WYD-BRAZIL, Sarah-Leah Pimentel. World Youth Day is in my blood. After having been a WYD Schoenstatt volunteer in 2005, I observe WYD activities with special interest. And Rio 2013 is no different. In addition to that, many of my friends are in Rio and provide regular updates on Facebook and Twitter, making it easier to feel what is happening on the ground. The WYD Rio 2013 social media campaign has also been extraordinary in keeping us in touch with what Pope Francis is doing and saying. But best of all, I’ve enjoyed reading Pope Francis’ words. And recognising again and again, that he is speaking to us about a solidarity that echoes the Covenant solidarity we have in Schoenstatt.
WYD Rio 2013 is different
Pope Francis speaks a language that we as Church had perhaps forgotten, in a world which in the last few decades has become increasingly self-centred. This is the Pope who is awakening us once again to the call of Vatican II to take the Church into the world and into the hearts of all people. Of course, in Schoenstatt we were doing this long before Vatican II, and we are being called to keep on living out our Covenant of Love for all of God’s people.
But I think there is something more. The strong Schoenstatt presence during this World Youth Day cannot be a coincidence. God has placed our own Fr. Alexandre Awi de Mello (one of the key voices that marked our Conference 2014 four years ago) at our Holy Father’s side as his translator for this pilgrimage – especially picked by Pope Francis himself. There are two Schoenstatt Shrines in Rio at the moment and I have just read that Pope Francis passed by the Pilgrim Shrine yesterday and blessed it from the car he was travelling in. Some members of the South African groups who are at WYD have told me that they see Schoenstatt everywhere they go.
Could we not be Pope Francis’ collaborators?
Perhaps this is a message for us, the International Schoenstatt Family? Perhaps Fr. Kentenich and the Blessed Mother are calling to us from heaven and asking us to follow in the steps of Fr. Alexandre — to be at Francis’ side and to support him in his mission for the Church. Support him with our prayers but also with our vast experience of living in covenant solidarity, the same solidarity that Pope Francis is speaking about these days.
Perhaps we can dream even more. Back in in 2009, Conference 2014 decided that we would also take our Jubilee celebrations to Rome to “to renew our commitment to it and highlight our missionary nature. As a gift we bring the fruit of our shrines and our apostolic projects and ask the Holy Father to commission us.” (Message 2014)
Perhaps the gift we are bringing is ourselves. We placing ourselves at Pope Francis’ disposal to work for this new church of “saints who wear jeans and sneakers.” Imagine going to Rome next year and asking Pope Francis to commission us to be his collaborators?
A covenant of solidarity with Pope Francis
What better way to respond to Fr. Kentenich’s call to us to love the Church than to live our Covenant of Love in unity with the Church, in solidarity with the Church? Perhaps we can even be so daring as to say: We would like to live a covenant of solidarity with Pope Francis, giving our mission, our work and our charism and ourselves as a gift to our Holy Father to help him to advance his mission for the Church and the world!
Hope reigns with you our Schoenstatt youth.Go with Mary, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit for God’s Glory, pronouncing throughout the world