The Conference 2014 held in 2009 dediced: “A triennium should take place, grasping the life trends of our international family.”
The aim of the triennium is to prepare together as a world wide Schoenstatt Family the Covenant ofLove 2014. The Conference of Experts held in May defined the basic elements for the triennium.
Internal Process: trends of life
The inner process of this preparation requires our taking care of these trends of life together, whichare flourishing world wide within the Schoenstatt Family and are a unifying factor – our father and hischarism, the shrine, the missionary impulse, and the growth of unity.Through our attachment to our father and founder and his charism,through our attachment to the shrine with all its dimensions andthrough the attachment to our mission with its missionary powerour longed-for unity can grow.
External Process: Covenant Culture
The external process is the development of a covenant culture of life as we make our way towardsthe Jubilee 2014: Open for the signs of the time, international, connected, missionary within the fivefields: marriage and family life, youth, pedagogy, church, and society.Schoenstatt 2014 – Working document for the international jubilee celebration8 of 10In this way our intercultural, connected, missionary family and a covenant culture will be ourcovenant gifts for the Jubilee 2014.
During the triennium we can develop covenant culture together in a special way through ourapostolic projects.
Covenant culture is how we typically express the way we live and work: our attachment to God, to people, to nature and culture, to Church and the world, all based on the covenant of love.
Emphasis during the preparatory years
As an international Schoenstatt Family we will conduct the triennium together as:
A year of the father trend (18.10.2010 – 18.10.2011),
A year of the shrine trend (18.10.2011 – 18.10.2012),
A year of missionary trend (18.10. 2012 – 18.10.2013).
The year 2014 (18.10.2013 – 18.10.2014) is our year of grace and jubilee year. It will be our covenant of love year.
Now the Blessed Mother can sing her Magnificat with her Family of the Father at the beginning of anew century.
Shaping the Triennium
In many countries creative elements for shaping the Triennium have already been worked out in this first year. The initiative and the creativity of the countries and communities, as well as locally, will certainly grow.
Symbols of growing connectedness as a worldwide Schoenstatt Family on its pilgrim path to 2014 are, among others:
- The logo
- The pilgrimage prayer
- The motto
- The jubilee song (coming soon)
These elements should increasingly be present at the shrines and in the celebrations and initiatives. To achieve this Team 2014 offers the following: flags, antependium, acrylic sheets for the shrines, prayer cards.
The collection of texts from the Founder for each of the years will also help to support the different currents.
Covenant Culture
Shaping the apostolic projects in the five apostolic fields, their presentation in the virtual tents of the covenant culture (internet), as well as the preparations for their presentation in Schoenstatt and Rome in the “Tents of Covenant Culture”, will serve to create a mentality.
The growing commitment to the international preparations for 2014 is part of this covenant culture and helps linked up teams to come into existence worldwide.
A Covenant Culture is Schoenstatt’s answer to the question posed by the Church and society: Schoenstatt, what are you doing?
A covenant culture becomes visible and practical in apostolic projects that serve our people. Schoenstatt shows “through deeds” that it “really loves” the Church, families, young people, the poor, the marginalised, society and the business world, politics, pedagogy and education, the world of research and science, and all and everything concerning people and their search to live in a covenant with themselves, with God, with others, with nature and with work. A covenant culture is Schoenstatt’s practical contribution to a new social order; it is the realisation of its mission to form the world out of the covenant through new people – covenanted people.
Besides this, a covenant culture is Schoenstatt’s offer to the Church and society. Just as poverty is not just for Franciscans, and the discernment of spirits not just for the Jesuits, just as peace is not exclusive to Sant’Egidio, or unity to the Focolare Movement, so a covenant culture does not “belong” only to Schoenstatters.
So the “tents of a covenant culture” at the Jubilee form an element in the internal and external dialogue with the signs of the times, the challenges facing the people of our times – a dialogue that proceeds from actual deeds. It shows real life as it is being lived rather than theoretical speculation, and as a result has a greater impact and is more convincing.
