org. There are moments which perhaps only last a minute or less, and they become a message for years, for centuries. During the Youth Vigil with the Holy Father, last September 24th in Friburg, a KNA photographer captured one of these moments: The Light of Christ offered by a Church giving witness – represented in the missionary Pilgrim Virgin and a youth who is hoisted onto the shoulders of others. Spontaneously, Father José María García, leader of Team 2014 – responsible for the preparation of Jubilee 2014 – called it “Image of the New Evangelization.” Schoenstatt.org spoke with Fr. José María García about this photograph seen in the context of 2014 and the New Evangelization.
It is an image filled with light, full of hope, full of faith, full of movement; eyes sparkling, an ocean of lights under a dark sky, youths in yellow T-Shirts with the word “missions”, holding up one of their own on their shoulders, holding up high the image of the Pilgrim Virgin.
Fr. José María García says, “This youth embodies what the picture of the Pilgrim Mother expresses. The missionary Pilgrim Virgin!” It is the New Evangelization personified an image of a living Shrine.
Can a reading be prepared on this image in the context of the triennium in preparation for Jubilee 2014?
Fr. José María: The image is like a symbol of the New Evangelization from Schoenstatt’s faith experience. This is the context for it to appear that the Blessed Virgin – with Jubilee 2014 and its prior triennium – prepares her Family. We understand the New Evangelization – an initiative from the Holy Father – and how it represents the great challenges and opportunities with which the present times confront us as Church, especially in the ancient Christian countries.
In this context, the image of the missionary youth upon the shoulders of the Family – with the Pilgrim Virgin held high – is like an anticipation of the Family renewed in its vital forces…a Schoenstatt Family living in the missionary conciousness/awareness that the Covenant of Love is capable of gestating a culture which is able to respond to the needs and challenges of our times in all confines of life. A solidary Schoenstatt Family…where they lift each other up, not so much for showing oneself, but for lifting the light of Christ and the image of Mary Educatress – pilgrim and missionary – with the strength of a Movement of the Church, young in years – only 100 years – and in vitality. It is a Family which forms part of a church who with the boldness of youth and confidence in God and in the brothers and sisters… motivates us to offer the men and women of our times the Hope of the Light of Christ. It is like a promise made to the Church and world: The old Christian culture will experience – as we hope and pray for Schoenstatt in the grace of its 2014 Jubilee and with the strength of youthful hearts rooted in Christ, solidary and missionary – how Jesus leads us to see the world with the same love and hope with which the Father sees us.
Is it projected, then, for the post-jubilee Schoenstatt or the Schoenstatt in its second century of existence, a more efficient commitment with the “New Evangelization?”
Fr. José María: Since its beginning, Schoenstatt is for evangelization. It is the Dilexit Ecclesiam of our Founder demonstrated in deeds, a committed love to the Church and its mission. Coming back to the young missionary holding up high the Pilgrim Virgin, I see it as an offering to the Church which is very proper to Schoenstatt…axis of all which Fr. Kentenich wanted to give to the Church: the Covenant of Love with Mary in the Shrine.
A missionary Schoenstatt that holds up high the Pilgrim Virgin, not so She can be seen on TV by many, but to offer Her to others, in the attitude of the first sodalists: Caritas Christi urget nos…the love of Christ urges us, the love of Jesus for men and women and for the Father urges us.
It is something belonging to the 31st of May. Father with his mission and life testimony, another sign of identity for our Family, leads us to see the present times: Jubilee 2014 calls to us – beyond our peculiarities and dangers of certain “provincialisms” – to allow ourselves “to be educated and sent by Mary in the Covenant of Love” to be her instruments for our times.
There is a red thread in what the Holy Father told us during his visit to Germany: that the Church stop looking at itself and primarily be concerned with her own things – be they institutions, rights and internal roles – and go out for the encounter and service to others, fulfilling her mission of evangelization.
Here is where the strong missionary current which can be perceived in our Schoenstatt Youth fits, and which in the Boys’ Youth – in America as everywhere – they are defined as “Missionary Generation.” The youths do not want to point only towards themselves, nor do they want to spend their youthful strength exclusively in the sole search of accepting themselves, God and their faith. They search for a Schoenstatt – being a school of self-realization and intimate and personal love for the living God – which leads them to a Covenant of Love dialogue with creation and with their fellow-men. They want to go out to evangelize the world, and this world is made up of persons. They want to be there for and by others. It is to them and to the missions, to the Campaign of the Pilgrim Virgin, to whom we owe in Schoenstatt – in large part – this missionary current which we discover – in surprise to many – in Conference 2014 as a current which encourages and motivates our International Family. I could say that the missionary current is the international current of our Youth – and faithful to our origin as a movement founded with youths, we should read in this the voice of God, the desire of Father Kentenich for this hour in our history. Let us build with Mary and with our Father and Founder – together – a Schoenstatt which is more missionary.
