org. On December 23rd, the first official bulletin for Jubilee 2014 was publsihed – it is not a coincidence that it happened a few days before Christmas. The Schoenstatt Family is experiencing its great Advent of Jubilee 2014, hoping that a new October 18th “will be born”. This informative and inspiring bulletin will be published in (Spanish, English, German, Portuguese, and Italian) month by month until October 2014. We are publishing Father José María García’s letter.
In the attitude of Advent – an attitude of yearning, an attitude of preparation, an attitude that “Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill made low” (Is.40:4), the Schoenstatt Family lives its pilgrimage toward the great moment of grace, October 18, 2014, when we celebrate in the Original Shrine and in all the Shrines of the world the Covenant of Love jubilee. On the journey, we experience that we are “lead, guided by God, accompanied like the people of Israel in the desert, through the cloud and the fire, that protect and show the way”.
We sense that this pilgrimage is a great testimony of missionary faith for the Church and the world. Each step of our pilgrimage depends on the grace of the renewed covenant for new generation and toward the covenant culture as Father’s gift and promise to humanity at this moment of it’s history.
On this pilgrimage, we are enriched b initiatives that have emerged and that awaken so much life, be it the pilgrimage of a slate from the roof of the Original Shrine through the Home shrines in Costa Rica, be it the original way the kilometers that separate the Shrines of Chile from the Original Shrine are being conquered, or the Masses “toward 2014” in the Original Shrine that, Saturday by Saturday, take us from one country to another, where there is a presence of the Covenant of Love. During these Masses, all the countries that have the Covenant of Love are mentioned, whether they are countries with decades of Schoenstatt history or thousands of members, or countries where there is a single “Pilgrim MTA” with two or three people on fire with the flame of the Covenant of Love. New names appear which show the daring and ingenuity of those who believe in the Blessed Mother’s universal service from the Shrines…The names surprise us, but they also make us feel the responsibility of Mary’s love for them.
We recently introduced the official jubilee website, www.schoenstatt2014.org, as a contribution to this pilgrimage of the Family, and today we offer this newsletter, “Toward 2014” that from now until the jubilee, will reach you month by month to motivate and help you to become attached on this jubilee walk. It is a family letter, it is a missionary and motivational connection on this pilgrimage, which enlivens the fire of love for the Blessed Mother, the Family, and Father Kentenich in us. May the MTA and Father Kentenich help us to cultivate this atmosphere of authenticity and respectful joy in the contribution of others. Father Andrew Pastore, a member of the Communication Team 2014, is in charge of the official website and of this newsletter.
On December 12th, Bishop Claudio María Celli, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said that if “in many contexts there are not enough human or material resources,” it has been verified, “again and again that the authentic effectiveness of communication does not depend so much on the abundance of resources or of technology, as of the authenticity with which the proclaimed is lived, of the professional quality, and of the will to embrace the fraternal attachments in this great family called the Catholic Church, that is called to be leaven of good and of justice in the world of today.” It is with this attitude that we introduce and offer this bulletin and we ask you to spread it.
During these days before Christmas, let us pause to mutually alert ourselves, to renew our hearts, to vitally make in each one of us the willingness to shelter that God of Bethlehem that approaches, that God made man in the poverty and simplicity of Bethlehem, in the poverty and simplicity of each one of our Shrines. Mary, the Mother of the first Advent of history, awaiting the hour in which the Miracle of Christmas Eve will become a reality, she becomes a living Shrine because she shelters Him, who is the All Holy, the God of Life and of history to make him present in the heart of each man of good will…May She, with Father Kentenich, take each one of us and the entire Family to live anew the mystery of Christmas where the Redeemer of the world will born again among us…
Merry Christmas –
P. José María García
Team 2014
