mda. The Academy for Family Pedagogy began in Vienna, Austria, as an apostolic project of Schoenstatt Families who wanted to pass on to others the riches they had received in their families through Fr Kentenich’s pedagogy. Following the model set up by the Vienna Academy, Academies began in Switzerland, Germany, Croatia, Hungary, Spain and Lithuania. The first seeds were sown in Lithuania in the summer of 2009. The Academy in Lithuania, which is supported by couples from Austria, is still growing, and has already brought a blessing and missionary élan to many couples in that country.
The first seeds were sown by Hilde and Herbert Fellhofer, who until the end of August will carry out the duties of sacristans at the Original Shrine. So they were able to tell Fr Ignacio Camacho about this project of the Austrian Families in North Eastern Europe in preparation for the Saturday Mass in the Original Shrine.
Lord, they have no more jars!
In 2009, a few weeks after the Conference 2014, Hilde and Herbert Fellhofer attended a Family Camp in Pakutuvenai, Lithuania. Fr Busse had put them in contact with this initiative. “At the end we didn’t say, ‘Lord, they have no more wine’, but, ‘Lord, we have no more jars!’ There were not enough jars for the many, many families who wanted to take one home. Yet we had taken along 125 small jars with the inscription Jie nebetrui vyno (They have no more wine!) for the Family Camp in Pakutuvenai”, they wrote in their report, which can still be read in the Archive of schoenstatt.org. “During the concluding Mass on Sunday all were thanked and one couple said, ‘Perhaps Schoenstatt will come again to Lithuania one day.’ You never know what the Blessed Mother has in mind. … Plentiful seed had been sown there. We then had to ask the Blessed Mother and Fr Kentenich to send many graces so that the seeds in Lithuania would really grow. The jar is already there,” were the concluding words of the report. The seed did grow. Mr & Mrs Fellhofer returned there in 2010 in order to have a training course with one other family, and in 2011 the Academy for Family Pedagogy began with Mr & Mrs Fellhofer and another couple from Austria. At the end of the first course of the Academy in 2012 the families were sent out on their mission. Those who completed the course are now facilitators for home discussions, marriage preparation and NER courses.
It almost went wrong
Yet the Fellhofers almost missed the Saturday Mass, and the information about it almost did not arrive for the first time in two years… Somewhere in the network of the Team of schoenstatt.ord a page has appeared every week with information about the project whose turn it was for the Holy Mass “on the way to 2014”. It is a service offered by schoenstatt.org as we prepare for the Jubilee in 2014. The information is emailed to Schoenstatt on Friday afternoon (to all who want to receive it), and Maria Elena Vilches (who is at present in Milwaukee, as we knew), Fr Francisco Sobral (at present in Chile, although no one knew it) and Fr Joy (at present in the USA, which no one knew) feel responsible to pass it on, along with the intentions of the Mass, to the celebrant. By now 60 closely printed pages of “Letters to the Blessed Mother in the Original Shrine” are placed into the jar each week.
We want to fill the jars with our gifts
The information was spontaneously sent to the Fellhofers so that they would know that it was the turn of “their project”. They responded spontaneously and gratefully: We absolutely have to attend this Mass. They knew that Fr Ignacio Camacho would be the celebrant … Following a sudden inspiration they were asked: Please take the page with you, or send it to him, and could you also print out the gifts, prayer petitions and intentions, just in case? They did so, and so Alfredo Vallendor from Argentina, a pioneer of the Home Shrine current, who had died that week, was remembered, as promised, at this Holy Mass. He had visited the Original Shrine for the first and only time in 2001. Letters from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, USA, Spain, Peru, Italy, South Africa, Venezuela, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Burundi, Germany, Australia, and Russia, also found their way into the jar.
