AGUIJĖ NDEVE – Thank you Munich, Manchester, Madrid …

INTERNATIONAL, mda. AGUIJĖ NDEVE means: “Thank you” in Guaraní. AGUIJĖ NDEVE can be seen on cardboard posters on simple red brick houses that have been built in Asuncion, Paraguay, over the last few weekends. AGUIJĖ NDEVE, Muchas gracias, Danke, Thank you. Danke Ulm-Soeflingen, Germany. Muchas gracias, Madrid. Danke, Munich. Thank you, Manchester.  Danke, Tabor shrine in Schoenstatt … Thank you, because thanks to your contribution we have a roof over our heads. Suddenly Fr Kentenich’s words, that a house should be built next to every shrine, has become practical in a completely new way. Since 8 September, the feast of Mary’s birthday, the first five shrines have a house, a house of solidarity 2014. The next are being built. …

The working document 2014 speaks of the renewal of the covenant of love in an international network with a missionary formative power, and called this the “covenant of love 2014”. Formative power: If an idea, a wish, a concept becomes a reality, if it becomes tangible, it becomes fascinating and irreversible. A “quiet favourite idea” became the Original Shrine at a definite place and at a definite time – the 18 October 1914. The covenant of love gives rise to projects in central fields of society: Misiones, millions of pictures of the Pilgrim Mother, homes for refugees, schools for the disabled, day care centres for children, institutions for street children, visits to the homeless, and new styles of leadership in politics and business. Fascinating and irreversible, because they are real. Perhaps that is why it is so moving to see houses bearing the name of one of the 200 Schoenstatt shrines all over the world. Covenant solidarity in bricks and mortar. Truly covenant solidarity. Perhaps one day there will be a picture in the shrines in Munich, Madrid, Manchester, Ulm-Soeflingen … of “their” house with the words: Thank you …

The first thirty families have a home … and now

It all started very simply – with the crying need of families from the interior of Paraguay who had been stranded on the streets in the capital city as they sought desperately for a better future. Parents and children under four poles holding up a tarpaulin, somewhere in no-mans-land, with winter arriving.

It all started with a few Schoenstatters and a few people in a parish who started to help at least a few families to get a roof over their heads for the winter. Donations from businesses, donations from private people, a great deal of work, and then the realisation: All that is lacking is 200 Euros for each house, so that we can build a very simple house, but one with a dry floor, a roof and walls that cannot be blown away by the next storm. One of the initiators knew someone in the schoenstatt.org team, and knew about covenant solidarity. She placed her greatest treasure in the scales: three cards with handwritten greetings from Fr Kentenich. A gift for people who were prepared to give something for a house of solidarity. There was a great echo … and shortly before the start of winter thirty families had a roof over their heads. At the end of August, the youngest Grauert children drew out the names of one of the many donors to receive one of the three cards from Fr Kentenich. One went to Spain, one to Switzerland, and one to Germany. “Ever since I heard that I would be getting a card from Fr Kentenich, I can’t stop smiling”, wrote Sabine M.

Fr Kentenich’s faith moved you to set up your home in Schoenstatt

The shrine in Ulm-Soeflingen was the first to build a house. The idea started in Madrid at the time when the news broke that the Pallottine Fathers were giving the Original Shrine to the Schoenstatt Movement for its jubilee. We are celebrating a hundred years of our house in Schoenstatt in 2014. “Fr Kentenich’s faith moved you to set up your home in Schoenstatt …” In the course of almost a hundred years 200 shrines have been built around this home. How would it be if we as an international Schoenstatt family were to give the Blessed Mother and Pope Francis 100 houses on the streets of Asuncion at the jubilee? A hundred houses, shrine houses for families … If a house could be completed for 200 Euros, it would be a house for each shrine. It would be a jubilee gift our Holy Father would accept with great joy.

Hardly had the article been published in the internet than the donation arrived from Ulm-Soeflingen. Once the initiators in Asuncion had recovered from the shock of building another hundred houses.

Enthusiastic commitment

A group of men in Madrid made their weight felt – the city shrine, Serrano, got two houses. A collaborator with schoenstatt.org in Madrid gave the shrine at Pozuelo a house.

The Apostolate of the Sick in St Gallen, Switzerland, chipped in – a house for the shrine in St Gallen “and the rest for the total project”, was the brief commentary. “Would someone think of the shrine in Manchester?” A donation of 200 Euros arrived. “I pray that the family that moves in will not only get a roof over their heads, but also receive the gift of gratitude forever”, was the comment.

“To see the radiant eyes of the children and parents when they enter their own little home is such a wonderful and profound experience,” remarked Ani Souberlich in Asuncion, who got the whole ball rolling.

The Family Movement in Wurzburg is “building” a house, so is the shrine at Oberkirch, the shrine at Dietershausen, the shrine in Aulendorf and the shrine in Memholz. From Switzerland comes another house for the shrines in Luzern and Horw, from Brazil for the shrine in Recife,  and another for the shrine in Florianopolis, which has still to be built – also an idea! They are simply reversing Fr Kentenich’s words and saying: Build the Blessed Mother a house and she will build you a shrine.

“It took rather a long time, because again and again a straggler wanted to join in”, wrote an older member of the Institute of our Lady of Schoenstatt from Reginaberg, Schoenstatt. “But in this way a good amount had been collected. It will build a little home (or a home shrine!) for our Familie Patri unita Shrine on the Reginaberg – Institute of our Lady of Schoenstatt, and the Cenacle Shrine in Isingiro, Tanzania, Institute of our Lady of Schoenstatt. What is left over goes to the whole project.”

The Original Shrine is also there

Two shrines in Schoenstatt itself have joined in … and the Original Shrine? A pilgrim enquired … and two days later the Original Shrine had also joined in.

AGUIJĖ NDEVE. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the joy of building a home for a family, a definite family in bitter need which has been taken off the streets. Thank you, Ulm, Munich, Aulendorf, St Gallen, Tabor, Florianopolis, Recife, Memholz, Dietershausen, Oberkirch, Madrid, Pozuelo, How, Luzern …

“Help us pray to make a good choice of the next families”, they wrote from Asuncion. And “We will manage the hundred houses, and we will thank the Blessed Mother for the hundred years of Schoenstatt in this way!”

In the next few days the next money transfer will leave for Paraguay. The families living under tarpaulins while it rains and the temperature only reaches 5ºC are waiting …

Covenant solidarity is taking on shape and form – it has become bricks and mortar, a roof and radiantly smiling faces … And you can feel the grace of 2014. A hundred houses four our home. Casas solidarias, houses of solidarity.

Our shrine is there:

∩ = future Shrine

Twitter: #100casas2014

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