SPAIN, org. In his pastoral projection for the month of July 2014, Director of the Movement in Spain, Father Carlos Padilla offers the Spanish Schoenstatt Family and all readers of our schoenstatt.org webpage an actual and important motivation at the service of life and the Jubilee pilgrimage – just 100 days from October 18, 2014. His starting point is the Jubilee gift from the Schoenstatt Family in Spain to form a network of living shrines, a network of life, a missionary network. On the way to 2014, this month has been dedicated to unity as a gift and condition of that pilgrimage.
We are building a network of living Shrines, which we want to give to Mary in her Jubilee year
During this month we want to foster unity. It is a grace, a gift of the Holy Spirit that we pray for while we are gathered around Mary in the Cenacle. A net is a symbol that expresses unity. The cords are interwoven with each other…a solid and firm unity…living anchored in each other’s hearts. Unity has a lot to do with the mission that Mary gave us in the Shrine. From the beginning, Father Kentenich dreamt of the ideal of forming a new man in a new community. He spoke about forging an ideal community, a true family on earth: “true happiness consists in always procuring to create a haven, a paradise on earth, a family of God.” [1] On the one hand, he stressed from the beginning the importance of taking care of one’s own originality, that which is most authentic about each person and at the same time, respecting the differences. We are not the same. Each person has his/her mission, charism, form of being, and history. But we all need each other. We have to complement each other and enhance each other. Father did not want uniformity, but respect for the diversity. It is about trying to overcome envy and separation. We have more things in common than differences. Therefore he spoke of communion. Being anchored in each other and respecting the one who is different. My way of thinking and my judgments are not the only valid ones. Pride and self-love do not help to forge communion. We can impose our criteria; we want to remain above everyone, to have the last word. Today, we dream of being builders of unity. For this, it is necessary to be more humble and meek.
Accepting differences is a challenge
Sometimes we feel we possess the absolute truth, and we distance ourselves from those who have different points of view. Also our habits, our preferences, our joys, our history can separate us. To unite means to extend ties to understand those who do not share our point of view. Empathy is a gift you have to work on…learning to place one’s self in the shoes of the other person before judging and condemning. We are empathetic when we understand the reasons, which provoke different behaviors. Empathic when we accept that the reality can be viewed from a different angle. An understanding, compassionate heart is a heart that unites…a peaceful heart that brings peace, where there is conflict. It is easier to add wood to the fire than to put it out. Our criticisms can be like wood, our judgments of condemnation…our looks and gestures. How are we builders of a true communion in our Schoenstatt Family? How important it is to pray for those who are distant from us, for those with whom it is difficult to get along with, for those whom we consider as almost our enemies! How helpful it is to pray for those who judge us and criticize us, for those who do not care for us!
We can begin again to overcome the divisions
We can forgive and be forgiven when there have been wounds. Sometimes our excessive sensitivity weighs on us. We feel hurt or not taken into account or simply not valued or forgotten. It is hard for us to forgive the offenses then. Pope Francis says: “Those who are wounded by long-time-ago divisions, find it difficult to accept that we urge them toward forgiveness and reconciliation. But if they see the testimony of communities who are genuinely fraternal and re-conciliated, that is always a light that attracts. To pray for him with whom we are irritated is a beautiful step in love, an act of evangelization.” A Jubilee year is a year of graces, a year of forgiveness, a year in which all our debts are forgiven. God’s forgiveness comes to us as a gift from on high. We would like to know how to forgive more simply…without keeping a tally of offenses, forgetting, building from the wound that will always accompany us. But we do not forget forgiveness because of that. It is necessary to extend ties, to reconcile with each other. With our hearts, it is important to embrace the one who has distanced him/her self. Mary would unite those who were distant, those who left hurt. It is our mission…to unite without imposing, to forgive without throwing it in a person’s face, to accept others without wanting to change them. Schoenstatt is family and as such has a clear mission in this point. We generate unity in the Church from our own unity. It is a great challenge. We want to form a united family around Mary.
[1] J. Kentenich, The Sources of our Joy
Original: Spanish – Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA 07212014
