This is how October 18th, 2014 was celebrated – in Nueva Helvecia, Uruguay

URUGUAY, Gonzalo Rodríguez. The missionaries of the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign along with many other pilgrims arrived at the First Schoenstatt Daughter Shrine with the feelings of a special day…and with the still fresh memory of the visit some weeks ago in pilgrimage to Santa Maria, RS Brazil, to learn about the life and the places of John Louis Pozzobon from his place, to travel on his roads and in towns that led to the creation of the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign.

The day had been forecast to be cloudy and cold, but there was still a radiant sun and it was warm before the solemn Mass began. The structure of the Shrine was completely decorated with flowers, and the park accordingly waited for this day with all the plants making a gala of a budding spring- time.

The hand and the pen

The Mass began at 11:00 a.m.….and the priest’s words were heard in the silence only interrupted by the birds, who seemed to want to be present in such a special moment. The hand and the pen…that was what the homily was about…Who writes, the hand or the pen?…without the pen the hand cannot accomplish it, and the pen cannot accomplish it by itself.

This is how God is with Mary, because that is how he defined it to be: to write history through Mary. And so it is with each one of us: to write our little piece of history, that of each one and of the others who surround us, not only through us; but rather with us… just as he established the “Nothing Without You, Nothing Without Us” in the Covenant of Love.

The first missionary of the Campaign in Uruguay died on the 18^th of October 2014

After the homily, the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign gave the Blessed Mother a gift: a little crown for the illustrious picture of the pilgrim Campaign…a demonstration of affection and tenderness for the one who always takes care of her children…and they took the opportunity to re-affirm the prayer entrusted to the Blessed Mother so that she will also make use of the capital of grace, Montevideo, of her shrine.

After the Mass, reinforcing once again that when the seed dies it brings forth much fruit, the priest said that he could only stay for a moment to share, since the lady, who had the FIRST PILGRIM MTA marked No. 1 and who had been very ill for a long time, had died that day at dawn, on the 18^th of October on the way to the eternal encounter with the Blessed Mother, on her way to receive the palms of victory close to God forever.

The broken jar

The afternoon elapsed with joy and the presence of the live celebration in Schoenstatt via the giant screen, later a Rosary of Light was carried out.

I was leaving with my family, and upon bidding farewell to a Sister of Mary in the Shrine, my youngest son bumped against the clay jar that was in the Shrine and which held the petitions until that day…the jar fell and broke into pieces…in the midst of his heartbreak and ours, an older man with tears in his eyes, said that the usefulness of the jar was finished, because those petitions, in the Blessed Mother’ s hands and on this very special day, had already reached their final destination…

It was beautiful to experience it, to relate it

This how a day charged with events, spirituality and above all, blessings ended, because love is repaid with love. On the return, everyone was thinking about the experience. The comments reflected a single thing, as a popular song from a Uruguayan composer says: “how beautiful it was to experience it, in order to relate it” and the songs and praise continued from different groups in the Movement.

Original: Spanish – Translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, TX USA