Hilde und Herbert Fellhofer/org. Fr Francisco Sobral, from Portugal, is the Secretary General of the Schoenstatt Fathers, and, what few know, the person who since July 2011 has seen to it week after week that the information gathered by Team schoenstatt.org about the country or project to be remembered at the Holy Mass “on the way to 2014”, as well as all to intentions and contributions sent in from all over the world, are passed on punctually to the celebrant at that Mass. On Saturday, 27 October – the centenary of the Pre-Founding Document – it was his turn to be the celebrant. Holy Mass was celebrated in our covenant with the Fortalecimiento Matrimonial (Marriage Enrichmeht) in Italy.
The projects in union with which Holy Mass “on the way to 2014” have been celebrated since the beginning of October, are “drawn out of a hat”. So, on 27 October, the centenary of the Pre-Founding Document, one of the newest projects in the field of “Marriage and the Family”, and from a country where the Schoenstatt Movement is still very young, Italy, was chosen.
The “Fortalecimeinto Matrimonial” (“Marriage Enrichment”) was the first apostolic project of the developing Family Movement in Italy, and has contributed strongly to its apostolic character. Families from Mexico, where these Intensive Marriage Weekends started, visited Italy in 2007 to conduct the first such weekend with Italian families. The following year these couples formed a team to conduct their own Fortalecimiento for the first time.
The aim of the project “Marriage Enrichment” is to help couples to encounter each other in a new way and at greater depth. In the course of the weekend, all the elements converge, so that the participants re-discover those qualities in their partner, which attracted them particularly when they fell in love, and learn to appreciate them more, while at the same time re-living the path they have covered together. The weekends organized by “Marriage Enrichment” do not aim at getting new members, but is a selfless service to marriage and the family drawing on Schoenstatt’s charism. Nevertheless, or probably just on this account, many of the Italian couples who have taken part in these courses “just for themselves”, now belong to the Family Movement.
The Italian couples and a number of others were united spiritually with this Holy Mass.
Fifty years together on their path through life
What was special at this Holy Mass in the morning of 27 October was that a couple had come to the Original Shrine to thank for the fifty years of their marriage. Right at the beginning Fr Francisco Sobral placed this couple in the foreground as a real reason to thank God for their fifty years together on their path through life.
Start of a Covenant Culture
It was obvious that on this day Fr Francisco Sobral also commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the Pre-Founding Document. The German Schoenstatt Young Men were also celebrating the day as the hundredth anniversary of their foundation. Others remembered the start of Fr Kentenich’s educational activity. Still others saw this day as the origin of the MTA Magazine and Fr Kentenich’s concept of communication, in which taking up the real, actual lives of people in their histories and their successes in life has a key role to play. Again others regard the hundred year old talk as the most revolutionary action of Fr Kentenich, because in it he did not damn all change and all modern achievements, but instead showed how strong, free and firm characters could evaluate and use them with limitless freedom from the fear of encountering the actual world and its changes.
“So do we want to return to the Middle Ages, close Facebook, ban social networking, return smart phones to their manufacturers, and close the research centres of industry? No, never, we don’t want to do this, we may not, we cannot do it!” (Pre-Founding Document … reloaded).
In a fundamental sense, this is where a Covenant Culture begins … a culture that forms the relationship between “the personality and society, the personality and the economy, the personality and technology, the personality and social mobility” (J.K., May Letter 1948) through the covenant, in the covenant and for the covenant.
In union with…
The expressed and unexpressed intentions for this Mass were for all the families that have taken part, or will take part, in Fortalecimiento Matrimonial in Italy; as well as the worldwide Schoenstatt Family on its pilgrimage to the 2014 jubilee; all the apostolic projects that are intended as covenant gifts for the renewal of the covenant of love; and all who pray and live in worldwide union through the pilgrimage prayer; all who have dedicated their strength and time to preparing for 2014, and to whom we owe important contributions on this pilgrimage. A special memento was made of the 90kilometre pilgrimage from the wayside shrine at La Loma to the shrine in Paraná that was taking place at that time.
We fill the jars
Banks have a statement of account, businesses have a closing time, competitions a closing date, and at some point on Friday afternoon, middle European time, there is a point when all the intentions and contributions via the direct line to the Original Shrine via schoenstatt.org arrive, and Saturday after Saturday fill the jar in the Original Shrine after they have been presented to the Blessed Mother during Holy Mass and entrusted to the prayers of all present. The prayer intentions are treated confidentially. Only the Monks of a Benedictine Abbey in Brazil read them and pray for each one. A colleague from schoenstatt.org makes a rapid survey of the messages for the countries from which they are sent, and misdirected messages, or those that have clearly been written to be read out, because they are entrusted not only to the Blessed Mother, but also to the praying community.
On Friday evening, very late. Fr Francisco Sobral has already printed everything out and prepared it. A mail arrives. A glance. It must, yes, it MUST be included in this Mass. Quickly forwarded to Fr Francisco. Next day the answer: Yes, also this intention has been included.
It is included with so many others – this time from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, USA, Spain, Portugal, Paraguay, Austria, Germany, Columbia, the Philippines, Bolivia, El Salvador and South Africa. Each one shows that trust and faith that moved Jesus to work miracles. Then. And now.
The next Holy Mass “on the way to 2014” will be transmitted live by schoenstatt-tv (3.11) and celebrated in our covenant with all projects to do with marriage preparation.
Translation: Mary Cole, Manchester, England
