrounds, understands the challenges that still face the country. In their different spheres of influence, its members work towards overcoming racial distrust, economic and social discrimination and forging true reconciliation and unity.
A pilgrimage shared
On 28 April, the Saturday morning Mass in the Mother Shrine will be celebrated in covenant with South Africa. The Schoenstatt Family across South Africa will be united with the Mother Shrine in our shrines and in our homes. Some members of the Johannesburg Women’s League will also be on pilgrimage to the first daughter shrine in Africa (Cathcart) and will be in the shrine praying together with the international Schoenstatt Family at the same time that the Holy Mass is celebrated in the Mother Shrine.
Prayers for our country…
… for an end to government corruption, for responsible and effective leadership, an end to rampant and violent crime, for greater equality especially among the country’s poor – many of whom live in undignified conditions, for a restoration of family life, for HIV/Aids child orphans who often become the heads of families in looking after their younger siblings, for a decrease in our HIV/Aids infection rate (through responsible use of the gift of sexuality and access to medicine to prevent mother-to-child transmission), for the many refugees in our country who escaped terrible wars in their home countries only to experience xenophobia here, for victims of abuse.
The Holy Mass in Covenant with South Africa will be transmitted by SchoenstattTV.
