Posted On 2015-07-09 In Projects, Schoenstatt - Reaching out

“María Ayuda”: An inside peek

CHILE, edited by schoenstatt.org •

When one speaks about Schoenstatt’s social projection, “María Ayuda” [“Mary Helps”] immediately comes to mind. It is one of the first, if not the first Schoenstatt project that translated Fr. Kentenich’s teaching into social content, “one of the least known aspects of his enormous personality” (Carlos Ferré, in “The social saint”, Editorial Patris Argentina, 2012). It is the social commitment that Schoenstatters have towards the neediest, this time abandoned children and victims of domestic violence and abuse in Chile.

Today “María Ayuda” is not only in Chile but is also in other countries, including in Burundi and Spain. Many social commitment projects emerged over time and it was always in dialogue, in an encounter between the voices of the times expressed in a concrete human need and a Schoenstatter’s personal vocation. Many of them are found in the virtual tents of covenant culture on our website, in the field of new social order and in the news category “Schoenstatt – reaching out”: from large organizations like Dequení to newer initiatives such as the “Visitación de María” [“Mary’s Visitation”] prison ministry.

Recently Father Fernando Adriasola made a video about the present reality of the work of “Maria Ayuda” and its challenges, particularly within the community. It shows the task and work of “María Ayuda” from within, through the personal testimonies of the collaborators and volunteers.

“It is a beautiful testimony of covenant culture emanating from a daring person…” Fr. José María García from Madrid comments. Fr. Hernán Alessandri was that daring person, who one day felt and knew that it was necessary to go out and encounter the neediest brothers and sisters, “to go to the peripheries”, as the Holy Father says.

Video

Website of María Ayuda

Maria Ayuda in the Virtual Tents of Covenant Culture

Original: Spanish. Translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, TX USA and Sarah-Leah Pimentel, Cape Town, South Africa

Video subtitling: Claudia Echenique, Buenos Aires, Argentina

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