Father Eduardo Auza. The world was surprised and awed over the amazing conclusion to the thirty-three Chilean miners who were happily rescued from the depths of the earth. We as a Schoenstatt Family united to this generalized joy, which was truly a triumph for humanity. The solidarity, the generosity, the vigor, the good sense, love, heroism, temperance, faith, and the many other virtues – in and of themselves, all of them very Christian – flourished around this situation that was transformed into a media and worldwide event.
Everyone, who is also in the shadow of the Shrines throughout the world, began a great event: the happy start of the triennium of preparation for the jubilee of October 18, 2014 that marks the date of our first century of existence.
Points of comparison between the event of the 33 and the Schoenstatt event
Also impressed by the previously mentioned news, I have established some points of comparison between the event of the thirty-three miners and the Schoenstatt event. I share them below:
The thirty-three miners are simple, humble, hard working people. They are accustomed to sacrifice and risk, but they have offered everything day by day for love of their families and for the desire to assure them of sustenance. Until now, they were common people, no one knew them; they were anonymous heroes. Today they have been transformed into universal heroes without planning it.
In the same way especially in this triennium, Schoenstatters should offer their capital of grace, day by day, with humility, with much simplicity, but knowing that this loyalty in the giving of self, that magnanimous sacrifice is tremendously important, which makes them everyday heroes and that which is offered on the paten sustains the Family. They also aspire for this anonymous witness of the Covenant of Love to be the fruit of much abundance, so why not, then, aspire to be witnesses and protagonists of a Schoenstatt “media boom”? It is important that in 2014 the Schoenstatt Family makes news, not only for the number of participants in their international jubilee and of those that the camera could capture, but because of the depth of life of its members and the testimony of holiness of the service to the life of people.
33 new hopes
The thirty-three were 700 meters (0.43miles) below the depth of the earth in darkness and isolated from the civilized world. Now they have seen the light again. It is as if mother earth had given birth again to thirty-three children, thirty-three new hopes, thirty-three new opportunities, and thirty-three new families. Now the “thirty-three” is not just a number, but rather it becomes a symbol and model of the strength and the hope of all people that is multiplied to the innumerable potential for all humanity. It is a sign of the wager of the best of everyone, of what humanity dares to do for humanity. It is a symbol of what unites us, of what makes us one, of what makes us brothers/sisters, not what separates us. Here there is already a universal model that serves all men/women, people and races.
In the same manner the Schoenstatt Family from their Shrines that are their “mother earth” should illuminate solidarity and hope of innumerable potential, because the Shrines are the new Nazareth: “Your Shrine is our Nazareth concealed in the night of our times.” (Heavenwards p. 48); “Through this Nazareth for homeless times God wants to prepare salvation for families…” (Heavenwards p. 50) and “as the place of Christ’s rebirth” (Heavenwards p.13) and He is the true hope of this new time.
Our jubilee is an Easter
The jubilee should become a true Easter (a qualitative step or leap from one state to a better one). The thirty-three have experienced an Easter, and their lives will never be the same. Although they continue being the same ones, now they are other men. They have been tried or tested in the fire of a true humanity, and everyone with them. In this manner, also for this jubilee, the Schoenstatt Family should take a qualitative leap from slavery to freedom, from individuality to magnanimity, from the hidden to the manifested, in conclusion from darkness to light and from the old man to the new man.
Beloved Family, just like the informal, dirty, wrinkled paper saying: “The thirty-three are doing well in the refuge” filled us with pride, joy, and new hope in what we are capable of doing, in this way also, there should be an announcement written from the depth of our hearts and on our foreheads that says: “We are well, we are children of the Covenant. We continue together. Your Covenant our mission” should be the great impulse of renewal that the Schoenstatt Family wants to experience and to give to the Church and the world. May we walk towards the future with this victorious consciousness as useful instruments to forge a Covenant culture, a new evangelization.
May God and our beloved Blessed Mother bless us all. With Christ, her Son.
Translation: Celina Garza, San Antonio, USA/Melissa Janknegt, Elgin, USA
