mkf. The night of Covenant day, there was a brief spontaneous meeting of the Family Federation in front of the Original Shrine: Families from Germany, Spain, Austria, Argentina and Chile conversed among themselves and they laughed until Lorenzo Cintolesi from Chile asked: is there something special, that we have met here at the same time? There was something special: this couples are the vanguard of the European Congress of the Family, that began in Schoenstatt on May 20th. And the good news is that you can participate directly during many parts of the program through the transmission by Internet.
The advance notice about the congress read as follows:
During all times, the Church has generated people who with an attentive gaze and sensitive heart with others, perceive and react before the needs of their era, the hidden ones as well as the evident ones. They confront hunger, illness and ignorance and listening to God’s call, they are concerned about providing nourishment, hospitals and schools.
The problems with relationships is what stresses people most at the present time. The tense or broken relationships produce wounds in the soul of the families. The fear of new wounds and the inability to create and cultivate friendships, lead to loneliness. There is much difficulty in giving spiritual closeness and in being able to receive it.
Father Kentenich’s personal experience of being raised in an orphanage made him sensitive to this modern form of poverty. His own road of healing and maturity has been transformed, so that many people who have encountered him, find a way to get out of this poverty and to the richness of relationships.
The third European Congress of the Family, which is taking place in Schoenstatt, aspires to present this road of Father Kentenich and the multiple initiatives that have emerged from him to remedy this poverty and to make an exchange of ideas possible in Europe. The best place for this focus is the family.
The days of the Congress revolve above all around these subjects: How can we build stable relationships; How can we establish our own experiences and transmit them to our children?.
The Holy Masses in community, the reflections about the most important points and many workshops prepared by the couples, celebrations and joint prayers and many encounters, are the elements which constitute this Congress of Families, which also has the desire to connect to the Schoenstatt Family Work of the European countries.
Just as it spontaneously happened on May 18th, even further afar. Certainly it is not mere coincidence that at the same time there are important meetings of the Schoenstatt Family Movement, in Mexico, and in Paraguay.
Program of the live transmission
Translation: Celina Garza, San Antonio, USA
