BRAZIL, mda. Fr Miguel Lencastre (84) of the Institute of Schoenstatt Fathers died on the afternoon of 13 January. He had spent a month in hospital in Recife in northeast Brazil. In the evening of 13 January his body was taken to the shrine of the Mother Thrice Admirable of Schoenstatt in Olinda near Recife.
The Rector of the shrine, Fr Severino Lima Araujo, announced that afternoon that two Requiem Masses would be celebrated, the first on Tuesday, 14 January, at 9 a.m. Archbishop Fernando Saburido of Olinda and Recife would preside at the second Mass at 1 p.m. After the “Mass of Hope” Fr Miguel Lancastre would be buried at the Parque de Flores cemetery in Sancho, a suburb to the north of Recife. This would take place between 4-5 p.m.
Fr Miguel Lencastre was born in Portugal and was the first Movement Leader of the Portuguese Schoenstatt Family, to which he was very close and which he still visited in November last year. He was one of the great Schoenstatt apostles to the northeast of Brazil where he began to spread Schoenstatt more than thirty years ago.
Schoenstatt began in the region of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil with the arrival of Fr Miguel Lencastre, the pioneer of the Schoenstatt Fathers in that region. During a celebration in the chapel of the Lencastre family in 1980, he and his family accepted responsibility for spreading Schoenstatt in northeast Brazil.
As Fr Jose Fernando said at the thirtieth anniversary celebrations of the arrival of Schoenstatt in northeast Brazil, the development of the Schoenstatt Movement there was above all a loving gift of the Lencastre family. “This family placed itself at the disposal of the Blessed Mother of Schoenstatt as her instrument so that, if it was God’s will, she could take up her abode in a shrine in the northeast, and that people could draw from the source of grace and Fr Kentenich’s spirituality and pedagogy.”
A testimony of Fr Miguel Lencastre at Schoenstatt’s Golden Jubilee in Portugal in 2010
Being a pioneer isn’t simply an historical fact at a particular time, it is above all a permanent attitude of discovery and initiative. For Fr Miguel Lencastre, one of the two responsible leaders of the Schoenstatt Family in Portugal at its beginning, this spirit is always present, “I want to show our Schoenstatt youth a way of hope, of life, of courage, and of daring, in our Church and in our country, now when we are experiencing very difficult times.” “God reckons with you young people”, Fr Miguel said as he looked back on his life. “Look at the example of the old people and how their steps were blessed”, “you can be sure that you will have exactly the same blessing and fruitfulness”, he told them.
When he looked at his meeting with the Schoenstatt Family in Portugal and its celebration of Schoenstatt’s Golden Jubilee in their country, for which he had travelled from Brazil to Portugal, Fr Miguel said “it was deserved and above all an opportunity to get to know the whole history of the Family. God speaks through history and it is a good thing for us to re-live and visualise this historical process which God had unfolded in the Movement. It was fruitful and we can be sure it was richly blessed.”
This pioneer had not expected the fruitfulness to be so great, “to be honest I did not expect such fruits, but God acts as he wills, when he wills, and with the instruments he wills.”
On this occasion Fr Miguel spoke about his own life, which is inextricably linked with the history of Schoenstatt in Portugal. “I see it above all in my life as a priest. I was a very late vocation and before that I had hardly had a religious life; I lived an improper life, and when I entered the Seminary I realised that God had always protected me and guided my steps.” “In many things and in many initiatives I have been a pioneer, here in Portugal as in Brazil, but I never thought that God would bless our Fathers so richly.”
Schoenstatt.org unites itself with the prayers of the family, friends and members of the Schoenstatt Movement in Portugal and Brazil, and in thanking for the work of this pioneer of the covenant of love.
Original: Portuguese. Translation: Mary Cole, Manchester, England
