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Posted On 2020-11-16 In Kentenich

Open letter to Mrs. von Teuffenbach

By Paz Leiva, Madrid, Spain, 07.11.2020 •

Mrs. von Teuffenbach: I have read your book. It was not an easy task and not because of the language. The documentation you provide made the screen blurry at times, a lump in my throat, or my stomach closed. I have had a hard time.—

Nevertheless, I have to admit my admiration for you. You have accomplished in record time a work that Schoenstatt should have started in 1975. But we have been very busy, celebrating milestones, anniversaries, dates, and when not, we were crowning the Blessed Mother.

Both my husband and I have been Schoenstatters for 50 years. We got to know the Movement during our adolescence. We have been fortunate to meet people on this path who have not lied to us when we have asked uncomfortable questions. Your book reveals stories that we did not know. Of course, they were under the “secret of canonization”.

The instrument, which God chose to leave us this inheritance

What we have learned and lived in Schoenstatt we owe it to father Kentenich. We will always be grateful to him for everything we have received. We have never had an idyllic image of him as a “saint by birth”, we have not put him on the altars nor have we lit candles or placed flowers on him. We love him with a mature love, not blind, capable of bearing everything.

That’s why we want the truth to shine through. We will assume it with all its consequences, we will accept history and we will continue to look to the future with hope and transmit, within our limitations, all the good that we have lived and learned in Schoenstatt.

Whether the instrument, which God chose to leave us this inheritance, becomes saint or not, matters little to us. We care about his work, because we are convinced that it is a good path for many.

Mrs. von Teuffenbach: thank you very much for your work: it gives us the opportunity to reach the truth. There are many of us Schoenstatters who are sure that hiding our heads in the sand does not help, on the contrary: it generates uncertainty and therefore, mistrust. And that is what we want to avoid. Better the truth, however hard it may be, than to live with doubt and suspicion.

 

P. Kentenich 1945 (tercero de derecha)

Fr. Kentenich 1945 (third from right)

 

Original: Spanish 11-11-2020. Translated by Maria Aragón, Monterrey, México

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1 Responses

  1. John Doherty says:

    Well said Paz Leiva, you have probably spoken on behalf of thousands of us Schoenstatters who without having read the von -Teuffenbach book none the less believe in Father Kentenich.

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