Agathe Hug. Since April 1st, a day awaited by many generations, the day in which the doors of the Original Shrine were again opened mid-year of the Year of the Shrine Current – in preparation for the centennial of the Covenant of Love – daily, at 9 P.M., the night blessing is imparted in the Original Shrine. It is a bit more extensive on the first Saturdays of the month, and it is prepared with more solemnity. On July 1, 2012, Czech families from the Family Federation organized it. During that time, they were attending a conference in Hillscheid at the Joseph Kentenich Farm.
The majority of them were in Schoenstatt for the first time. They were young families with many children, but on this evening, a greater number of children were already asleep. The conference was titled: “Savor the Shrine!” This means to embrace it with all the senses, to merge with this central place of grace, but also to participate in a new community. The families still only hardly know each other. In the following days, the topics were on the Covenant of Love, the foundation time in Schoenstatt, and the history of the Original Shrine. Among others, Fr. Heinrich Hug was in charge of the presentations, and they wanted to hear something about him “that could not be read somewhere else.” The night blessing in the Original Shrine was a good avenue for this.
They celebrated the night blessing with Fr. Ladislav Stefek. They also took care of the suggested liturgy: a Bible reading, a brief homily, some prayers, prayers for everyone and for everything, also for those who participated spiritually, and for those for whom one had promised to pray, renewal of the Covenant of Love, and the blessing, with hymns interspersed.
Blessing, attaching, sharing
Fr. Ladislav explained that the blessing has three steps. In Rokole that is, in the Shrine of the Czech Republic, it is done thus: first, the solemn blessing, then all form a circle around the Shrine and they intone a hymn with which they ask God to strengthen the attachment which unites us to Him, then something is shared. And thus it happened that evening in Schoenstatt: the circle was formed, and there were enough present for totally encircling the Original Shrine, including the graves of the heroes and the hedge. At the end, spice bread was given out, brought by the Czech families and which had been given to the Blessed Mother. The spice bread was also a bridge for the many who had remained to converse around the Shrine in spite of the language barrier. If German was not known, then the majority spoke English.
Viewers of the transmission from Argentina and Brazil who had communicated with schoenstatt-tv and asked whether on that night there really had been anything in a language that they understood, received the “consolation”: no, on July 1st, the “official language” with the Blessed Mother in the Original Shrine had been Czech and a little bit of German. In the following solemn night blessings, there will always be – depending on the groups organizing it – the possibility of listening to various languages and thus, maybe, sometimes they will be familiar and on other occasions–unfamiliar.
Schoenstatt-TV communicated that in 2012 all the dates for the night blessing on the first Saturday of each month are covered. But 2013 is approaching…and although one may not offer a contribution: the night blessing is imparted every night and always for everyone.