Thus with Father Kentenich we can read Providentially and understand the depth of the content and the vitality of Message 2014, the fruitfulness of a Cenacle encounter of the leaders of our International Family. The Virgin Mary is preparing us as her instruments and as International Family for this decisive hour of the Church. We were founded for this.
It seems that the last two great church events, World Youth Day in Madrid and the visit of the Holy Father to Germany, have confirmed or reinforced this reading of Message 2014. Is this correct?
Fr. José María: The nucleus of the celebration for the centennial of the Covenant of Love in 2014 is the renewal of its moulding, missionary power…attached and interconnected internationally. As fruitfulness of this renewal of the Covenant of Love, we expect the renewal of the entire Schoenstatt Family which enables us to gestate a Covenant Culture. “We perceive that the Covenant of Love is capable of gestating a culture which can respond to the needs of the times in all confines of life,” states Message 2014. More and more, we perceive this stronger. The concrete experiences of World Youth Day in Madrid and the visit of the Pope to Germany confirm this to us. The people – both youths and adults – seek a Church, a community of faith which shows with deeds how the seal of the Gospel impregnates its world, its culture.
Our triennium in preparation – motivated by the real currents of life of our International Schoenstatt Family – has a projection which goes beyond a simple contribution for being aware of our faith today. We live in, encounter each other, and strengthen each other in these currents: the attachment to Father Kentenich and his charism, the attachment to our places of encounter with God,with the Virgin Mary and as a Family, the network of our Shrines, the attitude of the missionary current specified in a passion for the apostolate and an admirable creativity in the gestation of concrete projects, and with the contents of the Covenant of Love in all its dimensions of exchange respectful of gifts, tasks, impotence, interests… In this context, I recall the experience of Conference 2014 when we gathered together the fruits of the Covenant of Love in these first 100 years and we saw the signs of what we still have to fulfill. We did it in a Marian attitude, the attitude of the Magnificat: The Almighty has done great things in me and through me… It was a moment which awakened the desire to go forth and take the Covenant of Love to the confines of the world, to take “the torrent of graces of the Covenant to diverse camps of our apostolic stategy,” as is stated in Message 2014. In this way, one can understand the symbols of our jubilee celebration: Symbol of the Father, the Shrine, the missionary Cross of Unity, the image of the Pilgrim Virgin.
What can the Church gain in its present situation with our Jubilee?
Fr. José María: Covenant Culture, not as a theoretical concept or a “we all love each other and there is never any disharmony among us,” but as a style of life, of encounter and work – the attachment “in covenant, in love” to God, to persons, to nature and to culture in general, to the Church and to the world, based on the Covenant of Love and creating covenants. “Covenant Culture” is the offering which we make from the Shrine to the Church and to the political world, economics, pedagogy, communication, social, cultural; an offering which is shown in concrete projects at the service of mankind. I am impressed, for example, that Brazilian youths will organize a first congress of Schoenstatt communicators, and not with the intention of how to learn to present Schoenstatt in the media, but to learn how, from their professions as journalists, to serve the Church even moreso in the spirit and pedagogy of the Covenant.
Covenant Culture, nevertheless, embraces all we do in the strategic camps of the apostolate which we define in Conference 2014, but it does not end there. Covenant Culture, for example, is a culture of dialogue, of encounter and respectful exchange – a very important topic and one difficult for society and the present Church, now thinking only in the intercultural encounter.
The Original Shrine in the network of Shrines is an eminent symbol for the culture of encounter and exchange, of inter-attachment based on the Covenant. It is not that – as a central or hierarchical concept – all life, all inspirations, ideas and projects emerge only from the Original Shrine so that the others can be simple recipients; also, it is not that everything comes from the network of Shrines as a type of invasion. No, what Father calls “current of return” is really a covenant circuit where all give the best of themselves and all receive with openness and interest. To live and to act in covenant is never about a one-way street – already from the beginning of Schoenstatt, Father worked for a sincere dialogue among his own. It is not by chance that the MTA Magazine, the first means of communication in Schoenstatt, would have as title and program: mutual inspirations. Although Father Kentenich spoke on the current of return in the Shrine in Bellavista, Chile, it already began in the trenches of the First World War. The way to Jubilee 2014 is thus a gift which becomes a task.
Speaking of tasks: which tasks do we have pending to make it so that what this image represents – the missionary Pilgrim Virgin on the shoulders of a missionary Family – is a contribution for the New Evangelization?
Fr. José María: Our task is and will be to do everything on our part to be a Family where the Home Song – the “Schoenstatt utopia” – is a reality, that by experience it is credible…where Father Kentenich can be recognized not only for his thoughts and pedagogical reflections, but for his pedagogical fulfilment…where there is – as is expressed in the Home Song – freedom, generosity, magnanimity to reach out to others, for the others and with the others. In deeds, in “pojects,” in a Covenant Culture which is visible, tangible, concrete and strengthening what was from the beginning of Schoenstatt a slogan and criterion: passion for the apostolate, the fire of mission, the drive for encounter and at the service to others and the folly to want to take the Blessed Mother to all the confines of the world…to where She wants to go to deliver her Son.
Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA 10142011
