SOUTH AFRICA, Sarah-Leah Pimentel. Three weeks later and I’m still reeling. I am home. I’m back at work. Back to the daily routine. Yes and no. It is impossible to have experienced so much grace and be unchanged.
And really there was so much during our Jubilee celebrations in Schoenstatt and Rome. It will take us months and years to really understand the blessings that we received. So where do we start to process what we witnessed? For me, I had to ask myself the question: what touched me the most?
An encounter of grace
In 2009, about 100 people met in Schoenstatt to discern what our MTA and Fr. Kentenich wanted for this Jubilee. Although we came from different places, languages, cultures, and positions, by the end of the Conference the Holy Spirit moved the participants speak with one heart and one mind. Cor unum in patre. We had an encounter with grace and our dream was that all our Schoenstatt brothers and sisters could also experience this moment of grace.
And so to answer the question — what touched me most during the Jubilee celebrations in Schoenstatt? The moments of encounter. And there were so many of them. Meeting a stranger and finding out that their friend is a friend of yours. Making a new friend. Scanning the crowd and seeing a familiar face you hadn’t seen in nine or fourteen years. Rekindling forgotten friendships. Sitting at the end of the day with your pilgrim group and discovering something new about the person who has journeyed with you for years. Watching love grow between two people during long walks up the mountain for lunch or visiting our holy places together.
Cor unum in patre. The moment when during the Night of the Shrine, 7,600 people stood in silence, lit their candles and responded to the challenge of the Fackellauf runners to be the light that shines for a new generation, following in the footsteps of Fr. Kentenich and the first sodalists. Cor unum in patre. The moment when our MTA came out of her shrine to walk with her children through the Pilgrim Arena. She came to us. Encounter.
Grace does not come from us
Five years ago, I wrote that the life of the covenant trickled out of the Original shrine on 18.10.1914 and would return with the power of a mighty river when all of Schoenstatt’s children would come home physically or spiritually on 18.10.2014 to renew their commitment.
That’s not how the MTA planned it. She invited us, yes, to visit her in her special place. But she wanted to remind us that grace does not come from us. Nothing without her. It is because of the grace of our encounter with our Queen, that we are able to reflect that grace to those we encounter on our own journey through life. And so, she came to us, gathered and waiting in the Pilgrim Arena and in so many shrines, home shrines, and heart shrines throughout the world. What a celebration that was! What an encounter! Everyone was on their feet, singing, shouting, smiling, waving their flags as she walked by. She came to us. An encounter with heavenly grace. An encounter of joy. A moment of family unity. Cor unum in patre. A Mother in the heart of her family where she renewed her covenant of love with us.
The pilgrim arena of life
Then Mother returned to the shrine, but we did not follow her. We remained in the place where we were.
She is always in the shrine, so that we know the way back home. But she is also the Pilgrim Mother. A mother who goes out into the world, searching always for an encounter with her children who mistakenly think they are orphans. And because they think they are orphans, they do not know that they have a mother (as Pope Francis said during his audience with us in Rome).
This is why she asks us for our help. We are all in the great pilgrim arena of our life in the world. We can see human hearts that are sad and lonely, but in their pain they cannot see that their mother is watching over them. By listening and speaking words of comfort, we can take them by the hand and introduce them to the mother who has been waiting for them always. They no longer need to be orphans. Nothing without us.
Encounter. Cor unum in patre. Unity. These were the Jubilee graces we received in Schoenstatt.
And this was only the beginning. There were many more encounters of grace waiting for us in Rome…
