AGUIJÉ NDEVE – May Jesus be born in each Solidarity House on this Holy Night

PARAGUAY/INTERNACIONAL, mda. “Yesterday, the first Sunday of Advent, while I was visiting the site where a solidarity house was being built, I asked the Lord to prepare the way for the coming of His Son.  May Jesus be born in every Solidarity House this Holy Night, in the heart of each resident, so that this Christmas, they will have a roof over their heads.  Like Mary, they also left their people in search of “something better.” Many of them are looking for something better to give their children.  Like Mary and Joseph, each father goes out to find “refuge” for his children.  Many have already found it and many more will follow, finding the graces of Covenant Solidarity, thanks to the generosity of so many hearts, who joyfully give of what they have and many also renounced something so that they can give one family a roof over their heads,” writes Ani Souberlich, who started this project together with a couple from the Family Work and several lay people in her parish who wanted to reach more and more people in the Schoenstatt Family throughout the world: “100 houses for 100 years.”

The 2014 Working Document talks about the renewal of the Covenant of Love in its expressive missionary force that is internationally interconnected and bound, referring to it as the “2014 Covenant of Love.”  Expressive force: when an idea, a desire, a concept becomes something real and tangible, a concrete reality, it becomes fascinating because it is irreversible.  A “silent favourite idea” becomes the Original Shrine, in a specific place and a specific time, that is, October 18, 2014.  Real projects come to life from the Covenant of Love in the central areas of social life, missions, millions of Pilgrim Mother images, homes for refugees, schools for the disabled, childcare centres, accommodation for street children, visits to homeless people and new forms of leadership in politics and commerce.  Fascinating and irreversible because it is real.

Perhaps this is why it is so moving to see that the houses carry the name of some of the 200 Schoenstatt Shrines around the world.  Real Covenant Solidarity made from bricks and mortar.  True Covenant Solidarity.  And perhaps one day the walls of the shrines in – Munich, Madrid, Manchester, Horw, Puffendorf, Memhölz, Freiburg, Mutumba – will carry a photo of “their” solidarity house with the words: Thank You…

What is “100 Solidarity Houses for 100 Years”?

It is a gift for Pope Francis.  It is a gift for the Jubilee of the Covenant of Love.  It is covenant solidarity in real life on the streets of Asunción and in more than sixty shrines around the world.

It all started very simply: with the glaring need of families in the interior of Paraguay, who in their desperate search for a better future, found themselves penniless on the streets of the capital, Asunción.  Parents and children living under four poles and plastic sheets in the heart of a no-man’s land in the middle of winter.

It began with a couple of Schoenstatters and several parishioners who were prepared to help, so that at least some of the families could have a roof over their heads during winter.  Donations from companies, private individuals, and a great deal of hard work that later bore fruit: we still need 200 € per house. If we only had 200 €, we could build a very simple house, but at least it has a dry floor, a roof, walls that the next wind will not blow away.   One of the founders of the project knew someone from the schoenstatt.org team and knew about the covenant solidarity current.  She sent an email, an article was written…and just a few weeks later, money arrived to build thirty houses.  But the story does not end here.

A house for each Shrine

The idea came from Madrid, at the same time as the news that the Pallottines had given the Original Shrine to Schoenstatt as a jubilee gift.  In 2014, we will celebrate 100 years of our home in Schoenstatt.  “Fr. Kentenich’s faith motivated you to make a home in Schoenstatt…”  From this house, 200 shrines have emerged in the last 100 years.  What if we, as the International Schoenstatt Family, could give the Blessed Mother and Pope Francis 100 houses on the streets of Asunción as a jubilee gift?  One hundred houses, “home-shrines” where the shrine of the family can be saved.  We can build a house for 200 euros, we have 200 shrines.  And this is a jubilee gift that our Holy Father will certainly receive with joy.  Suddenly, Fr. Kentenich’s words that each shrine should have a house, took on a completely different meaning.  Since  September 8^th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the first shrines had a house, a solidarity house for 2014.  This house is in one of the neighbourhoods of Asunción where extreme poverty reigns.  Since then, almost every weekend, new solidarity houses were being built, with donations from the shrines in Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy, Paraguay, Argentina, Germany.  There are people who want to make a donation in the name of the shrines, such Swider, Poland; Mutumba, Burundi; Nuevo Belén, Chile.

There are people who simply donate towards the “solidarity houses.” Branches and dioceses make the commitment together.  The Schoenstatt Family in Cologne on the golden jubilee of their Shrine, the Professional Academics in Germany, the first courses of the Family Federation in Spain, the Family Branch in Wurzburg (who became so excited with the project that at the start of Advent they donated a second house, “Wurzburg II”), the Mothers’ Branch in Fulda, the Branch for the Sick in Sankt Gallen, Switzerland.

Today it has become a current

“I am sending new photographs of this project which grew silently and thanks to the breath of the Holy Spirit in the instruments who “raised their voices” and which today has become a powerful current of graces, life, self-giving, hope and peace for all.  If I could thank you as I should…” commented Ani Souberlich, who has not had a free moment since this solidarity madness began.

100 Christmas packages

On December 23^rd, 100 Christmas packages would be distributed to 100 families – made with love and solidarity donations.  It will be a joy for these families who are working to build their homes with enthusiasm, joy and enormous gratitude for everything they have received.

Pope Francis during the Angelus on December 22

“I read there written in big letters: “The poor cannot wait.” That’s beautiful! And this reminds me that Jesus was born in a stable, he was not born in a house. Afterward he had to flee, to go to Egypt to save his life. In the end, he returned to his home, to Nazareth. And today I think, reading that banner, of many homeless families, whether it is because they never had one or because they lost it for many reasons. Family and house go together. It is very hard to care for a family without a house to live in. In these days of Christmas I invite everyone – people, social organizations, [political] authorities – to do everything possible for every family to have a house.”

Our Shrine is taking part:

∩ = future shrine

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Original: Spanish. Translation: Sarah-Leah Pimentel, Cape Town, South Africa