Project of the week: Academy for Family Pedagogy at Schoenstatt auf’m Berg

GERMANY, Gertrud and Norbert Jehle. The Academy for Family Pedagogy at Schoenstatt auf’m Berg enables married couples to mediate the message of marriage and the family in a credible, convincing and effective way. Successful family life – lived today in practice and surrounded by all the challenges and difficulties of today – makes the family attractive and worth striving for. In order to pass on their experiences in this regard, the families in Vienna, Austria, decided to found the Academy for Family Pedagogy. In 2000 the long desired Academy was also founded in Germany at Schoenstatt auf’m Berg, Memholz. The tenth course started in Germany in 2014, and a further three are planned for Memholz, Munster and Kosching near Eichstatt. So far 63 couples from 16 dioceses have completed the training to become family trainers.

What matters is the growth of each individual couple

How can we live as a family? This is the core theme of the formation in the first year. The personal answer each couple gives to this question in the first year is the content of the message in the second year that they have to learn how to pass on: How do we teach how to be a family?

After the conclusion of the two years of training and formation the family trainers are more able to lead discussions. They know how to listen and to be receptive for the concerns of the couples in the group. They are able to set up events for families (seminars, workshops, family circles, conferences), and can moderate them, give talks on subjects relevant to family life, and counsel and accompany other families.

The training and formation is based on Fr Joseph Kentenich’s pedagogical concept.

Tried and tested concepts in Fr Kentenich’s pedagogy in Schoenstatt, and in building up a network of Christian homes, are selflessly placed at the disposal of the couples. The supporters of the Academy are married couples who see themselves as instruments of the Blessed Mother, and who are convinced that Fr Kentenich’s pedagogy is the answer to the needs of the family today. They are competent mediators of this pedagogy and its practical application in marriage and the family, Church and workaday world.

Experiences and testimonies

“Our children must be able to talk about their happy parents. That has motivated us to take part in the Academy.”

“It is worthwhile investing in marriage and the family. It is worth our while to invest in our own marriage, to develop the enormous synergy of “we as a couple”, and to apply this potential in life – and to do this together with joy.”

“As a couple we have grown enormously as we worked on our subject.”

“Actually everything centres only on the individual couple and their relationship, so that they can grow in depth together. The apostolic effect is then automatic.”

Creativity and networking

A great many new projects have developed out of the initiative of family trainers who have graduated from the Academy, for example, Sobremesa for families, marriage preparation courses, the Joseph Kentenich School, the International Academy for Leaders, the Jour Fixe for leaders, the Foundation Course in Education for parents, home conversations, and the Course in Kentenich Pedagogy as an extension course. Besides this, couples who have graduated from the Academy discover and build up their own most varied projects in the field of marriage and the family, at work, in their local church, and in society.

The Academy for Family Pedagogy at Schoenstatt auf’m Berg is part of a network of academies in Vienna, Hungary, Switzerland, Spain, Lithuania, the Czech Republic. Together they conduct research, training and up-dating in view of developments in society.

Original: English. Translation: Mary Cole, Manchester, England