Dr. Alicja Kostka. We met in the Ermland, north-eastern Prussia, Joseph Engling’s home. Mr Lambert Schroedter (*1.12.1958 in Rastatt, +11.6.2014 in Bonn) accompanied Mr Kanzler, at that time, as now, the Superior General of the Institute of Brothers of Mary, who had come to prepare for a large group to visit Prositten from Schoenstatt for the hundredth birthday of Joseph Engling in 1998. A Brother of Mary who spoke Polish … a rarity. “Will we ever meet another like him?” a woman asked when she heard of his death on 11 June 2014. He had studied many years ago at the University of Warsaw, and looked for ways to bring the mission of the Brothers of Mary to Poland. Then his way led to Prositten, where he was set aflame for Joseph Engling’s mission and was able to set others alight as well.
Mission Ermland – home of Joseph Engling
At the initiative of Mr Kanzler, and with Mr Schroedter’s support, annual Engling meetings have been organized at Joseph’s place of birth since 2000 for all who know Joseph and want to get to know him. Mr Schroedter was always a special guest, and without him these meetings would have lacked a special note. He always gave a keynote address on a special subject and motivated everyone to keep going. He also worked for the “Engling Letters” and a number of Prositten journeys, which he helped to organise and lead. He was especially happy to lead representatives of the international Schoenstatt Family through the beautiful Ermland. Together we discovered lost traces of the Schoenstatt Movement in the 1930s: the first Schoenstatt altar in Gudnik, the home of Otto Bönki in Napraty, the former house of the Pallottine Fathers and the Sisters of Mary in Rössel, the mysterious MTA picture in a convent, and much more.
He loved Joseph Engling’s homeland, he was fascinated by the vast countryside, the many lakes, the crusading history, and its Marian character. At the same time he re-discovered Joseph in his home, and he wanted to pass this on to others. In this way Joseph’s home became his own. He made friends with the people there and they were happy when he visited them and asked after them. His name, Lambert, was rather exotic to the Polish ear, but it reflected the originality of his personality: sporty and elegant, with a courteous and congenial way, he completely revolutionised the negative image of “being a Brother”. He had a firm place in many hearts. A few days ago a participant at an Engling meeting said, “I cannot imagine an Engling meeting without Lambert!”
A Brother of Mary – a masculine expression of Mary
He also had a firm place in our family. He was truly a Brother, a Brother of Mary. In the image of Joseph he got to know Joseph Engling as a masculine expression of Mary. This is what he was to us. Lambert Maria.
His commitment to Joseph ran parallel to his work for the Men’s Movement in Poland.
Thanks to his untiring co-operation a group of young men started in Bydgoszcz and then the first independent men’s movement in Warsaw, Jozefow. He took part in their group meetings via Skype and enriched them with incentives on a modern spirituality for men.
Monika Kosmowska, the wife of one of the men in this group, said of him when she heard he had died: He has carried out his mission – the men’s movement has become a reality!
He saw this with joy and amazement as the fruit of the crowning of our MTA twenty-five years ago in Swider, the centre of the Schoenstatt Movement in Poland, and renewed in gratitude two years ago. The MTA had fulfilled his wish.
Covenant of love with Joseph Engling
A year ago, in connection with the death of Mr Hannappel, the great Engling apostle in France, we entered into a covenant of love with Joseph at Paul M. Hannappel’s grave. We thanked for everything we had been given in our mission for Joseph. It was a common journey, along which we accompany the process of Joseph’s beatification reopened in 2008, and to which we may contribute by fostering devotion to Joseph in his home country. Joseph united us.
The “Engling Consercration” – the offer of our own lives for the mission of the Blessed Mother from her shrine – did not remain an abstraction. Precisely in the months before and during Lambert Schroedter’s illness it became a reality that he repeatedly accepted from within, albeit not without a struggle. He spent the whole of May in the Jubilee Year 2014 in a coma after his body had rejected the transplanted bone marrow. A living chalice.
This connection with Mario Hiriart, the Brother of Mary from Chile, was always alive in him. Lambert became a living chalice during this last stretch of the way, a living May Blossom for his Queen. We can be sure she was with him, just as he was there for her and with Joseph. Joseph was called a guardian angel by his comrades in arms, and we now have a guardian angel in Lambert, in covenant with Joseph (I sometimes mixed up the names and called Lambert “Joseph”), at the other side, in our heavenly Schoenstatt.
Alicja Kostka.
Also from schoenstatt.org: Thank you, Lambert Schroedter
As the editors of schoenstatt.org we mourn the passing of Lambert M. Schroedter, who for years has been a zealous and responsible collaborator who regularly sent in articles on the subject close to his heart – Joseph Engling and his mission in Poland. It was sometimes hard work editing his articles, because in his enthusiasm Lambert Schroedter included every tiny detail, but it was work that was also carried out with great joy, because each word was genuine and filled with life.
In place of an obituary here is his last contribution to schoenstatt.org – a commentary on 22 September 2013 to an article about Pope Francis’ call for a prayer vigil for Syria:
September 22, 2013, 4.28 p.m. – Lambert M. Schroedter
I spent the night of prayer in hospital and offered up the treatment I am undergoing.
That a political bridge could be set up between the Great Powers and the Syrian government was for me an answer from heaven to our prayers and sacrifices.
Peace has by far not yet been attained, but these are the first hopeful steps, and I am happy that we played our part through the network of shrines throughout the world.
Translation from German: Mary Cole, England
The funeral will be on June 18, 2014, at the Vallendar cemetary.
