Fr. Andrew Pastore. With only 365 days missing for the great Covenant Pilgrimage of October 18, 2014, a new edition of the official 2014 newsletter “Towards 2014” has been sent out. If you know anybody who does not yet receive it – forward it! Find the earlier newsletters searching the category “2014”, also in the news archive.
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Towards 2014October 2013 – Number 23 |
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 “Who could say he or she is really worthy to take on responsibility for the Shrine? During the last decades we have matured as a Family. The love of the MTA has taught us integrity and fraternity between communities, Branches and peoples. Her love has helped us to mature toward a new missionary spirit in our service to the Church. So we approach the threshold of the Shrine. The hour of grace when the Original Shrine was given to us invites us to stop for a while and ask ourselves whether there is still something we have to do for our interior preparation, and whether the mercy of God must still make up for the times when the love of our covenants has been too half-hearted. We want to follow the inspiration of the Holy Spirit with generosity. Through this gift our Mother and Queen has been the first to show her love for us. She has come to meet us with her gift for the entire Family. She wants nothing else than to awaken selfless love and generosity in us, so that the 18 October 2014 can bring about a breakthrough of our first love –love of God, for each member of our Family and for the Church.” Fr. Heinrich Walter |
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Editorial |
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Dear Pilgrims The Original Shrine is a hive of activity. Renovations are in full swing and pilgrims are arriving from all over the world to see the door opened to the Jubilee. A sentence from our Founder was used recently at an evening blessing that I think fits to the celebrations to come: “You want to do all you can so that the saying “shrine building site” is filled with heart and soul, so that it becomes the heart of the Family everywhere and pervades and saturates the whole community. God Bless |
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Letter from Team
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Tomorrow the door of the Original Shrine will be opened for the beginning of our Jubilee Year – the next step on our Pilgrimage 2014. Everywhere in the world celebrations are taking place. There is also the unique opportunity to take part “live” in the events here in Schoenstatt. We will be transmitting the Opening Celebration on EWTN (TV and Web) – the celebration begins at 20.00 CET and will be repeated on Saturday at 08.00 CET. All the material you need can be found on the links below… Don’t forget to share with us your experiences in your family, wherever you are… A blessed covenant day…. You can participate fully…. Texts Music Live Coverage Video Stream FotoStream The address of Cardinal Rylko will be available on Saturday. For those who are coming – remember to wrap up warm! Plenary IndulgenceNews came from Rome this week that permission has been granted for those taking part in Jubilee Celebrations to receive a Plenary Indulgence under normal conditions in Schoenstatt, in Rome during the designated celebration days and in all Schoenstatt Shrines all over the world from the 18th October 2013 to the 26th October 2014…. More detailed news to follow. |
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From the countries… Germany |
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The German Schoenstatt Movement is setting out towards the Jubilee “One Hundred Years Schoenstatt” with three days of festivities that mark the international opening of the Jubilee Year. More than three thousand people, members and friends of the Movement in Germany, have gathered at the place of foundation to thank God for the rich life that has been given to the Movement in the last decades. “God has blessed us will all the blessings of his Spirit” (cf. Eph 1) – through the covenant of love with the Mother of Jesus, the Mother Thrice Admirable of Schoenstatt. The German Schoenstatt Family, however, is also celebrating a national jubilee celebration “in order to re-enkindle the fire of joy in its mission”, as Fr Lothar Penners DD, leader of the German Schoenstatt Movement, expressed it in his words of welcome to the festival. We want to be and remain “‘firebrands aglow for Christ’ (J. Kentenich) now and in the time to come. We again place ourselves at the disposal of God and the Mother of the Church. Through the covenant of love for the people of our country we are prepared to co-operate in creating a covenant culture in society today and tomorrow.” On Schoenstatt’s Covenant Day, 18 October, Stanislaw Cardinal Rylko, President of the Papal Council for the Laity, Rome, will celebrate Holy Mass and preside over the international celebration opening the Jubilee Year in the evening. The celebration of the German Schoenstatt Movement on 19 October will open with a “Jubilee Prelude” in the morning. The programme includes a rich selection of alternative items, particularly also for families, a festive Holy Mass at the Original Shrine with the President of the German Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch DD, during which the German Schoenstatt Family will enter into the “covenant of love for the people of our country”, and the premier performance of a musical “On the high wire” by Wilfred Röhrig. The third day of the festival, on 20 October, will place special emphasis on the future. Under the motto “Schoenstatt in dialogue – community on the way and in co-operation”, the Movement will celebrate the prelude to the jubilee period with friends, partners and guests, many of whom will collaborate in workshops. Through ecumenical dialogue with representatives of the two great Churches in Germany, the Spiritual Movements from the network “Together for Europe”, religious communities and people from society and politics, the Schoenstatt Movement will look back gratefully on the history we have shared and the individual fields in which Christians bear witness today. How fruitful and forward-looking co-operation can be is an experience we have had in the German Schoenstatt Movement’s recent history. “Only through a network of various spiritual charisms and their effectiveness can Europe find its way back to shaping life from its Christian sources, and to its indispensable contribution to the future development of human culture in a globally united world.” (Penners) In the run-up to the more immediate time of preparation for 2014, a Forum for the Future took place in the German Schoenstatt Family from 2008-2010. Its particular concern was to enter into dialogue with the young generation and to work out points to emphasise in the future. The celebration of the centenary of Fr Kentenich’s ordination in 2010 directed the attention of the Family to his “passion for God and people”, and the spiritual, pedagogical and missionary emphases of the Movement that resulted from his pastoral commitment. A larger, well attended Congress for Women in September 2011, with the subject “Listen to your voice – live today as a woman” was also a contribution along the way to the 2014 jubilee, as was the German Schoenstatt Family’s co-responsible and creative contribution to the Europe Pilgrimage on 8 September 2012, which was attended by large numbers of the Movement. On this day the Blessed Mother was presented with a crown and given the title “Queen of the new evangelisation of Europe”. Three thousand people from eighteen countries in Europe took part in this pilgrimage to Vallendar, Schoenstatt, Germany and the crowning, and since then the “Queen of the new evangelisation of Europe” has moved through Germany bearing witness to unexpectedly many people on behalf of her Son, Jesus Christ. A further contribution and milestone on the way to 2014 took place on 27 October 2012, when Schoenstatt’s Young Men erected five pillars near the Tabor Shrine on the Marienberg. The pillars were unveiled and blessed to mark the centenary of Schoensatt’s Pre-Founding Document. Nor may we forget the “Night of the Shrine” which has taken place since 2005, when the Schoenstatt Youth re-discovered the source of the Movement in the Original Shrine. They made the place more youthful and more international, and entered into the covenant of love for the youth of the world. Since 2009 the “Missiones – live your faith” has taken place with the German Schoenstatt Youth. They latched onto a Misiones project of the Latin American Schoenstatt Movement, and give expression to the conviction that also in Germany missionary action is increasingly needed. Since 2011 the project Schoenstatt Pilgrimages points in the same direction. The Movement in Germany invites people to experience their faith as they walk together and encounter the God of Life in everyday life. These are all steps on a way of new evangelisation. Finally, we owe it to the involvement of convinced groups and individuals that in view of the 2014 Jubilee, for example, a Joseph Kentenich School has been started in Kempten, southern Germany. Its pedagogical concept takes its bearings from the pedagogical principles of Schoenstatt’s founder. Also, following the example of the Hungarian Schoenstatt Families, a Marriage Highway has been established at various Schoenstatt Centres in Germany. (The Marriage Highway at the place of foundation, Schoenstatt, will be dedicated on 19 October 2013.) Besides this, a municipality near Koblenz had dedicated the first completely signposted Pilgrimage Path to Schoenstatt for the 2014 Jubilee. A specialist conference on covenant theology, a symposium on Fr Kentenich’s pedagogy, and an academic congress on the subject of secularisation and new evangelisation brought central objectives of Schoenstatt into the academic field. A mention must also be made of the national meeting of the Schoenstatt Girls`Youth, which will take place in the framework of the festival of the German Schoenstatt Movement in these days as a gift for the 2014 jubilee. Even if the German Schoenstatt Family, the eldest national Schoenstatt Family today, which is turning 99 in these days, is smaller in number at present, it can say with great gratitude in view of the whole preparation for the hundredth birthday of the covenant of love, in which also the gift of the Original Shrine to those responsible for the Movement took place: We believe and know that we have been led by the God of Life, and are newly oriented to our origin and source: “Your Covenant – our Mission!” Heinrich Brehm, Press Office Schoenstatt www.schoenstatt.de |
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Published byFr. Andrew Pastore E-Mail: info@schoenstatt2014.org |
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ContactsP. Stefan Strecker Schw. M. Luciane Machens Fr. Andrew Pastore |
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