Father Carlos Padilla. We arrive at the end of a year of grace, a year of life, a year of hope. We have been able to celebrate the Jubilee in Schoenstatt, in Rome, in Spain. Those of us who were able to go to Schoenstatt gathered as a family coming from the ends of the earth. We paused in front of the Original Shrine with heartfelt gratitude. It was necessary to live that day. Some of us were able to be there. Others were present in their Daughter Shrines or Home Shrines. But we all wanted to renew our Covenant of Love from the heart, from the depths of one’s soul. The Jubilee wants to be a personal and profound encounter with God and with Mary. We now want to give thanks for what we have experienced. Surely God has surpassed with interest what we imagined the Jubilee would be. What concrete gift, perhaps hidden, has Mary given us during these days of the Jubilee, in Rome, in Schoenstatt, in our home? What have we given her on the day we renewed our Covenant of Love?
On that day, Mary left her Shrine and went out to look for us
The fruitfulness of this Jubilee depends on that which we have given her, of that which is buried in the Shrine under the gaze of Mary and of our personal and concrete “yes”. It is the contributions to the Treasury of Grace offered in silence, with humility, with joy and simplicity. On that day, Mary left her Shrine and went out to look for us. She told us “yes,” that she loved us with her whole heart. She told us that what is important occurs in the silence of the soul, where God speaks to us. Mary returns to our sacred land, to our enamored heart. She wants to build with our clay, to work the cornerstone of our life. She counts on what is there in our impossible dreams. One hundred years ago, Father Kentenich said to the first sodalists: “I know that building on what we have achieved thus far, we will achieve great progress.” That is how he was with them. That is how he will be with us. With what we have achieved thus far in the years of the Covenant of Love that we have experienced, Mary will work great miracles. Again we tell her “yes,” that we are ready, that we love her. Once again we give her our hearts. We have crossed the threshold of this century. A new time opens up, a new day, a new year. Mary has said “yes” to our life, just as it is, with its riches and its poverty, with its wounds and its talents. We have said “yes” to her and “yes” to our history, to our vocations and to our wounds, to our ways and to our fears. We sink roots into that sacred land. We sow with the simplicity our hearts empty of selfishness. We became children, sodalists, and adults. We kiss the black cross ready to give our lives, because we know that the life which is kept aside is lost, and we assume the words of Father Kentenich: “We should believe in the Kingdom of God, in its realization in Heaven. Nevertheless do we not also have the task to help in the edification, in the constitution of the Kingdom of God, of the ideal City already here on earth, helping with all our strength including in these difficult times which we are living?” We say “yes” to the covenant with Mary, “yes” to our clumsy and valiant steps, “yes” to Mary who is our Mother. We arrive filled with life. We become filled with hope. We leave a network filled with faces. We bring a net that unites us as Family symbolized in the Unity Cross.
In Rome we have lived Father Kentenich’s invitation to love our Church. He always loved the Church.
There Pope Francis has received us and has given us an intimate and warm encounter with a father. He has listened to us, he has embraced us and has opened to us new horizons.
He has reminded us of our Marian vocation: “Mother. She is Mother not only because she gives us life but she also educates us in the faith. It is very different to try and grow in the faith without Mary’s help. It is something else. It is like growing in the faith, yes, but in a Church that is an orphanage. A Church without Mary is an orphanage. Mary is the one who helps to bring Jesus down to us. Bringing Jesus down. She brings him from heaven to live with us.” (1) And she has invited us to be faithful to our vocation of transmitting life. We are called to forge a new world in Christ, a new world through the hands of Mary. Our life in the Covenant of Love wants to forge a covenant culture, a culture of encounter in this land of so many disappointments. The Pope said to us: “…we need to work for a culture of encounter. A culture that helps us to find ourselves as family, as a Movement, as a Church, as a parish. Always looking who we can find on another.”(2) It is not easy to live united, to create bonds, to forgive, to accept, to integrate. Often because we believe we are better, because we are laden with pride, because we do not want to lose anything…..we end up creating disunity. Mary is unity. She always united, she always unites us.
The Pope invites us to be bridges, a place of encounter, and a home of covenant. The Pope has asked us to come out of ourselves; that we decentralize because the danger in life is to think we are in the center, that Schoenstatt is the center of the Church, that things happen because we are there and we make them happen. But it is not that way. Our vocation is unselfish service: poor and simple. We are there to unite, to serve life, to go unto the outskirts. We do not want to be content with taking care of the life that God has entrusted to us. We go beyond that. We seek the encounter with those who are not near, with those who do not believe, and with those who do not know the Shrine as a home. We cannot keep the treasure that we have received freely for ourselves. Our mission begins. Mary sends us forth to be faithful to our mission in the world.
Selfless service
In the Vatican, contemplating the immense picture of Mary, we were aware of our smallness and of the greatness of our mission. There we gave our “yes” to Mary anew. A week before, we said our “yes” to her in her little Shrine. We said it anew a week later in the Vatican. We told her we were ready to give our life, to surrender everything offering our heart. We know that Mary never leaves us alone on the way. She sends us forth and goes before us. She opens the doors so we may enter, and she is already inside waiting for us. She gives us light in darkness and it is the same light we bear in our soul. She encourages us when we are discouraged, she lifts us when we fall. She believes in us when we do not believe. We build on her with her hands. We are not afraid. We are not laden with plans and projects. We simply surrender what we have with simplicity. The beauty of the Shrine is where Mary gives us a new way of living. We attach ourselves to Her. We allow ourselves to be transformed in her Mother hands. We are those living shrines from which she wants to give herself to mankind.
She builds from my poverty, from my abandonment, from my desire to grow and to reach the heights. She sends me forth and she takes care of me.
Original Spanish: Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA 11202014
