CHILE, mda. “God blessed this encounter enormously, helping us to humbly recognize that in the work world, we have the opportunity to incorporate God and the Blessed Mother more in our decisions departing from applying Practical Faith in Divine Providence (FPDP)”, commented Christian Ketterer, Commercial Engineer, a Chilean participant of CIEES2013 in Costa Rica. But it does not end with beautiful memories. “At the same time, it invited us to be ‘Fires that enkindle other fires,’ to follow that path that we have been building in CIEES. That is, to share this ‘Good News’ with other business people and executives and to support one another to live our faith consistently, in the home, in the family, also in our work.”
Consequently, a few days ago, a video that was taped to disseminate what was done in CIEES of Costa Rica of Christian Ketterer’s interview appeared on SchoenstattVivo. “It is part of the commitment that the team from Chile assumed, since we deeply felt the call to infect others with this vision of the work world and to be ‘fires that enkindle other fires,'” said Christian Ketterer, who appreciated SchoenstattVivo’s permission to also publish the video on schoenstatt.org, since “indeed, it is good to make what was done and the fruits of CIEES Costa Rica known at a worldwide level.”
“The Movement is not only for Saturdays, Sundays and night activities”
It was the “spiritual – professional” atmosphere that marked this congress for Christian Ketterer.
“It is natural for me to speak about the retreat instead of the congress,” he admitted during the interview, stressing that with the daily Masses and the readings that “were chosen for this congress,” the spiritual atmosphere that was prepared by the hosts for weeks and the exchanges “not only about business things, and of work,” one felt as if on retreat. “The spiritual atmosphere opened our minds,” he said.
The great discovery, for Christian Ketterer, was that “the Movement is not only for Saturdays, Sundays and the night activities; but rather it is for all of life, also the professional life.” What Christian Ketterer took from the strong experience of CIEES was that many times God is not in the daily decisions made in businesses: “A powerful moment during the congress, was realizing the deficiency in this field, and we learned from errors and from the testimonies of others.”
There was an anecdote that touched many during the Congress. Approximately eight years ago, Christian studied in Uruguay with a young professor who impressed him very much. During the welcome dinner on the first day of the congress in the city of San José in Costa Rica, they met again. This professor from Uruguay now lives in Miami, Florida, and he joined the Movement a few years ago… Their reunion in Costa Rica was a part of the loving atmosphere experienced during those days in Costa Rica… it was one of many other touching reunions.
Original: Spanish – Translation: Celina M. Garza San Antonio, Texas USA
