Dilexit Ecclesiam! September 15, 2018, Fr. Juan Pablo Catoggio, President of the International Presidency of Schoenstatt•
Dear Schoenstatt Family:
you who are present here (Schoenstatt, Germany) and those whom you represent, and the many who are celebrating with us in the different parts of the world,
We have gathered in this historic place on the 50th anniversary of our Father and Founder’s death. We come to give thanks for him and for what he signifies for us and for our times. We are grateful because we sense that he remains in us and we in him. We have experienced that he has not left us, but rather that he lives in us and makes us a family in him.
We come to him with what we have and are. We also bring our needs and our weaknesses. If we were called to participate in his charism and to carry on his mission, then we could only do this if God gives us the grace of his living in us. On our own, we can do nothing. His charism, his covenant is our life, our strength and our mission.
That’s why we have now renewed or some have sealed for the first time a covenant with you, our Father and Founder. During your lifetime many did not understand you, some even to this day. You even told your closest followers that it took them quite some time to understand you. The apostles needed the Holy Spirit to be able to understand Jesus but they followed Him in faith. Dear Father, we believe in you, in your charism and mission even if we don’t always understand you. However, we do firmly believe that we are called to participate in your charism, your mission and your destiny. Today we want to renew that belief and our willingness to follow you.
We say today: Yes Father, we are going with you! Father, our heart in your heart, our thinking in your thinking, our hand in your hand! As your adult daughters and sons we place ourselves completely at your disposal. We need you and you need us. Live in us and work through us!
We ask for two thirds portion of his spirit (cf 2 Kings 2,14). May God take from Father’s spirit and infuse it in us (cf Numbers 11,17). It’s a threefold spirit that turned into his passion, a threefold passion he expressed considering his epitaph:
Dilexit Mariam! He loved Mary!
Mary was your Mother and educator, your life’s teacher. You lived in a covenant with her since your childhood. She made available to you her supplicant omnipotence and her maternal heart. Your mission is to proclaim the glories of Mary for our times and to help her realize her historic mission for today. Mary is the great prophetic sign of a new humanism, the great educator of the new man and of the nations. Again we choose Mary, our covenant with her and her mission from the Shrine.
Yes Father, we are going with you! Live in us and work through us!
Dilexit Familiam! He loved the Family!
You dedicated yourself completely to the Schoenstatt-Family and you made us Family. Please see to it that we give our all for the Family, for our international and intercultural Family worldwide. May we consume ourselves for our multifaceted and federative Family and for its spreading and growth throughout the world. There are so many places and countries where the Family has not struck any roots. May we be instruments of unity who understand cultural differences as richness and therefore make them fruitful. May we grow in solidarity with each other and thereby live and pass on a covenant culture. We are decided on an active solidarity for the Family.
Yes Father, we are going with you! Live in us and work through us!
Dilexit Ecclesiam! He loved the Church!
Father and Founder, you really loved the Church until it hurt. You risked everything for her and were willing to carry the cross for her. You dreamed of a renewed Church and you gave your all for Her. All for Schoenstatt, all for the Church and all for the Triune God! Your dilexit ecclesiam commits us to this task more than ever. Today the Church is undergoing so many temptations and experiencing so many attacks from the outside, and who knows how many from within. Our mistakes and sins hurt us as Church. We also suffer from the attacks and the shame. Like you and with you we want to love and serve the Church. Decidedly and effectively we give our all for the Holy Father and for the reforms that he promotes with such courage and many sacrifices. We are with him.
Today’s world needs this renewed Church, a humble Church of and for the poor; a Church that is not tied to power, but rather animated by the Holy Spirit. This Church should be Marian, a family and a house that is open for all. This Church with Mary and like Her should be a Mother and should take the mercy of God that saves and heals to the people of our times, especially the many women and men who have been hurt. We want to offer to the Church a missionary Schoenstatt, a Schoenstatt on the move.
The Covenant has become a mission, it has become a culture. Father and Founder, give us of your fire! Give us a share in your Founder spirit! Give us of your threefold passion! We are going with you! Live in us and work through us!
Dear Blessed Mother, as you did at the Church’s beginnings, implore for us God’s Spirit, a new Pentecost! Set up a new beginning, the start of a new time for Schoenstatt and for the Church of our time.
Fr. Juan Pablo Catoggio
Schoenstatt, September 15, 2018
