Glimpse of Nazareth 2014

CHILE. We received this article from Fr. Joaquín Allende.  It is a poetic view of the Marian feast of the Annunciation within the context of 100 years of Schoenstatt.

1 The Doorway

It is 100 years since Christ, the Bridegroom, went searching for a more eternal and new love for his Bride, the Church…Along the Rhine he found a valley where three streams met as one.

At the exact spot where the Trinitarian streams met as a single body of water, stood a stone arch: Jesus saw a forgotten Roman space.  On the altar, the arch with maternal curves bent down to welcome the pilgrim, the weak distinguished person, the beggar who is free, the poor-godly child.

It was an old abandoned chapel, used only to store garden tools: spades, rakes, watering cans…Like Nazareth without an archangel. Bethlehem without an ox or a donkey, Calvary without John or Mary Magdalene, Zion but the Blessed Mother is unable make her final flight from the earth to her heavenly Home (Heavenwards says that at nightfall the Virgin took flight from Sion to the Eternal Home. [paraphrase of original text of the Schoenstatt Office: Compline])

There, between the ruins and the mostly dead vines in the heart of the dark night, the prophet and searching father sensed a new Nazareth, where the Word could once again become flesh in these times.

Could that forgotten chapel be transformed in that October harvest of 1914, already bloodied by young injured soldiers, lying in the new Pallottine building which had been converted into a hospital? Could this be a sanatorium for those wounded in their faith? Could it suddenly experience the burst of springtime, like those first buds sprouting through the ice next to the Old House?

Then, only then, in the pit of this human dejection, the Trinity God breaks through into Nazareth in a way never known before: “There Gabriel speaks God’s request and your Fiat illumines the world.” (Heavenwards, Schoenstatt Office, Matins)

The Word becomes flesh, Christ is born from Mary’s womb, the bridal chamber for the New Covenant.

It is 2014.  One hundred years ago our founder interpreted the plural significance of the Shrine, that is, in relation to all of the great mysteries of our salvation.

The shrine is, simultaneously, Nazareth…Bethlehem…Golgotha…the Cenacle.

In this jubilee our father and founder’s instruction in Rome, in November 1965, just before the accusations against him by the highest ecclesial authorities were lifted, take on a special meaning: “All presentation of Schoenstatt as well as our internal reflections should, from now on, be explicitly biblical and liturgical.  The Second Vatican Council urges us to spread something huge which was implicit in us.  This is the rootedness of our world in the Bible as well as the liturgy.”

Today on the Feast of the Incarnation of the World and the Annunciation of Mary, it is good to celebrate the mystery that took place in Nazareth from a bridal perspective, from the hand of our father and founder. Several Church Fathers and many saints have done the same.

2      Poetic

Full moon, a wheel in suspense,

high throne, the sword is raised.

Scattered clouds, moving steadily,

source of a new embrace.

Millennia, Satan’s hatred,

the almond blossom in your psalm.

Each pearl, searing light,

ruby red blood in the ring.

The prow stabs,

Robust sails your praise.

Sand-light, winter flowers,

Daughter, son already eternal.

Bellavista, march 24,  2014

Fr. Joaquín Alliende L.

Translation: Sarah-Leah Pimentel, Cape Town, South Africa