Fr. José María Iturrería, National Advisor of the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign of the Pilgrim Mother of Schoenstatt in Argentina •
On the occasion of the Year of Prayer in preparation for the Holy Year 2025, Fr. José María Iturrería, national advisor of the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign in Argentina, invites all the missionaries to a series of workshops to deepen in prayer – but not to take refuge in something merely interior, but to be transformers of reality, strengthened in prayer. We share the letter of presentation because we think that its message is valid for all of us who feel called to be shapers of reality. —
We are beginning a new year in our country, marked by many strong changes in multiple fields of social life, and a difficult economic situation that humanly worries everyone.
We do not want to be mere observers or critics of reality
As disciples of Jesus and Mary, we do not want to be mere observers or critics of reality but builders and protagonists of a new world, wherever God places us and with the tools we have.
Father Kentenich reminds us that the allies of Mary, which is what we, the missionaries of the Campaign, are called to be new men and women, managers of a new community, built from a new way of living fraternally among ourselves and of relating with God through prayer.
John Pozzobon assumed this mission in an original way back in 1950, when he began the Rosary Campaign, going out with the image of the Blessed Mother to meet so many lonely people in need of faith and hope, and taking the Holy Rosary in his hands as a form of Marian prayer in the midst of his daily life.
True change begins within oneself
Today we live in a different time from that of John Pozzobon but, like him, we too can be, with Mary, transformers of reality. True change begins within oneself and it is from there that all lasting transformation of the reality that surrounds us begins. The bond with God that arises from the inner life is the source we have to begin this transforming revolution.
For this, we have an exceptional opportunity if we take seriously the call that Pope Francis makes to the whole Church to live a year dedicated to prayer in preparation for the Holy Year 2025. John Pozzobon began the Campaign, a transformative initiative sustained in prayer, precisely in 1950, a Holy Year for the entire Universal Church convoked by Pope Pius XII in preparation for the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Therefore, as Missionaries of the Rosary Campaign, we want to go on pilgrimage this year with the emphasis on prayer, particularly the prayer of the Holy Rosary, towards two special events that are creatively intertwined: in 2025 we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Rosary Campaign and at the same time, the Holy Year, the Jubilee Year, convoked by the Holy Father.
We hope that this workshop will help us to grow in this spiritual journey that we have begun and to unite spiritually in this common mission of being, in Covenant and through prayer, transformers of reality.
The workshop method
The material provided month by month is designed to accompany the way in this year of prayer and year dedicated, in the Campaign of Argentina, to the rosary prayed and lived in Covenant.
The method is innovative and at the same time simple. Short texts of Pope Francis are shared from a series of catecheses on prayer that he gave between May 2020 and June 2021.
But the text is not studied; it is read in a spiritual and personal way – just as we know it from the spiritual reading of the Bible, from the spiritual reading of texts by Fr. Kentenich or from articles on schoenstatt.org.
We are invited to read the text in a personal way and mark what touched our soul the most. We can also ask ourselves: What does what you have read mean to me? Then, gathered in a group, each one shares the phrases that touched him/her and his/her impressions. It is a sharing, a listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit in the voices of others, without discussing or questioning.
May this material help us to be able to unite in “a great symphony of prayer”, as the great engine of our missionary vocation at the service of this new Visitation that, from her Shrines, Mary has undertaken with the Rosary towards all the families and people who need her.
First Workshop – Year of Prayer (spanish)
Original: Spanish. Translation: Marcela Fernández, Toronto, Canada
