SCHOENSTATT-TEAM 2014, Ester Forcada. The volunteers for the 2014 Jubilee – a group of young people from different countries – went to Cambrai, France May 22nd to 25. Here they share in testimonial form what they experienced there.
“Our main goal was to relive the steps of Joseph Engling, especially his last moments. The first stop was the memorial of the First World War, where the Battle of Verdun was fought; there we could enter into the atmosphere that Joseph Engling lived in with the first Sodalists.
Later, we went to Remonville, where Joseph Engling experienced hard times, where he fell and lived his time of greatest baseness in which he also recognized his smallness and need of Mary, our Mother. There he recognized his faults and rose again. For the volunteers, it was an intense and beautiful moment in which we could identify with him and in which he challenged us to live like him in holiness and love for the Blessed Mother.
At the end of the first day, we arrived at the Shrine in Cambrai!!! It was the first time there for many. Sr. Michéla and Dominique, who take care of the shrine now, warmly welcomed us. The tranquility and peace that was fostered in that place allowed us to realize what Cambrai meant to Joseph Engling, and also to understand the meaning of his sacrifice.
Pilgrimage with the fire bowl to Schoenstatt
On Friday afternoon, we walked in the last footsteps of Joseph, the last path he walked before he died, bringing the original fire bowl. We felt like the new sodalists of Schoenstatt and we are ready to give an answer to the world as the new Generation. As the second generation was kindled with the fire of the first and took the original fire bowl to Cambrai, we want to be set ablaze with the fire of generations past and bring the fire bowl to Schoenstatt so that together with us, the entire family can experience the same fire that we lived in Cambrai.
Encounter with the the “Little Flower”, Saint Thérèse
But on Saturday, the atmosphere changed as we went to Lisieux, the place where St. Thérèse lived and died: the great saint to whom Fr. Kentenich had great devotion and whom he called the first Schoenstatter. He thought this… because Thérèse always had the spirit of childlikeness. She felt like a child in the hands of God. Also for her devotion to Mary since she lost her mother when she was very young and her belief in secondary causes. These three things can be lived and felt tangibly there in Lisieux, so not only did we get to know St. Thérèse more, but also know and experience Schoenstatt and its mission more fully.
In short, we can say that each of us has returned from Cambrai and Lisieux with a renewed strength, ready to work for the centennial, and with the desire to be the new generation for Schoenstatt. We want to invite the rest of the world to join this stream and work to build the Schoenstatt of tomorrow, and to take it to the Church and the world that need it, a new hope.
Original: Spanish. Translation: Wayne Wang/Volunteerrs 2014