Currents
Cultivating spiritual currents prepares the heart of the Family as a whole, as well as each individual member, for the renewal of the covenant of love in its international link up and missionary formative power. Even though one current is emphasised in a particular way each year, all three, as well as the current of increasing connectedness, which is coming into existence, are simultaneously at work. They are important as different manifestations of the great current of the covenant of love, which we will be celebrating in 2014.
Fr. José María García
On Opening the Triennial Preparation and the Jubilee Year
A number of factors have had a decisive influence on motivating the Team 2014 to decide to consciously start each new year of the triennium in the Original Shrine and worldwide, and to have a special opening of the Jubilee Year. These factors are: the positive experiences worldwide to the opening of the Triennium – internationally in the Original Shrine and connected up worldwide with the individual national and regional initiatives and emphases; the answer given through faith in Divine Providence to the events connected with the year of the shrine current; and the many and varied expectations that have been expressed in this regard.
Opening each year at the Original Shrine – a unifying factor in the common pilgrimage of the worldwide Schoenstatt Family to the Jubilee 2014 – gives expression to the fact that the Schoenstatt Family in every culture and generation lives in the covenant of love current. This develops into the Father, shrine and missionary currents, and helps the longing for an increasing link up to grow.
The celebration is designed internationally and is the responsibility of Team 2014, which passes on impulses and suggestions for the opening to the worldwide Family.
The opening of the triennium and the “Year of the Father Current” at the Original Shrine on the evening of 17 October 2010 – as a vigil for 18 October – which was followed nationally and locally on 18 October, was initially a stopgap solution because the Schoenstatt Movement in Germany had already developed its plans for the celebration of 18 October. The opening in the form of a vigil on the eve of 18 October then proved to be a very beautiful and fitting way, both as regards to the time and the elements of the celebration at the Original Shrine: Pilgrimage, flambeau torches, the symbolism of fire and light. The opening in the form of a vigil is also suitable for the form of celebration of 18 October 2014, which begins with a night of vigil, this time prepared by the Youth.
So the opening of each of the Triennial Years, as well as the Jubilee Year, will take place in the evening of 17 October. The opening celebrations of each year and the Jubilee Year at the Original Shrine will be broadcast live, creating a strongly uniting element in the triennial preparation for 2014 that links up the worldwide Schoenstatt Family in the Original Shrine.
Opening the Year of the Shrine Current: 18 October 2011
The Year of the Shrine Current begins on 18 October 2011.
On the eve of 18 October 2011 we set out on pilgrimage with Fr Kentenich from all our local shrines to the Original Shrine. Here, united as a worldwide Schoenstatt Family, and in union with all the shrines in the world, we move from the Year of the Father Current into the Year of the Shrine Current. The Founder of the covenant leads his Family to the Place of the Covenant, which has become the place where missionaries are commissioned.
The common opening of the Year of the Shrine Current at the Original Shrine unites all the shrines throughout the world with one another and the Original Shrine in a moment of time. The celebration is designed internationally and is the responsibility of Team 2014, which passes on impulses and suggestions for the opening to the worldwide Family.
Opening of the Year of the Missionary Current: 17-18 October 2012
The opening should again take place during a vigil at the Original Shrine on the eve of 18 October.
In view of the missionary element, the apostolic projects, Misiones and Pilgrim Mother could play an essential role as the missionary features of Schoenstatt.
Opening of the Jubilee Year: 17-18 October 2013
As the worldwide Schoenstatt Family we enter into the Jubilee Year of the Covenant of Love on 17-18 October 2013. This will reach its climax on 18 October 2014 with its graces and experiences, and come to a head when we are sent out by our Holy Father in Rome.
At the Original Shrine this opening will again take place within the framework of an international vigil, although the framework will be somewhat larger than the two previous years.
On 18 October 2013 all the shrines across the world, and everywhere Schoenstatt exists, should celebrate the Covenant Day with particular solemnity as the first day of the Jubilee Year of grace.
There are discussions about drawing Rome into this opening celebration in a special way.
Fr. José María García
