Agathe Hug/usd. By celebrating the Holy Eucharist together, freezing together, and getting warm together. This is a brief summary of the Founder and Father of the Schoenstatt Family’s name day celebration on March 19, 2012, at 7:30 p.m. at Covenant House in Schoenstatt. For the second time, this event was celebrated at night, and everything that is done more than once becomes a tradition. Those who did not attend may mark it on their calendar for next year. The Feast of Saint Joseph means: Name day celebration at Covenant House.
More than one hundred people gathered in the cold chapel of Covenant House to celebrate the name day of the Founder and Father together as a family. The new thing in the house chapel was a large “Lenten banner” with the motto “your covenant our mission” in several languages that was placed in the presbytery covering the mural of Christ the King during this Lenten season. There is also a new acrylic picture of the MTA that was temporarily placed for the first time and which is lit from behind giving a very bright effect.
Well protected?
At the beginning, they showed pictures on a piece of fabric, that covers the picture of the MTA for now; the pictures told the story of the hat:
Father Prell visited Father Kentenich in Milwaukee. Father wanted to walk with him in front of the shrine. Father Kentenich asked Father Prell if he had a hat. No, he answered. Then Father gave him his hat, and Father Prell had to wear it. Father Kentenich went to his room, and he returned with another hat that was identical to the other one and he placed it on his head. In this way, they both walked in front of the shrine wearing the same hat. The only difference was that Father Prell’s hat was clearly too big, and it fell over his ears and eyes, on one hand, he had “Father’s hat”, but on the other hand he was very busy trying to free his ears and eyes.
What does Saint Joseph have to do with Father Kentenich
Father Dr. Michael John Marmann, who will be the new rector of the Original Shrine as of April 1st, celebrated the Holy Mass. In his homily he said:
“We are celebrating the Feast of Saint Joseph and at the same time, of course, our Founder and Father’s name day. Let us look at both of them next to one another, but then also together, one to another.”
First, he looked at the person of Saint Joseph as the spouse of Mary. Saint Joseph of whom there are no words – but deeds – in the Bible.
“At first glance there is a great difference: Father Kentenich spoke a great deal, he spoke, wrote, explained, and almost uninterruptedly defended, prophetically recognized the new era. He created a Movement that grew rapidly, and he founded a very, very large family.”
But there are also similarities: love of Mary. Saint Joseph was the first devotee of the most Holy Virgin.
“Joseph was a lover, a worker, a just man, who listened to God’s suggestions and desires, and he acted according to them; he took care of this small holy family as a father.”
And Father Kentenich: Father and Founder of the Schoenstatt Family
“Yes – his first love is Mary as mother and educator. At all times, he felt absolutely dependent on her with great inner freedom and once he wrote: “My effectiveness was never seen in the first place as my own person or planning; rather, it was always the most Holy Virgin – later, naturally it was his attachment with Schoenstatt as a place and as a family…” In the first place, my effectiveness is attached with the most Holy Virgin in the place of Schoenstatt, or the Original Shrine and the Covenant House; they are inseparable because they are equal, and they have the same meaning. “In his loving devotion as well as his educational attitude – just as Saint Joseph perceived it in heaven “he takes the Child and his Mother” when he had to flee to Egypt, our Father also acted this way: he lead his family toward the Child and his Mother, to Jesus and Mary in a profound dual unity.
Act according to these models…
Father Marmann clarified, that Father Kentenich had an incredible sense of listening to the God’s voice, and he followed it – the same as his Patron Saint. This is how Father Kentenich was transformed into a father for a large worldwide family: he was a great lover in giving of self as well as in respect. The result is:
“A task for us as a Schoenstatt Movement toward the Centenary of the Covenant of Love and at the same time for the Original Shrine: it is about our “one with the other” – in mutual and warm solidarity and in shared responsibility of which no one should free him/herself.”
Father Marmann concluded his homily with a quotation from Father Kentenich about his Patron Saint:
“How is Saint Joseph placed before us? In short: as an ideal, the ideal embodiment of a community of hearts and a community of tasks.”
At the end of the Holy Mass, those in attendance received flowers, much to their joy.
Second part – which is also important – Name day celebration:
Then they went to the “warm” part – The part of Covenant House that has been remodeled, has heat, and the first collaborators for the preparation of 2014 have already moved into their offices. There was a buffet of sausage, cheese, and drinks – above all hot tea. At the same time, there was a movie with testimonies and fragments of movies from the archives of Father Kentenich’s time in Milwaukee. Then it was time to converse – and this time was broadly used as family. Although the rooms become small when “all the family” gathers, it does not matter. Perhaps next year these remodeled rooms will be larger – and perhaps the chapel will also have heat. Then it will be shame that we will not have the opportunity of contributing to the capital of grace with cold hands and feet…
Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, Tx :English translation – M.P. Janknegt: English edit
