Fr. José María García – official Newsletter 2014/3. The Cardinals of our Church are meeting today, 17 February, in the new Synod Hall in the Vatican for a day of prayer and reflection on the subject of “the proclamation of the Gospel today, between Missio ad gentes (Mission to all people) and new evangelisation”. At the same time we are receiving the third of our information and motivational newsletters for our great “pilgrimage to the Original Shrine on 18 October 2014, which is open to all”, as the Message 2014 stated, because we know that “places and times have the character of sacramentals” for us.
It is an open pilgrimage, a pilgrimage for everyone, which will lead us afterwards to Rome, to the “heart of the Church, in order to renew our commitment to her and to emphasise our missionary character.” As a missionary Family we are on pilgrimage to the Original Shrine and to Rome, in order to bear our covenant of love into the world of work, of politics, the family, youth, the Church and pedagogy, and in this way create a covenant culture as a practical contribution to the new evangelisation of the world in which we live.
“For missionary activity renews the Church, revitalizes faith and Christian identity, and offers fresh enthusiasm and new incentive. Faith is strengthened when it is given to others! It is in commitment to the Church’s universal mission that the new evangelization of Christian peoples will find inspiration and support.” This passage from the Encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio by John Paul II – the masterly document on the new evangelization that has stood the test of time – characterises the meaning of our pilgrimage 2014 extremely well.
The covenant of love, the fruit of our baptismal covenant, is strengthened and renewed … if we pass it on! It is in this spirit we walk our pilgrim way with élan, motivated by our desire to meet as a missionary family at the jubilee. “There are four of us in our family, my two girls Danna and Ariane, my husband Rodrigo and I,” writes Yeni S, a young mother from Comodoro Rivadavia in the Argentine. “Ever since we got to know the Movement, and visited the shrine in Santa Maria in 2010, when my youngest was only 23 days old and we dedicated her to the MTA, our longing has grown to be in Schoenstatt in 2014. We would like to place this intention with the thousands of prayers that are sent to the Original Shrine from all the shrines in the world. Let us meet there at the jubilee …”
Yes, our pilgrimage to 2014 is progressing decisively and grows in strength “with every step on our pilgrim way”: with everyone who joins us in the attitude of pilgrimage; with every step of a pilgrim, community or country “towards 2014”; it grows in strength with every project that is started or continued, as for example, the “Mission to Nigeria” of the students in Chile, with every pilgrimage prayer either in a shrine or at a simple wayside shrine somewhere in the world, with every Holy Mass in covenant with a country, with every Pilgrim Mother carried into a new home, with every translation “with which I work for every kilometre to the Original Shrine”, as one of our collaborators in Chile wrote recently. It grows in strength with each original initiative, such as that of the Portuguese cyclists who are cycling the kilometres to the Original Shrine as they visit Portugal’s Marian places of pilgrimage.
It grows in strength for everyone through the formative power of the covenant of love in one person, in one initiative, one community – and it grows in strength for each individual person who has to take a particularly difficult step in the strength of the steps taken by others, as our Holy Father has emphasised in his message for Lent:
“The Lord’s disciples, united with him through the Eucharist, live in a fellowship that binds them one to another as members of a single body. This means that the other is part of me, and that his or her life, his or her salvation, concern my own life and salvation. Here we touch upon a profound aspect of communion: our existence is related to that of others, for better or for worse. Both our sins and our acts of love have a social dimension. … Christians can also express their membership in the one body which is the Church through concrete concern for the poorest of the poor. Concern for one another likewise means acknowledging the good that the Lord is doing in others and giving thanks for the wonders of grace that Almighty God in his goodness continuously accomplishes in his children.”
The recent comment of a young woman in Germany fits in with this, “I notice time and again that 2014 becomes a reality wherever we are, or it simply doesn’t exist. The vital principle 2014! So it is at the same time a total challenge!”
The pilgrimage to 2014 gains in strength for each of us and for the whole Family with every contribution with which we fill the jars, “with gratitude and repentance, with love and longing.” A simple, sincere testimony found among the petitions that arrive at the Original Shrine week after week via the internet gave me particular joy, “Blessed Mother, the joy that I can give you with my little request brings me to your shrine, which I have already visited twice. THANK YOU!”
The three questions that are part of our pilgrimage prayer ground us and make the great ideas and visions very personal as they motivate us on our way to 2014.
- For what do I want to thank?
- What will I place in the jar today?
- Which missionary steps will I take today?
The answers are to be found in the covenant lives of the pilgrims, whether they are individuals or communities. The answers – concrete, topical and real – are the content and decisive power of each “real step” we take to reach the shrine and meet with the worldwide, missionary Church.
The steps of our Jubilee pilgrimage can be steps through darkness, suffering and human powerlessness – both personal and communal – yet in the power of the covenant of love, and the grace of 2014, they are the steps taken during a common pilgrimage, steps – and that is the light of Easter on any and every darkness along our way – with Jesus Christ in the serious and hopeful climate of the pilgrimage that make them testimonies of faith at every moment. The pilgrim who sets out for the shrine is accompanied in the communion of faith and love not only by the others with whom he or she undertakes the “pilgrimage” (cf. Ps 84,6), but also by the Lord himself, who goes with us as he did with the disciples on the way to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24, 13-55).
With best wishes and my blessing from the shrine
Fr José María García
