mda. Thursday evening shortly before 9 p.m. (Middle European Time) on the highway. Still four hours’ drive. Thunder and lightning, storm winds, a cloudburst, my car is floating, the windscreen wipers can’t cope. In front there is a bang. Take avoidance action. On we go. Thinking back on the afternoon. A visit to a prison. Walking to the perimeter fence. Beforehand a call to the public prosecution department. Someone has to care. Behind the walls and the barbed wire of that prison there is a cell with a tiny shine. Another one at the visitor’s table: a chain with the much too large medal showing the Blessed Mother hanging round my neck (only for these visits), connection with the Original Shrine. The evening blessing is taking place there now.
Dear Father, bless all of us who are here tonight, and who sense the grace and the duty of being in this place, where many can only come on the wings of longing.
They are praying there now. They are asking for a blessing for the person I visited behind the barbed wire. And for his family, who are waiting for him. And for his mother who writes day after day to the Blessed Mother in the Original Shrine and pleads for him.
Bless now and from this place each member of our worldwide family, who today has taken a missionary step.
He has told another prisoner about his prison cell shrine. His missionary step. They are blessing him now. And me. At that moment the drumming on the roof lessenes and a radiant rainbow appears.
That is the evening blessing at the Original Shrine.
And then:
Bless now and from this place each person who today has placed their sorrows into the capital of grace.
Bless now and from this place each of our family members who are seriously ill.
Bless now and from this place the people who especially need our solidarity.
Bless now and from this place each of our family members you will call to your side tonight.
Bless now and from this place the people we tonight entrust to your covenant.
Bless now and from this place the people who suffer from violence, terrorism and natural catastrophes.
Bless now and from this place the efforts towards ecumenism among Christians and the dialog among religions.
Bless now and from this place …
Pope Francis, the Christians in Mosul, prosecutor H., the people in Gaza, in the Ukraine, and the two involved in the accident just now …
Through the intercession of our Mother Thrice Admirable, Queen and Victress of Schoenstatt, Vincent Pallotti, Carl Leisner, and all angels and saints, through the hands of our Father and Founder, of all Schoenstatt Priests and Schoenstatt Fathers, may God bless all of us who are here tonight, all those we have brought along with us, all those we carry in our hearts, wherever they may be, all those we have just remembered, and all those for whom we want to pray, and all those throughout the world who want to be included in this blessing …
You have reached your destination, my GPS tells me …
In Schoenstatt at the Original Shrine, far away and yet so incredibly close, the evening blessing had long come to an end, as has the joyful singing and clapping of the young people who do not experience much “holy silence at the holy place”, it is true, but an amazing amount of a youthful Church, a vital family, and joyful solidarity. All the informal agreements “We’ll meet again at the evening blessing” have taken place. It is almost a tradition, Rector Zillekens relates. People go to the Original Shrine when they want to meet other Schoenstatters in Schoenstatt. Accompanied by the singing and laughter of young people who take this Schoenstatt into the world.
The Evening Blessing at the Original Shrine. It has reached its destination.
