Posted On 2012-01-16 In Column - Fr José María García

Dear Mother of the Lord and our Mother…

P. José María García. “The pilgrim people follow the footsteps of Mary,” a phrase Blessed John Paul II pronounced on the eve of the great Jubilee of Redemption in the Holy Year 2000. In its simplicity and strength, it awakens a certain nostalgia, awakening in the soul impressions of the atmosphere of pilgrimage: of joy, simplicity, hymns and prayers, shared faith, common testimony, of paths, effort and joyful tiredness, of brotherhood, and especially the way to the Shrine. The pilgrimage -a universal religious experience – is closely connected to the Shrine, whose life is constituted by an indispensable element: the pilgrim needs a Shrine, and the Shrine requires pilgrims.

For that reason, the triennium in preparation for the jubilee of the Covenant of Love was planned at Conference 2014 as a pilgrimage: the Schoenstatt pilgrim, the pilgrim Family, follows the footsteps of Mary. The atmosphere we create and with which we personally and as community prepare the pilgrimage and the “encounter” with the Child and his Mother in the Shrine… is the gift we will take to the Shrine. Our pilgrimage – our way to the Shrine – following the footsteps of Mary, the Pilgrim Virgin of the Gospel, is like a symbol of the New Evangelization from the experience of faith in Schoenstatt from the transforming experience of the Shrine. Collaborating from the beginning to the end of her maternity and for always in the redemptive work of her Son, Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth is the introduction to Jesus’ mission. She is transformed into model and mother of those who place themselves on the way to take the light and joy of Christ to all mankind.

Our pilgrimage prayer evokes this atmosphere of pilgrimage already with the beginning invocation: “Dear Mother of the Lord and our Mother.” St. Elizabeth’s question to Mary resonates within it: “Who am I that the Mother of the Lord should come to me?” Likewise resonating within it is the transforming amazement of thousands and thousands of persons who experience the visit of the Pilgrim Virgin: “Who am I that the Mother of the Lord should come to visit me?”

Our pilgrimage places us – the children of the Mother Thrice Admirable, Queen and Victress of Schoenstatt – into the actual context of the Church, not only “the old Church” which seeks to renew itself in its essential attachments, in its essential roots but also in her service to man, the man of today who is thirsty for a personal encounter with the Living God…thirsty for the “Shrine.” I remember the testimony of our brothers from Paraná, Argentina. Some twenty-five years ago, for the 18th of October, two youths offered a pilgrimage to the MTA in which they would walk for 90 kilometers to her Shrine. The pilgrimage atmosphere was so strong that in the following year there were seven who went on pilgrimage. Someone said to them: Some day people from the towns and the entire surrounding countryside will come on pilgrimage with you… Today, year after year, some 40,000 people join this pilgrimage. Could something similar not be possible with our Jubilee Pilgrimage? It depends I believe on the pilgrimage atmosphere that we already cultivate in the preparation among us as pilgrims on the way to the Shrine, as a pilgrim people from all continents, nations, and languages.

Blessed John Paul II spoke of “humanizing globalization.” There is where we place ourself, the MTA places us there. The challenge for the third millennium is to humanize man so that man can humanize globalization. And this happens – it is our conviction – through the encounter of the true man with the “reality of the Shrine,” the place of personal encounter with the living God, the place for fraternal encounter.

Every time we pray in our pilgrimage prayer to the “Mother of the Lord,” we place ourselves at the continued service of “the living body of Christ” in history, following the footsteps of Mary, the Mother of the Lord who we call: our Mother…

Mary, the Mother of the Lord and our Mother – for this service to Christ and his Church – forged the heart and royal life of Father Kentenich, and with him and in the Covenant, the Schoenstatt Shrine. In this way, She wanted to give mankind and each man on this earth, places of pilgrimage (through which we are on pilgrimage) for all those who seek a fuller life.

Together, like brothers and sisters of all those for whom the Mother of the Lord wants to be called “our Mother,” we move toward those “places of grace” – personal and physical – where tangible and real life can be felt and where the Lord sanctifies and She educates.

There is a word that is worthwhile to hear and to pronounce it as if it were for the first time. “Dear.” It is an expression that being real speaks of the experience of personal love… of her personal glance toward each one of us. It expresses the acknowledgement of her task in the life of each one of us. She loves us and therefore is “dear” to us… and it makes it possible for us to love her also with a personal love, and only personal love transforms.

DEAR MOTHER OF THE LORD AND OUR MOTHER: It is the banner for our pilgrimage, banner of identity and mission, and it is what supports our title of Mother Thrice Admirable, Queen and Victress of Schoenstatt.

 

Translation: Carlos Cantú, Schoenstatt Family Federation, La Feria, Texas USA 01142012

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