CHILE, mda. It is “an invitation to draw closer in a spirit of faith — both personally and as a community — to a text that adds a climatic and providential message to the jubilee celebrations of the centenary of the Covenant of Love” (Prologue). It is a small book with 56 pages, which is coming onto the market in five languages in these days. It contains the message of Pope Franics to the Schoenstatt Movement “to an ecclesial movement of renewal during a moment of grace, both in the jubilee celebration of our founding and this moment in the life of the Church” (Prologue). “I have just received an email from Argentina from someone who is coming to Chile next week and who wants to take along a book. She already knew about it!” Maria Teresa Ramírez Canales, Manager of Patris Publishers in Chile, was overcome with amazement on 9 January. We’ve got there! The little book with the text of the audience, and on the cover an exceptional photograph (by Osservatore Romano) in which our Holy Father can be seen with the two symbols of the Jubilee – the original Pilgrim Mother and the original Unity Cross – is being printed at the moment and will be published in five languagues at the end of January. It contains the complete text of the message of Pope Francis, a short introduction, a Prologue by Fr José María García Sepúlveda, Madrid, and a number of black and white photos of the audience inside.
Among the first to order a few books was Fr Mike Rodríguez OSB from Esquípulas, Guatemala:
“I had already asked myself how I could pass on the Audience to the Schoenstatt Family here so that it could inspire them to meditate on it and assimilate it. It is such a joy that the book will soon be available. I am convinced that the Papal Audience will offer us material for a long time, and that we may need years to understand it as a challenge for the coming hundred years. In a culture, which, as Pope Francis said to the European Parliament, is marked by loneliness and the devaluation of the person, Schoenstatt has been called to build up a culture of encounter, a culture of accompanying people at this historic moment, in close contact, body to body, as the Pope put it …
To put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to get your hands dirty, and in this way start in ordinary, everyday life with accepting and affirming every person, no matter who he or she is, lives and acts, without judging, without prejudice. Only look at the Archbishop of Madrid who has settled in the Baracks of Madrid. I really look forward to this book in covenant with Francis and Mary …”
Of course, the text of the audience is already available in a number of versions: in the official documentation of the jubilee, at schoenstatt.org, various other web sites, the periodical Vinculo in Chile; there is a pdf document in A4 landscape format as working material. Yet it is quite a different matter to have a book in our hands in which we can browse and write in all peace and quiet.
A father, close up, who spoke to us with total openness on the subjects that move and touch us
Gisela Ciola from Trient, Italy, marched into a Catholic bookshop with nothing but a print out of the cover in order to offer them the book, “It isn’t meant just for Schoenstatters!” she remarked. The Sisters of Mary in Belmonte and at the Cor Ecclesiae Shrine will buy the book and spread it among the Italian Movement. The first twenty books in German were ordered from Dinslaken on the same day as the publication was announced. “I am going to ‘create chaos’ in the area where I work and live; as soon as the article appeared, I printed it, or just the title page and bibliographical details, and went into the bookshops here. Of course I am looking for distributors in Buenos Aires and sent the information by email, Twitter and Facebook”, Cecilia Mata reported. It is a message.
As Fr José María García wrote in the Prologue, “One can understand the deeper meaning and value of this audience when seen from the real life that preceded it and reflects an experience of the church that our founder, Fr. Joseph Kentenich, desired through his work and selflessness — a Church that is truly family, not only in spirit but also in its forms and attitudes.
Even though the audience hall was packed with Schoenstatt pilgrims from the five continents, right from the start there was an atmosphere of family. Here was a father who is close to us and spoke with a warm honesty about issues that move us and call us to respond, both within our family and outwardly in our pastoral and missionary service. A father who spoke to us in words and gestures, openly and clearly so that everyone could understand, and with a spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical proximity that made us feel “at home.” We were not visiting, nor were we invited guests. We were with the Pope, the Holy Father of the Universal Church, our “home and family.”
Unique to the Christian tradition, the messenger — in this case the Holy Father himself — formed part of the message. This is a Church Family because it has a Father who is real, concrete and immediate, around the Church can be a family. Although he gave us a powerful and challenging message, it did not come across as aggressive or peculiar, because it was delivered with the life-giving strength of a humility that is empathetic, serving, modest, and warm.
A Spanish journalist, in response to a call by a victim of abuse by some members of the clergy, wrote that Pope Francis “knows the importance of simplicity as an essential value in a time of false solemnity, hollow appearances, and artificial hierarchies and protocols. He sweeps away the fallen leaves of formalism with demolishing naturalness.”
Where can you get the book?
Also this is a culture of solidarity: The price is the same for all the languages. In this way, languages that will probably have a very small print run, such as English and Italian, will be published at an affordable price. The books cost 6,80 € / 8 US$.
You can buy or order the book in the languages – Spanish, German, English, Italian, Portuguese – online on the website of Neuva Patris Chile, www.patris.cl or by email at gerencia@patris.cl. If you give the ISBN number you can also order it from any bookshop in the world. They will naturally also be offered by all Schoenstatt bookshops and shops, and every other bookshop on the usual conditions for retailers.
Not all who are responsible for bookshops read schoenstatt.org, but they will probably be happy to be informed about the book. Large orders from one place or one country make transport costs cheaper.
The Italian edition will be available at Belmonte and the Cor Ecclesiae Shrine. Coordinator: Sr Vera Lucia Mangas (schitaliafd@hotmail.com).
The German edition will be available in Germany, Switzerland and Austria from the Schoenstatt Centre in Memholz, and can be ordered there from jehle@schoenstatt-memhoelz.de.
English edition: Collective or individual orders at gerencia@patris.cl. Anybody interested in organize a sales outlet, please contact here.
We do it for Pope Francis
It was both a hard and wonderful task – from looking for and buying the photos, to the translation, editorial work, corrections of the text, the compilation of the Prologue and Introduction, the composition of a text in languages we didn’t understand, design and organisation of the distribution – carried out by colleagues of Patris Chile and schoenstatt.org in Chile, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Portugal and Argentina.
“We are doing it for Pope Francis”, they said. And for Schoenstatt. Because that is what is said in the Prologue: The message and messenger are the gift we, the Schoenstatt Family, take along with us from this audience in order to start out on the second century of living the covenant.
Bibliographical details
A Culture of Encounter is a Covenant Culture that creates Solidarity
Audience with Pope Francis for Pilgrims of the Apostolic Schoenstatt Movement at the centenary celebrations of its foundation.
Rome, 25 October 2014
Editorial Nueva Patris, Chile
ISBN: 978-956-246-781-0
US$ 8.00 / 6,80 €
